Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Illinois | |
---|---|
Abbreviation | Illinois Synod |
Classification | Protestant |
Orientation | Lutheran |
Theology | Confessional Lutheran |
Associations | General Synod (1848–1866) General Council (1867–1871) Synodical Conference (1872–1880) |
Region | Illinois and Missouri |
Origin | June 1846 Hillsboro, Illinois |
Separated from | Evangelical Synod of the West |
Separations | Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Central Illinois (1867) |
Merged into | Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (1880) |
Congregations | 26 (1880) |
Members | 6,004 (1880) |
Ministers | 23 (1880) |
The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Illinois, often referred to as the Illinois Synod, was created in June 1846 when the Evangelical Synod of the West divided due to growth. It held its first convention in Hillsboro, Illinois, on October 15, 1846. [1]
The Illinois Synod joined the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of America in 1848. Disagreements within the General Synod as to the binding character of the Lutheran Confessions caused a split, with the Illinois Synod joining with several other Lutheran synods to form the new General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America in 1867. However, in a meeting in Mount Pulaski, Illinois, in August 1867, a minority of pastors and congregations of the Illinois Synod who wanted to remain in the General Synod withdrew from the synod and formed the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Central Illinois. [1]
In 1871, the Illinois Synod withdrew from the General Council due to the issue of the Four Points regarding the permissible forms of association with non-Lutheran churches and organizations. It then joined with other confessional Lutheran synods that either had withdrawn from the General Council or had declined to join it to establish the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America in 1872. At some point the Illinois Synod expanded its name to the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Illinois and Other States as congregations in Missouri joined it. [1]
In the early years of the Synodical Conference, there was an effort to create unified synods for each state. [2] The 1878 convention of the Synodical Conference voted in favor of establishing state synods. These state synods were to organize into two or three larger synods, one for the east (corresponding to the Ohio Synod), one for the southwest (corresponding to the Missouri Synod), and one for the northwest (which would include all congregations in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and all parts west). This formed three larger synods, which solved the longstanding concern that if either the Missouri or Ohio synods were allowed to keep their identity, they would dominate the rest of the Synodical Conference, or, even worse, the Minnesota or Wisconsin Synods would be forced to join one of them. This new organization did not apply to congregations speaking Norwegian, and English speaking congregations were to organize as separate district synods within one of the three larger synods [3]
In summary, all of the other synods which withdrew from the General Council to join the Synodical Conference ended in up the multi-state body currently known as the Wisconsin Synod following the geographical decisions of the convention that the synods located in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas and all parts west were to be free from the larger, multi-state Missouri and Ohio synods. But the Illinois Synod was an exception because it was located in the area assigned to the multi-state Missouri Synod.
To that end, in May 1880, the Illinois Synod merged with the Illinois District of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, while urging its congregations in Missouri to join the Missouri Synod's Western District. At the time of the merger, the Illinois Synod had 26 congregations, 23 pastors, and 6,004 communicant members. [1]
The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. The LCMS was organized in 1847 at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, as the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, a name which partially reflected the geographic locations of the founding congregations.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of 2021, it has approximately 3.04 million baptized members in 8,724 congregations.
The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), also referred to simply as the Wisconsin Synod, is an American Confessional Lutheran denomination of Christianity. Characterized as theologically conservative, it was founded in 1850 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The American Lutheran Church (ALC) was a Christian Protestant denomination in the United States and Canada that existed from 1960 to 1987. Its headquarters were in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Upon its formation in 1960, The ALC designated Augsburg Publishing House, also located in Minneapolis, as the church publisher. The Lutheran Standard was the official magazine of The ALC.
The Lutheran Church in America (LCA) was an American and Canadian Lutheran church body that existed from 1962 to 1987. It was headquartered in New York City and its publishing house was Fortress Press.
The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, often known simply as the Synodical Conference, was an association of Lutheran synods that professed a complete adherence to the Lutheran Confessions and doctrinal unity with each other. Founded in 1872, its membership fluctuated as various synods joined and left it. Due to doctrinal disagreements with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) left the conference in 1963. It was dissolved in 1967 and the other remaining member, the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, merged into the LCMS in 1971.
The Concordia Lutheran Conference (CLC) is a small organization of Lutheran churches in the United States which formed in 1956. It was a reorganization of some of the churches of the Orthodox Lutheran Conference (OLC), which had been formed in September 1951, in Okabena, Minnesota, following a break with Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). It is the remaining successor of the Orthodox Lutheran Conference. The current president is David T. Mensing, pastor of Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oak Forest, Illinois. All members of the board of directors serve one year terms. The CLC has five congregations and is in fellowship with nine mission congregations in Russia and Nigeria.
The Lutheran Churches of the Reformation (LCR) is an association of Lutheran congregations. The LCR has its roots among groups of Lutherans that broke with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) in the middle of the 20th century, and was formally incorporated in 1964. Church services are generally traditional and reverent in the style of the mid-1900s conservative Christians.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELC) was a Lutheran denomination that existed from 1917, when it was founded as the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA), until 1960, when it joined two other church bodies to form the second American Lutheran Church.
The Evangelical and Reformed Church (E&R) was a Protestant Christian denomination in the United States. It was formed in 1934 by the merger of the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) with the Evangelical Synod of North America (ESNA). A minority within the RCUS remained out of the merger in order to continue the name Reformed Church in the United States. In 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Church merged with the majority of the Congregational Christian Churches (CC) to form the United Church of Christ (UCC).
The Evangelical Synod of North America, before 1927 German Evangelical Synod of North America, in German (Deutsche) Evangelische Synode von Nord-Amerika, was a Protestant Christian denomination in the United States existing from the mid-19th century until its 1934 merger with the Reformed Church in the United States to form the Evangelical and Reformed Church. This church merged with the Congregational Christian Churches in 1957 to create the United Church of Christ.
The English District is one of the 35 districts of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). It is one of the Synod's two non-geographical districts, along with the SELC District. The district presently has congregations in the states of Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, as well as the Canadian province of Ontario.
The Eielsen Synod was a Lutheran church body. It was founded in 1846 at Jefferson Prairie Settlement, Wisconsin, by a group of Haugean Lutherans led by Elling Eielsen, the first Norwegian Lutheran minister in the United States.
The Norwegian Lutheran Church in the United States is a general term to describe the Lutheran church tradition developed within the United States by immigrants from Norway.
The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America, or, in brief, the General Council was a conservative Lutheran church body, formed as a reaction against the new "Americanized Lutheranism" of Samuel Simon Schmucker and the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America.
Claus Lauritz Clausen was an American pioneer Lutheran minister, church leader, military chaplain and politician.
The Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States, commonly known as the Joint Synod of Ohio or the Ohio Synod, was a German-language Lutheran denomination whose congregations were originally located primarily in the U.S. state of Ohio, later expanding to most parts of the United States. The synod was formed on September 14, 1818, and adopted the name Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States by about 1850. It used that name or slight variants until it merged with the Iowa Synod and the Buffalo Synod in 1930 to form the first American Lutheran Church (ALC), 1930–1960.
The Lutheran Synod of Buffalo, organized on June 25, 1845, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by four pastors and 18 lay delegates as the Synod of Lutheran Emigrants from Prussia, was commonly known from early in its history as the Buffalo Synod. The synod resulted from the efforts of pastor J. A. A. Grabau and members of his congregation in Erfurt, along with other congregations, to escape the forced union of Lutheran and Reformed churches in Prussia by immigrating to New York City, Albany, and Buffalo, New York, and to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1839. Grabau and the largest group settled in Buffalo.
The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and Other States, commonly known as the Iowa Synod, was founded on August 24, 1854, at St. Sebald in Clayton County, Iowa. It adopted a constitution and its name, in 1864. The synod was the result of disagreements, in Saginaw, Michigan, against the Missouri Synod that had arisen with some of the pastors sent to America by Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe. Some of these pastors joined the Missouri Synod, while pastors Georg M. Grossmann and Johannes Deindoerfer and a small group moved to Iowa.