[1] As Lutheranism in North America undergoes a discernible identity crisis and rediscovery, no one has seen the developments of the Lutheran church like Lowell Almen, who served over 20 years as the Secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Almen, ordained into the American Lutheran Church in 1967, oversaw the changing demographics of the Lutheran identity of three church bodies (American Lutheran Church, Lutheran Church in America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches) as these merged together into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.[1] However, unity, as he saw it, was not easy.
[2] Like most corporate mergers, there is a feeling of winners and losers, and especially among church bodies who operated differently. He notes that in the run up to the election of Presiding Bishop, there were some ALC pastors who were skeptical of having an LCA bishop as the next presiding bishop. Reverend Dr. Herb Chilstrom, of the Lutheran Church in America, was elected as the first Presiding Bishop of the newly constituted ELCA. Dr. David Preus, who served as the President of the American Lutheran Church, told his bishops, “Now that Chilstrom from the LCA was chosen, we need to have one of you become secretary to represent the ALC and stand up to him.” Almen later learned of Preus’ intentions and reminded his colleague that he was called to serve the ELCA, not represent the ALC. [2]
[3] Lutherans in North America have a long and storied history, tracing back to the early settlers and to Henry Muhlenberg establishing the first Ministerium. Muhlenberg wrote in his journals that “it would be a most delightful and advantageous thing if all evangelical Lutheran congregations were united with one another.”[3] Doctrinal differences divided diverse Lutheran church bodies, yet for some church bodies, that did not preclude any cooperation. In the early 20th Century, namely after the two World Wars, the Lutheran churches entered a period of cooperation (Lutheran Church in America, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the American Lutheran Church) forming the Lutheran Council of the United States.[4] The LCMS, along with other Christian denominations, pivoted to a cultural and theological shift to the right, which alienated other members of the Lutheran council. Almen lamented the shift the LCMS took in 1973 and the current animosity towards the ELCA from the LCMS.
[4] From the beginning of the ELCA, there were tensions that existed between the three merged bodies with the perennial question of what it means to be church at the center. Almen rightly notes several things: first, the importance of long-lasting church institutions like Living Lutheran, as that resource traces its ancestry back to The Lutheran, which held onto the history of early Lutheranism in North America; and second, the apparent feeling of apathy among members in the ELCA, back in 1987 and into modern day.[5] Almen calls to attention the rise of congregationalism and synodicalism, as well as the growing anxiety and apathy felt within the church.[6]
[5] One of the defining hallmarks, and critiques, of the ELCA was the notion of interdependence, which manifested during the 2022 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Columbus, Ohio.[7] Interdependence is the ELCA’s current church governance structure (polity, which is the pattern of organization), which is expressed as “seeking to function as people of God through congregations, synods, and the churchwide organization, all of which shall be interdependent. Each part, while fully the church, recognizes that is not the whole church and therefore lives in partnership with the others” (italics mine).[8] However, the 2022 ELCA Churchwide Assembly passed a resolution directing the ELCA Church Council to create a commission to explore a renewed Lutheran Church, which would propose recommendations for the 2025 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona.[9]
[6] Throughout his book, Almen rightly captures the moments that the ELCA, which he focuses on exclusively, serves as church together. He highlights his role in the ELCA ecumenical conversations with the Roman Catholic Church, and theological traditionalists like the late Benedict XVI who embraced and promoted the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. This document brought forth the wider conversation between Lutherans and Catholics on justification, and it also continued the work that began in 1965.[10] Almen’s role as Secretary also brought him into contact with other religious leaders, which expanded the ecumenical conversations with other Christian denominations.
[7] For Almen, ecumenism is interwoven into the evangelical, catholic, and Lutheran identity. “Evangelical means proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ; catholic in the historic traditions of the church; Lutheran as part of our heritage, and ecumenical as committed to the oneness that God calls the world in the saving gift of Christ.”[11]
[8] Ecumenism was not well received in the ELCA during the late 1990’s, especially among several Lutheran pastors and faculty who saw ecumenism with other Christian bodies as antithetical to Lutheranism proper. The main dissension arose with Call to Common Mission, which established a full communion relationship with the Episcopal Church. The churches that left, due to Call to Common Mission, formed an association of Lutheran Churches known as the Lutheran Churches for Mission in Christ. The other Lutheran church body that split over cultural and doctrinal reasons was the North American Lutheran Church, which formed following the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.[12] The NALC was formed when congregations which opposed pastors who were in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships, resulting from the 2009 Social Statement Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust adoption, left the ELCA.[13]
[9] Almen failed to recognize another schismatic body, that also threatened Lutheran unity: The Association of American Lutheran Churches, which was formed in response to the formation of the ELCA. His omission of this important group was likely intentional given that this group formed before the ELCA was fully constituted as a church body. The AALC has their own seminary, church polity, and continue what the ALC practiced before merging into the ELCA. These schismatic bodies highlight the perennial challenges of being church together, especially when there is internal disagreement.
[10] Throughout his book, Almen ends his chapters with the brief glimmer of hope that Lutheran unity will ultimately yield fruit, drawing on the idealism and hope espoused by Henry Muhlenberg centuries earlier. Despite his hope, the quest for greater Lutheran unity has been eclipsed at several junctures: 1) the impaired and dissolved relationship between the ELCA and LCMS; 2) the emergence of schismatic bodies from the ELCA; 3) the growing detachment and lack of historical tradition that congregations and synods have with one another and the wider Lutheran tradition. These factors, aided and abetted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the systemic anxiety that permeated an already anxious church body made the quest even more difficult.
[11] Almen makes a passing comment when highlighting the anxiety that was present at the 2022 Churchwide assembly. Aside from the forces of congregationalism and synodicalism, there were members who texted their friends and colleagues back on home on “how they should vote on various issues.”[14] He attributes this anxiety to the growing detachment the ELCA feels within itself, and laments that this disconnectedness can only get worse. The growing detachment is not unique to the ELCA, rather, churches writ large, suffer the same crisis as evidenced by the changing tides within culture.
[12] Having served under three Presiding Bishops, Almen witnessed firsthand the changes and challenges the church faced, which provided him a viewpoint for evaluating the current Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton’s strengths and challenges, especially as the ELCA prepares to elect a new Presiding Bishop. Bishop Eaton’s tenure began after the split within the church, yet her tenure marked changes within the national office, the global pandemic, and problems within synods with bishops and congregations. This latter issue took up the bulk of the 2022 Churchwide Assembly, along with the matter of potentially reconstituting the church.[15]
[13] The commitment to church unity is not lost on Almen, especially as he laments the direction in theological education, which presents a shift from the residential model to the virtual model. This shift from residential to virtual removes the crucial formation for pastors and deacons to foster and nurture close interpersonal bonds in seminary.
[14] Almen provides advice for the next presiding Bishop. First, the next Presiding Bishop should remain committed “to foster the heartfelt sense of the church as well as nurture renewed commitment to the ELCA’s polity of interdependence.”[16] He then highlights the importance of the model of interdependence, which includes, congregations, synods, seminaries, and the national office as the need for the church to properly allocate and use resources at their disposal. The next Presiding Bishop, according to Almen, should “guard against the ELCA becoming only ‘a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal’ that is ‘tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine.’”[17] Remaining true to the Confessional and ecumenical community serves as a marker for the next Presiding Bishop as articulated by the Lutheran World Federation, “to be Lutheran is to be ecumenical…We have been engaged in fruitful ecumenical dialogues for decades and we seek for deeper and wider understanding among Christians.”[18]
[15] As the church continues to wrestle with its identity and the challenges before them, Almen prays that the vision for greater Lutheran unity becomes a reality. As Almen reflected on his “accumulated memories,” he showed the importance of a church remaining together, weathering the storm before them.[19] He ends his memoir with John Ellerton’s “The Day You Gave Us, Lord, Has Ended,”
The day you gave us, Lord, has ended;
the darkness falls at your behest.
To you our morning hymns ascended;
your praise shall hallow now our rest.
We thank you that your church unsleeping
while earth rolls onward into light,
through all the world its watch is keeping,
and never rests by day or night.[20]
[1] Lowell G. Almen, A Dream Eclipsed: A Fractured Quest for Lutheran Unity, 35.
[2] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 4-13.
[3] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed,43.
[4] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed ,54-73.
[5] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 23.
[6] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 188. Congregationalism and Synodicalism, respectively, turn congregations (individual parishes) and synods (collection of churches) to their own missions without considering the wider church. By turing away fron the wider church and turning inward, the threads that held the church together slowly unraveled.
[7] Ibid, A Dream Eclipsed, 188-189.
[8] Ibid, A Dream Eclipsed, 38.
[9] Ibid, A Dream Eclipsed, 189.
[10] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 131-136.
[11] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed,145-146.
[12] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 122.
[13] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 121.
[14] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 189.
[15] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 190.
[16] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 193.
[17] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 195.
[18] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 195.
[19] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 201.
[20] Almen, A Dream Eclipsed, 215.
Pastor Thomas Johnston serves at St. James Lutheran Church, Rockwell, North Carolina. He enjoys exploring the relationships between faith, science, policy, and history. He is usually found with a book, coffee, and sometimes, his two cats join him.