THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
tors, 340 congregations, 42,738 communicants, with 3. theological seminary at Minneapolis, Minn., and a college, an orphans' home, and a deaconess mother-house.
(1) The Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America, formerly the Church Mission Society, was founded in 1872, and numbers 61 pastors, 117 congregations, 11,737 communicants, with a theological seminary at Des Moines, la. (2) The United Danish Evangelical Lutheran
3. Other Church in America was founded in Scandina- 1896 in Minneapolis, and has 106 pasvians. tors, 202 congregations, 9,261 communicants, a college and theological seminary at Blair, Neb., and another college at Hutchison, Minn. The Icelandic immigration in North America dates from the year 1870. The first congregation was organized by Rev. Paul Thorlacksohn in 1875. The synod of Icelanders was founded in 1885 under the presidency of Rev. Bjernason in Winnipeg. Delegates from that body were in attendance at the convention of the General Council in Chicago, 1899. The synod numbers 9 pastors, 43 congregations, 4,451 communicants. The Finnish immigration is of quite recent date. The Suomi Synod was organized in 1889 and numbers 24 pastors, 110 congregations, 13,201 communicants, with a theological seminary in Hancock, Mich.
7- Lutherans in the South: Lutheran congregations were first organized in the South at Woodstock, Winchester, and New Market, Va., Salisbury and Concord, N. C, Orangeburg, Lexington, Newberry, and Charleston, S. C, and in the Salzburg colonies of Georgia. VAt the time of the Civil War the Sojithgrn Gejiej^dJSjmod secededfrom the General—Syriod, consisting of~~Ehe synods ofVTrgtnia, Southwestern Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The Apostolic and Nicene Creeds, together with the Augsburg Confession, as setting forth the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God, constituted the confessional basis, with the distinct understanding that there should be liberty of private judgment with reference to some articles! of the Augustana. With the gradual development' of a stricter confessional position this reservation disappeared. In 1886 a new general body was formed, called The United Synod in the South, accepting essentially the same doctrinal and confessional position as the General Council,. It includes the following synods: North Carolina (organized 1803), Tennessee (1820), South Carolina (1824), Virginia (1829), Southwest Virginia (1842), Mississippi (1855), Georgia (1860), and the Holston Synod in Tennessee (1861). The United Synod numbers 235 pastors, 458 congregations, 47,514 communicants. It has a theological seminary at Mount Pleasant, Charleston, S. C, and colleges at Hickory, N. C, and Newberry, S. C.
8. The General Council: The history of the origin of this body has been told in 4 above. Its first convention was held in Fort Wayne, Ind., Nov., 1867. Its doctrinal basis is stated in the fundamental articles of faith and Church polity as follows: "We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original sense as throughout in conformity with the pure truth of
which God's Word is the only rule. The other Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they set forth none other than its system of doctrine and articles of faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural and are, with the unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same Scriptural faith." At the first convention of the General Council the Joint Synod of Ohio, which had not adopted the constitution and was not ready to enter into organic union with the General Council, laid before that body four questions on its relation to chiliasm, altar and pulpit fellowship, and secret societies. Similar questions, except that on chiliasm, were also presented by the Iowa Synod. The discussion of these four points and the successive declarations on the same, at Pittsburg (1868), Lancaster, O. (1870), Akron, O. (1871), and Galesburg (1875), showed a steady growth in the fuller appreciation of the confessional principle underlying those points and a determination to carry the principle into practical execution. This position has been reached in spite of the hasty withdrawal of the very synods which from the beginning appeared as the champions of the confessional principle, viz., Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan. Much care was bestowed by the General Council on the production of sound books of worship for the use of its members in the family, the school, and the church. In this field it has been most successful. The German and English official literature published by authority of the General Council may justly be called a model of its kind. It is based upon the most careful and comprehensive studies in liturgies and hymnology, and in its preparation the best and most reliable sources have been used. It is pure in doctrine and complete in the material which it contains. More than any other Lutheran general body of this country the General Council represents the peculiar mixture, in the American Lutheran Church, of German, Scandinavian, and English-speaking elements, and that critical period of transition from the church of the immigrant to that of the native English-speaking American population. Its great task is to transfer into the sphere of the English tongue a genuine Lutheranism, sound in doctrine, government, and form of worship.
The Lutherans in the South initiated the important movement toward the Common Service for all English-speaking Lutherans in the United States. The General Council, in 1879, declared itself ready to cooperate in this matter on condition that the pure Lutheran Agenda of the sixteenth centurj should be recognized as the norm and standard foi this work. This rule having been adopted by the United Synod of the South and the General Synod, the work on the Common Service was actually be-l gun in 1884 and the orders for the main service,' matins, and vespers were finished in 1888 and adopted by the three general bodies and the English Synod of Missouri, The English version of the Augsburg Confession was revised on the basis of Taverner's translation of 1536, and a new translation of Luther's Small Catechism was prepared for all English-speaking Lutherans.