Religion: Purposeful Lutherans

For nine days in Des Moines’ KRNT Theater, the 600 delegates to the 17th biennial convention of the United Lutheran Church in America gathered for nine purposeful hours a day. Moaned one weary churchman: “This is almost as bad as Congress.”

U.L.C.A., largest (nearly 2,000,000 members) of the 18 Lutheran groups in the U.S., had talked for years of church unity. This year the delegates voted the United Lutherans into the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.* Thus, for the first time in its history, U.L.C.A. became a full member of an interdenominational U.S. Protestant agency.

With that much accomplished, the convention turned to the perennial problem of unity among Lutherans. It dutifully approved two resolutions favoring union, but U.L.C.A.’s president, Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, was not very hopeful. While deploring the “American Lutheran habit of living in fractions,” he predicted that “prospects for any broad merger … are likely to be deferred . . . probably for a full generation.”

The United Lutherans also:

¶ Opposed establishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Vatican (which President Fry termed a “minuscule secular state, hardly larger than a respectable golf course”)*

¶ Reported that $6,730,500 had been raised in the last six months for U.L.C.A.’s 23 colleges and seminaries.

*Incorporating the powerful Federal Council of Churches and seven other interdenominational bodies, the council will be formally organized next month in Cleveland.

*Area of Vatican City: 108.7 acres; area of the famed Pine Valley, N.J. golf course: 200 acres.