Background The 1860s and early 1870s was a period of realignment within American Lutheranism. In 1860, the
Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America was the only federation of Lutheran synods in the country. During the previous 20 years a number of new synods had emerged, the result of immigration from the Lutheran regions of Europe. The General Synod had, under
Samuel Simon Schmucker, espoused an "American Lutheranism" which downplayed the role and authority of the
Lutheran Confessions. In 1864, the General Synod admitted the
Frankean Synod, a synod that was notably indifferent to the Lutheran Confessions or to any Lutheran identity. In protest, the
Pennsylvania Ministerium and four other synods left the General Synod and issued a call to the various independent synods to form a new and confessionally-based federation. Meetings in
Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1866 and
Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1867 led to the formation of the
General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America. Despite its professed confessional stance, the General Council allowed divergent teaching regarding
millennialism,
altar fellowship, sharing of pulpits with non-Lutheran pastors, and lodge membership in an attempt to include the largest number of synods as possible. The
Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and Other States (Iowa Synod) and the
Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Adjacent States (Ohio Synod) requested satisfactory responses to those
Four Points; failing to receive acceptable answers, the Ohio Synod declined to join and the Iowa Synod joined as only a non-voting associate member. The failure of the General Council to adequately address those issues also caused the
German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Wisconsin and Other (Adjacent) States (Wisconsin Synod), the
Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Minnesota and Other States (Minnesota Synod), and the
Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Illinois and Other (Adjacent) States (Illinois Synod), all charter members, to withdraw from membership by 1872. Meanwhile, the
German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States (Missouri Synod) had been in doctrinal discussions with various Midwestern synods and had reached fellowship agreements with several of them: the
Synod of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Norwegian Synod) in 1857, the Wisconsin Synod in 1869, the Ohio Synod in 1868–1872, and the Illinois Synod and the Minnesota Synod in 1872.
Organization in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a member at that time of the Wisconsin Synod. In October 1870 the Ohio Synod contacted the Illinois, Missouri, Norwegian, and Wisconsin synods to see if they would be interested in a union of Midwestern confessional synods. The synods (except for the Illinois Synod, whose president attended unofficially because that synod was still a member of the General Council) met on January 11–13, 1871, in
Chicago to explore the formation of a federation that would be confessional in both profession and practice. A second meeting was held on November 14–16, 1871, in
Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Illinois and Minnesota synods, who had by this time both left the General Council, were also in attendance. The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America was formally organized on July 10–16, 1872, in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by the Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Norwegian, Ohio, and Wisconsin synods as an expression of their unity of faith. The member synods agreed to work together in matters relating to Christian evangelism. Included in this was a sharing of clergy, sharing of educational facilities, and co-operation on evangelism and mission work. Conventions were held every two years, with each synod having at two clergy and two lay representatives with an additional clergy and lay representative for each district in a synod. In 1876, the Synodical Conference recommended that all congregations using a particular language (e.g., German or Norwegian) be organized into state-specific synods. Therefore, the Evangelical Lutheran Concordia Synod of Virginia, which had joined the Synodical Conference that same year, merged in 1877 into the Ohio Synod. Likewise, the Illinois Synod merged into the Illinois District of the Missouri Synod in 1880. In 1878, the Wisconsin Synod withdrew its demand that the state synods had to be independent of the Missouri or Ohio Synods. The Missouri Synod needed to build a new seminary due to overcrowding at its campus in St. Louis. Despite considerable planning to build a new joint Synodical Conference seminary near Chicago, the project failed because of hesitance of the part of the Wisconsin Synod and the inability of any of the other members besides the Missouri Synod to contribute financially. The 1878 convention 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 plan would solve 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 larger synods.
Predestinarian Controversy Shortly thereafter a dispute known as the Predestinarian Controversy or Election Controversy arose among member synods regarding the cause of election to eternal life. The Ohio and Norwegian synods contended that God elects people in view of the faith (
intuitu fidei) he foresaw they would have, while the Missouri and Wisconsin synods held that the cause is wholly due to God's grace. As a result of the controversy, the Ohio Synod withdrew from membership in 1881, and the Norwegian Synod in 1883. Some of the pastors and congregations in the Ohio Synod disagreed with the stance of that synod and broke away to form the Evangelical Lutheran Concordia Synod of Pennsylvania and Other States. It joined the Synodical Conference in 1882 and merged with the Missouri Synod in 1886. The chief opponent to C.F.W. Walther during the Predestinarian Controversy was
Frederick William Stellhorn.
Growth and consolidation In 1890, the
English Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri and Other States (English Synod) joined the Synodical Conference. About 20 years later, in 1911, it merged into the Missouri Synod as its non-geographical
English District. The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Michigan and Other States joined the Conference in 1892. That same year it joined with the Wisconsin and Minnesota synods to form the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Other States, which eventually became the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod of the present time. The German Evangelical Lutheran District Synod of Nebraska and Other States (Nebraska Synod) and the
Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Augsburg Confession in the United States of America (Slovak Synod) both joined in 1906, but with final acceptance of their membership delayed until 1910. The Nebraska Synod merged into the Joint Synod of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan as that body's Nebraska District in 1917. Meanwhile, the various Norwegian-language synods were undergoing a series of mergers which led, in 1917, to the Norwegian Synod joining with the
United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America and the
Hauge Synod to form the
Norwegian Lutheran Church of America. A group of pastors and congregations in the Norwegian Synod declined to join the merger due to doctrinal disagreements; instead, they formed the
Norwegian Synod of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church (known as the Little Norwegian Synod) in 1918 and joined the Synodical Conference in 1920. After 1920 there were no changes in the membership of the Synodical Conference until its breakup and dissolution in the 1950s and 1960s. Each of the four synods did, however, take on new names. The Missouri Synod became the
Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 1947, the Little Norwegian Synod became the
Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) in 1958, the Wisconsin Synod became the
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) in 1959, and the Slovak Synod became the
Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (SELC), also in 1959. In 1934, the conference began to look into starting mission work in Africa, and later established a mission in
Nigeria.
Breakup and dissolution Doctrinal differences among the synods of the Synodical Conference, especially concerning the doctrine and practice of
fellowship, surfaced during the 1940s and 1950s. Disagreements began when the LCMS began exploratory talks with leaders of the
American Lutheran Church (ALC). The ALC, which had been formed in 1930 by the merger of the Ohio, Iowa, and
Buffalo synods, differed with the Synodical Conference on the doctrine of
predestination. Since there had been no recent change on the ALC's doctrinal position, the LCMS was charged by some within the Synodical Conference of changing its position on church fellowship. After years of continued talks, the ELS severed its fellowship relations with the LCMS in June 1955. Two years later, the WELS publicly recognized the same doctrinal disagreements with the LCMS, but did not officially break fellowship with the LCMS until August 1961. During that time period, the WELS officially admonished the LCMS to return to its former doctrine and practice. Dissatisfaction over the WELS decision led about 70 pastors and a similar number of congregations to leave that body in the mid- to late-1950s and, along with former congregations of the ELS and the LCMS, to form the
Church of the Lutheran Confession (CLC) in 1961. The CLC maintained that both the WELS and ELS had misapplied the principles of Christian fellowship themselves by not breaking away from the Synodical Conference and the LCMS when doctrinal differences had first been perceived. This issue remains a matter of contention between the CLC and the WELS and ELS. The Synodical Conference held a series of discussions on the issues, but the divisions were not resolved, leading the ELS and WELS to finally leave the conference in 1963. With the LCMS and the much smaller SELC being the only remaining members, the conference became inactive in 1966 and was officially dissolved in 1967. The SELC merged into the LCMS in 1971 as the non-geographic SELC District. ==African-American mission work==