| Lutheran Church in America | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Protestant |
| Orientation | Lutheran |
| Structure | National church,middle level synods, and local congregations |
| Associations | |
| Region | United States and Canada |
| Headquarters | New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Origin | 1962 Detroit,Michigan, U.S. |
| Merger of | |
| Separations | Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada (1986) |
| Merged into | Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (1988) |
| Congregations | 5,832 (1986) |
| Members | 2,896,138 (1986) |
| Ministers | 8,586 (1986) |
TheLutheran Church in America (LCA) was an American and CanadianLutheran church body that existed from 1962 to 1987. It was headquartered inNew York City and its publishing house wasFortress Press.
The LCA's immigrant heritage came mostly fromGermany,Sweden, present-dayCzech Republic, present-daySlovakia,Denmark, andFinland, and its demographic focus was on the East Coast (centered onPennsylvania), with large numbers in the Midwest and some presence in theSouthern Atlantic states.
Theologically, the LCA was often considered the mostliberal andecumenical branch in American Lutheranism, although there were tendencies toward conservativepietism in some rural and small-town congregations. In church governance, the LCA was clerical and centralized, in contrast to thecongregationalist or "low church" strain in American Protestant Christianity. With some notable exceptions, LCA churches tended to be more formalistically liturgical than their counterparts in theAmerican Lutheran Church (ALC). Among the Lutheran churches in America, the LCA was thus the one that was most similar to the established Lutheran churches in Europe.
The LCAordained the country's first female Lutheranpastor,Elizabeth Platz, in November 1970. In 1970, a survey of 4,745 Lutheran adults by Strommen et al., found that 75 percent of LCA Lutherans surveyed agreed that women should be ordained, compared with 66 percent of ALC members and 45 percent ofLutheran Church–Missouri Synod members.[1]
It subsequently ordained the nation's first femaleAfrican-American Lutheran pastor (Earlean Miller in 1979), firstLatina Lutheran pastor (Lydia Rivera Kalb in 1979), and first femaleAsian-American Lutheran pastor (Asha George-Guiser in 1982).
The LCA was a founding member of theLutheran Council in the United States of America, which began on January 1, 1967.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, many of the independent US Lutheran church bodies moved progressively toward greater unity. In 1960, for example, a number of such bodies joined to form theAmerican Lutheran Church.
The Lutheran Church in America was another product of these trends, forming in 1962 out of a merger among the following independent Lutheran denominations:
The merger was largely engineered through the efforts ofFranklin Clark Fry, who had served as president of theUnited Lutheran Church in America since 1944 and president of theLutheran World Federation since 1957. Fry was known by contemporaries as "Mr. Protestant", a moniker that captured his tireless work on behalf of greater ecumenical unity among Protestant church bodies.
The merger was made official and celebrated at a convention inDetroit,Michigan, on June 28, 1962.[2] Upon its inception, the LCA became the largest Lutheran church body in the United States.
On January 1, 1986, Lutheran Church in America-Canada Section merged with theEvangelical Lutheran Church of Canada to form theEvangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. On January 1, 1988, the Lutheran Church in America ceased to exist when its US section, along with theAmerican Lutheran Church and theAssociation of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, joined together to form theEvangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), today the largest Lutheran church body in the United States. In 1986, just before its merger into the ELCA, the LCA had 8,586 pastors, 5,832 congregations, and 2,896,138 members,[3] making it the largest Lutheran church body in the United States.
Title changed to Bishop in 1980.
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