Religion: Thunderous Majorities for Union

Meeting separately, four U.S. churches move closer together

Lutherans in the U.S. have struggled for much of the 20th century to overcome divisions inside their ranks. Personality conflicts and doctrinal quarrels have divided the churches, which were made up mostly of German and Scandinavian immigrants and hence were also split by language and geography. But painstaking diplomacy, conducted among as many as 18 denominations that existed a century ago, produced by 1963 a melding into two giant branches: the American Lutheran Church (A.L.C.), a power in the Midwest; and the Lutheran Church in America (L.C.A.), with substantial membership in the Northeast.

Last week at simultaneous conventions of the A.L.C. in San Diego and the L.C.A. in Louisville, as well as of the much smaller Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (A.E.L.C.) in Cleveland, the three Lutheran churches voted by thunderous majorities to agree, in principle, to unite. After applause and some tears, the conventions then used long-distance telephones to pray together: “Call us now to ever deeper levels of unity; gather us as long-dispersed Lutherans into richer communion…”

The Commission for a New Lutheran Church, created by the agreement, will waste no time in nailing down the historic moment; it begins negotiations on the details later this month in Madison, Wis. The timetable calls for separate church votes on a union document in 1986 and a convention to approve the constitution of the new body in 1987. The resulting church, with 5.4 million members, would become the nation’s fourth-largest Protestant denomination (behind the Southern Baptist Convention, United Methodist Church, and National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.).

Bishop James Crumley, the L.C.A. leader, says, “There have been few times in my life when I have felt this kind of elation: a thrill in every fiber of my being. I fully expect the new church to be realized.” Problems still remain, however. Though the churches embrace the same creeds, there are some differences in organization. Also, the L.C.A. belongs to the socially active National Council of Churches; the other two groups do not.

Another possible snag: the A.L.C. requires that any merger be ratified by two-thirds of its 4,900 U.S. congregations. But A.L.C. Presiding Bishop David Preus, until recently a foot dragger on union, predicts a happy ending. Says he: “It is apparent that the rank and file in our church wish to go ahead with dispatch.” Remaining outside the process is the conservative, 2.6 million-member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Extending their ecumenical spirit even further last week, the three Lutheran conventions authorized occasional “interim” sharing of Communion with Episcopalians, making official what already often happens unofficially in some parishes. Significantly, the Episcopal Church at its New Orleans convention overwhelmingly passed a companion measure. The actions neither establish full intercommunion nor resolve outstanding doctrinal differences. But in history’s long run they could prove even more important than the moves to unite the Lutherans.