Religion: Busy Lutheran Week

• Share

The largest Lutheran body in the U.S.— the 2,500,000-member United Lutheran Church in America—wound up its 22nd biennial convention in Atlantic City last week. In a busy round of meetings, the 700 clerical and lay delegates:

¶ Approved a merger with three other Lutheran denominations—the 605,000-member Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, organized in 1860 by U.S. citizens of Swedish birth or ancestry; the 36,000-member Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church (Suomi Synod), founded in 1890; the 24,000-member American Evangelical Lutheran Church organized by Danish missionaries in 1872. The move to merge, said United Lutheran President Franklin Clark Fry, was a "historic and momentous decision."

¶ Substituted a 10,000-word statement on Holy Communion for the 250-word statement in effect for 20 years. The new policy, which will guide 4.872 United Lutheran pastors, tentatively opens the door to celebration of Communion with Protestants of other denominations.

¶ Adopted a resolution against testing nuclear weapons, calling for "such forms of peaceful cooperation and competitive coexistence with the Communist world as will oppose and seek to overcome the totalitarian concept of control."

¶ Rejected a resolution calling for a ban on capital punishment, by the slender margin of 248 to 238.