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The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is an orthodox, traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members as of 2021, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States, behind the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. 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.
Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther was a German-American Lutheran minister. He was the first president of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) and its most influential theologian. He is commemorated by that church on its Calendar of Saints on May 7. He has been described as a man who gave up his homeland for the freedom to speak freely, to believe freely, and to live freely, by emigrating from Germany to the United States.
The Concordia University System (CUS) is an organization of five colleges and universities and one satellite campus in the United States that are operated by the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS). All of the institutions are named "Concordia"—a reference to the Latin title of The Book of Concord, the collection of Lutheran confessions—and all include professional church work programs as part of their curricula. The CUS was formed in 1992. In 2011, 28,421 students attend Concordia University System institutions. In 2021, the official website for the system claimed an enrollment of over 35,000 students.
Concordia Seminary is a Lutheran seminary in Clayton, Missouri. The institution's primary mission is to train pastors, deaconesses, missionaries, chaplains, and church leaders for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Founded in 1839, the seminary initially resided in Perry County, Missouri. In 1849, it was moved to St. Louis, and in 1926, the current campus was built.
Seminex is the widely used abbreviation for Concordia Seminary in Exile, which existed from 1974 to 1987 after a schism in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). The seminary in exile was formed due to the ongoing Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy that was dividing Protestant churches in the United States. At issue were foundational disagreements on the authority of Scripture and the role of Christianity. During the 1960s, many clergy and members of the LCMS grew concerned about the direction of education at their flagship seminary, Concordia Seminary, in St. Louis, Missouri. Professors at Concordia Seminary had, in the 1950s and 1960s, begun to utilize the historical-critical method to analyze the Bible rather than the traditional historical-grammatical method that considered scripture to be the inerrant Word of God.
Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW) is a private Lutheran university in Mequon, Wisconsin. It is part of the seven-member Concordia University System operated by the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS).
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.
Ralph Arthur Bohlmann was the ninth president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), serving four terms from 1981 until 1992. Bohlmann graduated from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 1956 and was ordained on June 29, 1958, in Des Moines, Iowa, by his father, the Rev. Arthur E. Bohlmann. He later received his Ph.D. from Yale University.
The South Wisconsin District is one of the 35 districts of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), and covers the southern third of the state of Wisconsin. The northern two-thirds are in the North Wisconsin District; there are also two Wisconsin congregations in the Minnesota North District. In addition, twelve congregations in the South Wisconsin District's area are in the non-geographic English District, and one in the SELC District. The South Wisconsin District includes approximately 213 congregations and missions, subdivided into 27 circuits, as well as 37 preschools, 58 elementary schools, and 6 high schools. Baptized membership in district congregations is approximately 116,600.
The Nebraska District is one of the 35 districts of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), and comprises the state of Nebraska with the exception of its Panhandle, which is in the Wyoming District; the district also includes one congregation in Kansas. In addition, one congregation near the state's western border is in the Rocky Mountain District, and another in Lincoln is in the non-geographic English District. The Nebraska District includes approximately 249 congregations and missions, subdivided into 22 circuits, as well as 37 preschools, 39 elementary schools, 4 high schools, and 1 summer camp. Baptized membership in district congregations is approximately 108,000; with the total population of the district's area standing at 1,674,000 as of 2005, the district's membership represents 6.5% of the local population – the highest of any of the LCMS' 33 geographical districts.
David Benke is a Lutheran pastor and the former president of the Atlantic District of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, or LCMS. After the 9/11 attacks, Benke participated in an interfaith event with people of other faiths, including Muslims. For doing so, he was found in 2002 to have violated LCMS teachings, and, unwilling to apologize, he was suspended. In 2003, the President of the LCMS reinstated him.
Lutheran Student Fellowship (LSF) was a campus ministry organization of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). It was founded in 1987 and dissolved in 2013, at which time its functions were absorbed into the synod's new campus ministry organization, LCMS U.
The National Evangelical Lutheran Church (NELC) was a Finnish-American Lutheran church body that was organized in 1898 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, as the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran National Church of America. It merged into the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 1965.
Matthew Carl Harrison is the 13th and current president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). He was first elected to the presidency on July 13, 2010, at the synod's 64th regular convention in Houston, Texas. Harrison officially took office on September 1, 2010, and was formally installed in a service on September 11, 2010, at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He was elected by a 54–45% margin on the first ballot. He was elected to a second three-year term following a first ballot victory in the church body's first online presidential election in July 2013. He was elected to a third three-year term in June 2016, having received 56.96 percent of the vote on the first ballot. In June 2019, Harrison was elected to a fourth three-year term with 51.76 percent of the vote on the first ballot. In June 2023, he was elected to a fifth term with 52.32% of the first ballot vote. He is the first LCMS president elected to a fifth term since 1947.
Louis John Sieck was a Lutheran minister. He was the president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis from 1943 to 1952.
Heinrich "Henry" Sieck was a German-American Lutheran minister, writer, and college president.
Karl L. Barth was the eighth president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1982 to 1992.
The following is a timeline of significant events in the history of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Biography for President Dr Patrick Ferry". Concordia University Wisconsin. Archived from the original on March 2, 2008. Retrieved September 28, 2009.
- ↑ BizTimes Staff (November 18, 2009). "Concordia president authors memoir". BizTimes - Milwaukee Business News. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
- ↑ Magness, Cheryl (November 2, 2020). "Ferry to retire as CUW president". Reporter. Retrieved December 5, 2020.