Chapter One
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First Words
On a cool, cloudy day in early October 1960, a motorcade left the Georgian Hotel in downtown Athens and drove exactly two miles west out the Atlanta Highway to a three-acre site in what was almost country property. The cars contained a community of faith—a group that had been a mission development of the United Lutheran Church in America since 1955 and was breaking ground for its first sanctuary and educational building.
The small congregation had high hopes and a dream. They had for more than three years been approaching the minimum size for membership as a church in the ULCA, but each time the goal was in sight, a family might move, or a member would leave. On this Oct. 2, however, dreams had begun to come true. The church had been meeting for several months in the ballroom of the hotel, and this morning, the Rev. Raymond Wood, president of the Georgia-Alabama Synod of the UCLA, was on hand to preach the sermon and lead the congregants to the ceremonial groundbreaking.
In December 1959, the Rev. Arne Markland had been officially installed as the first ULCA pastor in Clarke County history, though his congregation was still receiving mission support and would do so for some years. Dr. Wood had presided over that installation, too, and, in fact, Wood had visited Athens often from his Atlanta office, determined to see the creation of a new church.
By early 1960, the congregation was working hard in committees toward raising funds for a church building, and by May, the small group had entered the final phase of a pledge drive.
While the church that would become Holy Cross Lutheran was getting off the ground, significant changes were afoot in the denomination itself. While the Georgia-Alabama Synod of the United Lutheran Church in America had been around for a century, the country was dotted with much-smaller groups that were seeking to gain strength in numbers by uniting with the ULCA. There was the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, the American Evangelical Lutheran Church, and even the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Merger talks had been going on for many months, and the new national church, when it came together by January 1, 1963, would have 3.2 million members—a substantial church, though not close to the other staples of Protestantism in the South, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians.
While change was accelerating at the national level, the Athens congregants were prayerfully excited, too. After meeting at two locations in the city’s Five Points area for several years, the church had moved its Sunday school and worship to the Georgian Hotel’s large ballroom on July 31, and on September 4 had voted during a congregational business meeting to accept the bid of the C. C. Robertson Construction Company for the group’s first church building. The design would be “contemporary,” and the structure would have central heating and air conditioning.
A new church was beginning, and now, nearly half a century later, it continues to be a witness to Christ’s love in Athens and northeast Georgia.
How does one write the story of a church? Should it be like a series of historical markers or should it breathe with the memories of those who have been there along the way? In truth, church histories tend to become dry recitations of facts. What must we celebrate and when? For instance, Holy Cross began as a mission development in 1955, so 2005 actually marked the 50th anniversary of the church, though it was not a formal congregation until 1959. An early church memoirist said that “At one point it [getting to the point of being a full formal church] seemed futile, but perseverance paid off, and the powers that be finally decided that we were not to be defeated and allowed us to organize with 45 confirmed members and 64 baptized members on February 15, 1959.”
Thus, the actual 50th anniversary will be in February 2009. Whatever the date or dates, all members now—and those still living from the past—will agree that we have much for which to be thankful, much to celebrate. Though the last remaining charter member of Holy Cross still on its membership rolls passed away in 2003, many members still worship here who have been with the church for three decades and more.
There was an important question we had to ask when we started compiling this history of Holy Cross: Who is it for? Current members? Prospective members? New members? In fact, how does this congregation fit with the national community of fellow believers? Who are we and what do we believe?
Such rhetorical questions could go on for many pages, but it seems self-evident that in order to know who we are and from where we have come, we must know what the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is now. We are a group of faith that has grown through mergers and new members to a body of more than 6 million now.
We will come back presently to the origins of Holy Cross itself, but it’s important, we believe, to trace the history of the ELCA itself briefly. The denomination’s own brief description, excerpted here, is essential. It may surprise new members (and some veteran ones!) to know that the ELCA was formed only in 1988, through mergers of existing synods and long, prayerful deliberation through meetings and the local, regional, and national levels.
So, here is a condensed history of who we are and how we got here. Don’t be thrown by all the acronyms—they are the best evidence of the rich cultural and religious past of our synod.
“The ELCA, along with other Lutheran churches, can trace its roots directly to the Protestant Reformation that took place in Europe in the 16th century. Martin Luther, a German monk, became aware of differences between the Bible and church practices of the day. His writings, lectures, and sermons inspired others to protest church practices and call for reform.
“By the late 1500s the Reformation had spread throughout Europe. Followers of Martin Luther's teachings were labeled "Lutherans" by their enemies and adopted the name themselves. Lutheran beliefs became widespread, especially in Germany and the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland), later spreading throughout the world as early explorers took their faith with them on their voyages. Lutheranism came to the Americas that way; some of the earliest settlers in the Americas were Scandinavian, Dutch, and German Lutherans. The first permanent colony of them was in the West Indies, and by the 1620s there were settlements of Lutherans along the Hudson River in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. (Swedish settlers near New Castle, Delaware, formed the earliest Lutheran church. The church building still stands.)
“As the number of these congregations grew, scattered groups would form a "synod" or church body, and as the nation expanded so did the number of Lutheran church bodies.
“By the late 1800s the 20 or so Lutheran church bodies that would eventually merge to become The American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America had been established.
“There were "revivalist" and "confessional" movements within Lutheran churches in Europe and in America, and as Lutherans migrated to this country they were influenced by the "fundamentalist" movement here. Consequently, there developed a wide variety of expressions of Lutheranism in North America.
“Nineteenth century Lutherans still looked to their homelands to supply pastors and worship materials, but as second- and third-generation Americans spoke English more than German, Norwegian, or Danish, a need arose to provide formal theological training, hymnals, catechisms, and other materials.
“As early as 1812 the North Carolina Synod had inquired about the possibility of better “inter-synodical” cooperation, and that synod worked with Pennsylvania publishing houses and the new theological seminary at Gettysburg rather than set up its own support systems.
“Immigration of Lutherans continued to be heavy through the first two decades of the 20th century, and the first significant mergers of church bodies happened in 1917 when three Norwegian synods joined to form the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA) and in 1918 when three German synods joined to form the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA). With World War I taking place, the next logical step in denominational consolidation was to form a joint agency of these two large synods and other smaller ones in order to provide relief.
“The National Lutheran Commission had been formed in 1917 because the churches were concerned about the spiritual well-being of U.S. service personnel being sent into combat. In a short time 60,000 laymen were involved in the effort, which proved a vast and complex enterprise. The laymen stayed active in the relief and ministry of the commission, but formed their own organization, the Lutheran Brotherhood, which supported the work of the commission by building facilities and supplying equipment. After the war the Lutheran Brotherhood continued to develop lay leadership and to foster intersynodical relationships.
“The various Lutheran churches, with the exception of the Synodical Conference, continued to work together closely, but were limited to soldiers' and sailors' welfare efforts. There was a growing need to provide missionaries to America's expanding industrial centers and to render aid to Lutherans in Europe, and by September 1918 the National Lutheran Council (NLC) was formed to meet those needs. Representation on the council was proportionate, based on membership figures of participating church bodies.
“For the first 12 years of its existence, the NLC concentrated on overseas relief programs, then from about 1930 through the entry of the United States into World War II it developed its domestic programs. In 1930 three churches with German origins had merged to form the American Lutheran Church, which had become one of the eight member churches in the NLC, along with the ULCA.
“In the late '40s and '50s there were proposals by the ULCA and Augustana to merge all the member churches of the NLC, and although they failed, in 1952 the American Lutheran Conference Joint Union Committee presented the document The United Testimony to its member churches, agreeing they were in "essential agreement" with the positions of the ULCA and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The next round of mergers occurred in the early '60s.
“In 1960 the American Lutheran Church (German), United Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Norwegian) merged to form The American Lutheran Church (ALC). The Lutheran Free Church (Norwegian), which had dropped out of merger negotiations, came into the ALC in 1963.
“In 1962 the ULCA (German, Slovak, and Icelandic) joined with the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church (Swedish), Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, and American Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish) to form the Lutheran Church in America (LCA).
“Meanwhile, the Lutheran World Federation's (LWF) 1957 resolve to study contemporary Roman Catholicism with the possibility of entering "interconfessional conversations," and the reforms proposed by the Second Vatican Council, led to a series of theological dialogues. Lutherans also accepted the invitation of Reformed churches (Presbyterian) in America to begin discussions of possible pulpit and altar fellowship. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), not a member church of the NLC or the LWF, participated in these ecumenical dialogues at the national level, and joined the NLC churches in 1967 to form the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. (LCUSA).
“The LCMS, firmly rooted in confessional conservatism and relatively unchanged since its organization in 1846-47 as "The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States," stood firmly on its belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.
"Historical criticism," an understanding that the Bible must be understood in the cultural context of the time in which it was written, was gaining ground in both Europe and America. Trouble was brewing in the LCMS as some seminary professors began to adopt historical critical methods in their classrooms. A new seminary president with experience in inter-Lutheran and ecumenical affairs was challenged by the new conservative synodical president. A three-year investigation ensued, and the 1972 convention voted to censure the faculty. In 1974 the seminary president was suspended, and many seminarians and faculty left the seminary to continue their work in another setting, forming "Seminex," a seminary-in-exile. Meanwhile, a moderate movement in LCMS called Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM) was formed.
“The issue of whether or not to ordain graduates of Seminex led to the removal of four district presidents at the 1975 convention, and by 1976 the moderates had gathered forces to form the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). Approximately 300 congregations and 110,000 people moved into the AELC from LCMS with a stated goal from the beginning of promoting unity with the ALC and LCA.
“In 1977 the LCMS decision to place fellowship with ALC "in protest" along with the AELC's "Call to Lutheran Union" nudged the three church bodies, ALC, LCA, and AELC, toward merger. The 1978 ALC and LCA conventions adopted resolutions aimed at the creation of a single church body. The AELC joined them, and the ALC-LCA Committee on Church Cooperation became the Committee on Lutheran Unity (CLU) in January 1979.
“Presiding bishops of the ALC, the LCA, and the AELC met with the CLU over the next 16 months, and the 1980 conventions of all three church bodies adopted a two-year study process. Documents were in the hands of congregational leaders by November of that year, and by 1982 all the pieces were in place for the three churches to have simultaneous conventions so that, on September 8, 1982, with telephone hookups so each could hear the others' votes, all three church bodies voted to proceed on the path toward a new Lutheran church.
“The CLU proposals included the structure and operating procedures for a new group, the Commission for a New Lutheran Church (CNLC), and a timetable for the churches:
“The 1984 conventions to discuss, review, and respond to a statement of theological understandings and ecclesial principles, and a narrative description of the new church;
“The 1986 conventions to discuss, review, and respond to the articles of incorporation of the new church, the constitution and bylaws of the new church, and be able to take action to cease functioning by Dec. 31, 1987.
“The 70-member CNLC, its members deliberately chosen to be widely representative of the membership of all the merging bodies, met 10 times over the next five years, making full reports which were widely disseminated to church members.
“By August 1986 the CNLC had completed its work and again the three church bodies met in simultaneous conventions, again with telephone hook-ups, and voted overwhelmingly to accept the constitution and bylaws of the new church as well as the proposed agreement and plan of merger, thus creating the fourth largest Protestant body in the United States.
“The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was finally born at its constituting convention in Columbus, Ohio, April 30-May 3, 1987. The three churches had "closing conventions" the day before, taking care of constitutional matters and saying good-bye.
“At 12:01 a.m., Central Standard Time, January 1, 1988, the ELCA became the legal successor to its predecessors, a mosaic reflecting not only the ethnic heritages of traditional Lutherans through its original churches, but also the full spectrum of American culture in which it serves, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.”
In truth, all Christian communities of faith have gone through such complicated organizations, and the change continues to this day. Like most Protestant denominations, Lutheranism has conservative and more moderate branches of faith and belief. The Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church is the conservative branch, and our group, the ELCA, is the more moderate. Some of our differences are cultural, but there are also theological differences. We believe that the world is large enough for all of us!
At Holy Cross, we, like all churches, have had periods of calm sailing and stormy seas, but we have emerged strong and dedicated, firm in the joy of Christ’s message and determined to be witnesses for his peace and love in the world.
Chapter 2
