Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-10-27
LUTHERAN MERGER
TO AFFECT MILLION
United Church to Include All
Now Worshiping Under Guild
ance of Three Bodies.

America is looking forward to doing
its part in the great tasks which are
before the United States is the con-
| sensus Of opinion Of leaders in the
three great Lutheran bodies which
are to compose it.
The United Lutheran Church" does
not yet actually exist, but all plans
| and details have been prepared for its
! inception. After the week of Novem-
Der IL to 10 it will be an accomplished
fact.
vention in New York. which viii
merge into one organization the mill
lion LutheranS who now worship
! under the guidance Of three bodies
general council. general synod and
united synod south. The work to be
nature of which is known in advance,
is considered the first result of q
tendency toward a national outlook
i on the part of the Lutheran Church in
America, composed necessarily of SO
many nationalitieS.
r. Merger Began Last Year.
The merger movement began last
year during the celebration of the
quadricentennial of the Protestant
reformation. A joint committee had
been appointed to plan a nation wide
celebration and the question was
brought up why these three bodies
should not merge their interests. A
ways and means committee was form
ed which has since formulated a con-
stitution and mapped out detail of the
merger.
The three merging bodies will meet
simultaneously. the general synod in
a @ HhYNv~ r. I@ ii
in Holy Trinity Church. and united
synod south in the Church of the
Advent. Rev. A. Steimle, D. D., pastor,
to wind up their affairs. On No
vember Is will be held the joint meet
ing to adopt the constitution and
popular ratification meeting will take
place in the Hotel Astor on the same
evening.
The new body embraces a member
ship of about 100000 communicate
and 1900, 900 baptized members. About
5000 pastors will be members of it,
1t represents church property valued
at s53,000.000. 1t will be one of the
largest organic church bodies with
in Professionalism in the United States.
Exceptional Progress Anticipated.
That the merger may with conf
dence look forward to exceptional
activity is evidenced by the fact that
three separate home mission boards
are to be merged into one. The task
of the new single board will be very
largely a task, of Americanization.
1t will establish English home mis-
sions, especially in the agricultural
districts of the middle west and
northwest. 1t will introduce through
those missions familiarity with the
language. literature, history and spirit
of this country.
The difficulties OF the Lutheran
Church have not been slight, it is be-
ing pointed out. There are about g.
100000 baptized, unchurched Luth-
Grams. not to speak of the great ad-
ditional number of Americans with
out church afhliation. who originally
came from Lutheran homes. One rea-
son why there are so many Lutherans
without church connection is because
the Lutheran Church in America has
been preaching in about sixteen diff
ferent languages and many of the
young folks moving from one city to
another were not able to find a church
using their language.
The foreign mission task is also a
big one. The newest possession of
the United States, the Virgin Islands,
recently bought from Denmark. is
largely Lutheran field and is being
taken over by the merging bodies. A
special interest is manifest in the
merging of the three boards of edu-
cation. Lutheran colleges situated in
every part of the country are evil
dence that the people believe thor
oughly in higher education.