Lutherans In Crisis

The first complete account in English of the American Lutheran controversy of 1849-1867. . .

Tension between a religion’s heritage and its social context forms the everpresent question of group identity. In the United States, this question has been posed in a particular way for religious traditions as the tension between “Americanization”-being assimilated into social and cultural structures of the new world-and “confessional identity”-seeking to sustain and understand a religious heritage in light of a new context and its questions. Lutherans in the mid-nineteenth century provide one illustration of this social and theological tension.

The first part shows how, in spite of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg’s efforts, early Lutheranism adopted congregational polity, democratic structures, voluntary membership, and freer liturgical forms. Then the formation of the General Synod (1820) is traced and its chief spokespersons and their theological and practical innovations highlighted. Gustafson locates the movements toward confessional revival among Lutherans in Germany-many of whom emigrated to the United States in the 1830s-in reaction to unification with the Reformed. The final chapters chart the actual controversy (1849?1867) between the less confessional Lutherans of the General Synod and the recent, more confessional Lutheran immigrants.