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Lutheran Historical Conference Newsletter

Vol. 36, No. 2...May 1998...ISSN 0460-0274

• Biennial Meeting Preliminary Program
• From the Membership Secretary
• New Members!
• News By/For/About Members
• New Resources

Biennial Meeting Preliminary Program

October 29-31, 1998, Staten Island, New York

The following represents the general tentative schedule and session topics for the upcoming meeting at Wagner College. A complete program will be available in the Summer and all members will receive copies. For further information in the meantime, contact the meeting program chair:

Thursday, October 29

Session 1: Anniversaries, 9:30 - 11:45 AM

• A Look at Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, The Pennsylvania Ministerium, and the Development of Northeast Lutheranism (1748-1998)
• A Look at the Swedish Lutheran Tradition in the Northeast: An Urban Church (1848-1998)
• The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in the Northeast (1847-1997)

Session 2: American Religious Influence on Eastern Lutheranism, Noon - 1:30

• Johann Kunze and the Post-millenialists Debates Occasioned by Publication of Jonathan Edward's "A History of the Work of Redemption"
• Lutheran Revivalism in Upstate New York: A New Perspective

Lunch - 1:30 - 2:30

Session 3: Eastern Lutheran Ecclesiology, 2:30 - 4:00

• The Priesthood of Believers and the Office of the Ministry
• The Role of the Laity in the Development of the Church

Session 4: Eastern Lutheran Influence on the Liturgy, 4:15 - 6:30

• The Visionary Development of the Common Service
• General Synod 'Reception' of the Common Service
• "My Fair Chasuble: Eastern Lutheran Influence Upon the Liturgy"

Wagner College President's Reception, - 6:45 - 7:45

Dinner ­ 7:45 (Plenary Business Session of the Conference to follow)

Friday, October 30

Session 5: Inner Mission, 8:30 - 11:00

• The Passavant Tradition
• The Wartburg Orphan's Farm School
• Mission to Immigrants and Seamen
• "The Lutheran College of the Bible and Liberals Arts in New York and New Jersey"

Session 6: Archivists and Historians, 11:30 - 1:15

• Panel: Toward a better working partnership between historians and archivists; presentation on the Helen Knubel Archives of Cooperative Lutheranism.

Afternoon Tour, 1:30 - 6:00

• Tour of New York City Lutheran Churches and sites, including Trinity, Brooklyn (Norwegian); Gustavus Adolphus, Manhattan (Swedish); St. Mark's Church, ante-bellum NY Ministerium church building; True Light Lutheran (LCMS; first Chinese Christian Church) Salem/Salaam Lutheran Church, Danish/Arabic congregations; Seaman's International House; Morgan Mansion: Church house of the ULCA & LCA; St. Peter's Lutheran Church; Transfiguration, Harlem.

Banquet - Union Theological Seminary Refectory, 6 - 10:00

• Speaker, Randall Balmer, Historian of American Religion, Columbia University

Saturday, October 31

Session 7: Lutherans and American Society and Culture, 8:30 - 10:00

• The Lutheran News Bureau
• Lutheran Film Associates

Session 8: Eastern Lutheranism and the Larger Lutheran Church, 10:15 - 12:45

• St. Matthew's Lutheran Church and the Missouri Wars
• "Lutherans and Ecumenism: The General Synod Tradition into the Twenty-First Century"
• Panel: Regionalism, reaction and a national church; in what ways has Northeast Lutheranism provided leadership for a national church; in what ways has it been a foil in regionalism?

Lunch, 1:00 PM

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From the Membership Secretary

Have you renewed your membership this year?

This issue of the Newsletter is sent to you who have been members of the Lutheran Historical Conference (LHC) within the past few years. Many of you have sent your membership renewal, but several more have not.

THIS is the year! If you renew your membership now, this year's publication schedule calls for members to receive Essays and Reports from both the 1994 and 1996 LHC Biennial Meetings. Any other book(s) published by the LHC this year would also be included. You need not have renewed your membership in previous years in order to receive these books this year.

Don't be left behind! Please renew today! Annual membership is $20, both individual and institutional. Please make checks payable to the Lutheran Historical Conference. For the membership listing, include your name and street and e-mail addresses with your renewal. Send to:

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New Members!

Welcome once again, new members who have joined the LHC since the last issue of this newsletter:

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News By/For/About Members

James W. Albers, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383, will return to full-time teaching at Valpo, in July 1998, after fourteen years in administration, most recently as Dean of Graduate Studies and Continuing Education. He will be teaching both the traditional and non-traditional course for freshmen, as well as American Lutheran Church History.

Connie Conner, 1373 Gilead Ct., Galloway OH 43119, has left her position as archivist, Region 6, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Trinity Seminary, Columbus, to take a position as cataloger in the Manuscripts Department of the Ohio Historical Society. She was the first archivist for the region, having served in the capacity since 1992.

Luther A. Gotwald, Jr., 120 Homestead Lane, Davidsville, PA 15928-0404, has just published, It Happened at Augsburg -- A.D. 1530, 188 pages, indexed with illustrations and introduction by Dr. Gerald Christianson, professor, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. The aim of the review of the 28 articles of the Augsburg Confession " ...is to show the considerable rapproachment which has taken place especially in this century." Luther says his interest came about because the Roman Catholic Church withheld publishing their official Latin Confutation until 1979. The book may be ordered from the author at the above address for $25, Pennsylvania residents add 6% state tax unless tax exempt information accompanies order.

Ray F. Kibler, III, 4249 La Junta, Claremont, CA 91711-2351, presented a paper giving both historical as well as doctrinal/ecclesiastical perspectives, "'How Far Is Too Far?' The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as a Case Study in Ecumenical Policy and Churchly Confession," to the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Far-West Region, May 1, 1998 in San Diego. Ray also promises important news of an oral history project he is completing for the next Newsletter issue.

Joan R. Olson, St. Olaf College, 1520 St. Olaf Ave., Northfield, MN, 55057-1098, will retire from her position as archivist of St. Olaf College, on August 1, 1998 after nearly 30 years in that position. Founded in 1969, under Joan's direction, the archives has grown from a few boxes in the library and a vault in the administration building to over 2,000 feet of records, including manuscripts, office files, publications, photographs, slides audio and video tapes, microfilm and artifacts. Joan has also been an active member of the Midwest Archives Conference and the Society of American Archivists. Thanks for preserving an important part of the history of American Lutheranism Joan!

Robert E. Smith, Concordia Theological Seminary, 6600 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825, has recently placed his paper, "Wyneken as Missionary," for the Charles Manske Festschrift, on the World Wide Web: http://www.ctsfw.edu/etext/wyneken/wynmiss.wp5. The posting is in WordPerfect 5.1 and it may be downloaded, with patience (1.1 GB file!) via Netscape and IE. Any comments from LHC members welcome: e-mail: bob_smith@ctsfw.edu.

Richard W. Solberg, 2756 Lakewood Place, Westlake Village, CA 91361-3336, has just completed compiling and editing, A Survey of Oral History Resources in Lutheran Higher Education. The book was introduced at the Lutheran Educational Conference of North America's February 1998 annual meeting. Sponsored by LECNA, the book is part of an Oral History Project begun in 1997. The book lists 1,286 oral history interviews of Lutheran educators already on file in 28 repositories throughout North America. The second purpose of the book, aside from identifying sources already available, would be to stimulate interest among Lutheran educators in creating additional interviews with those persons who have not been interviewed. The book may be ordered from: LECNA, 1001 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20036, or FAX: 202-463-6609.

Elisabeth Wittman, ELCA Archives, 8765 W. Higgins Rd., Chicago, IL 60631, chaired a panel discussion at the Midwest Archives Conference, Spring meeting, May 1, 1998, entitled, "Long-Term Collections Management." At that meeting she also completed a two-year term as Vice President of MAC.

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New Resources

The public domain hymns of The Lutheran Hymnal, Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod worship book and other Synodical Conference church bodies are now on-line at the World Wide Web site of Concordia Theological Seminary: http://www.ctsfw.edu/etext/hymnals/tlh/

The index pages are in HTML and the hymn texts in ASCII, allowing for easy access to the hymn texts for most computer users. The project is another outgrowth of Project Wittenberg, which will eventually be moved in full from a gopher site into its new World Wide Web site at Concordia Theological Seminary: http://purl.oclc.org/pw/. LHC member, Robert E. Smith, Project Wittenberg Coordinator and Electronic Resources Librarian indicates that the hymnal project was completed by Cindy Beesley, Project Wittenberg Editor, along who worked with a team of volunteers to get the texts typed and organized.

Joseph Shaw has completed, The St. Olaf Choir: A Narrative, documenting the history of the famed choirs of the college of the same name. The 700 page book includes hundreds of photographs and is the culmination of a three-year project of the Dept. of Music at the college. The bulk of the research materials used in the project were from the college's own archives. The book is available for $39.95, hard cover, $29.95, soft cover, plus postage from: St. Olaf Bookstore, 1520 St. Olaf Ave., Northfield, MN 55057-1098, or by calling the Music Dept., 507-646-3179.

America's Religious Architecture, Sacred Places for Every Community, by Marilyn J. Chiat, has just been published. The author is Director of the Center for the Documentation of Preservation of Places of Worship and adjunct professor of Near Eastern and Classical Studies, University of Minnesota. The 465 page book includes 500 historically significant places of worship in the U.S., including 300 illustrations, with details about origin, architectural features and social history of each structure, as well as patterns of religious settlement in every state. The book may be ordered for $34.95 US, $48.95 Canadian, plus postage, handling and local sales tax from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Dept. 063, P.O. Box 6793, Somerset, NJ 08875-9977; 1-800-225-5945 (US) or 1-800-263-1590 (Canada).

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