A Brief History of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod: Part 1

and devotion would not be easily dislodged. He was privately ordained by an alledged Lutheran pastor; alledged because no one has been able to determine the pastor's status in any Lutheran body.7

It was soon evident that an organization of Norwegian Lutherans into congregations and synods would eventually be made. Preachers of Reformed denominations as well as the Mormons were fleecing the Norwegian flocks of their spiritual inheritance. Thus we see the organization of congregations in the 1840s and the formation of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1853.

RISE OF THE NORWEGIAN SYNOD

History and the members of Norway Lutheran Church in Muskego, WI, note that the first Norwegian Lutheran congregation to be organized was in Muskego. On September 18, 1843, Claus Lauritz Clausen, a Danish lay missionary, was ordained by the Muskego group after being examined by a pastor who would later join the Buffalo Synod. The group began to function as a congregation even though a constitution was not adopted until the following year.8

The first regularly ordained pastor from Norway was Johannes Vilhelm Christian Dietrichson. Sent by the State Church of Norway to work among the immigrants in America, Dietrichson found little interest in the state of New York. He then moved to Wisconsin, where he recognized the ordination of Clausen. After consultation the two determined that Dietrichson should work among the Koshkonong Norwegians. On September 1 and 2 the first services were held under majestic oak trees. The sermon on the second, based on Psalm 78:19, was entitled, "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" History has given witness that the answer is a resounding "yes."9

Norwegian Lutheran congregations soon sprang up all over the southern corridor of Wisconsin and into Illinois. It became evident that a formative group of these congregations would come into being. Meetings were begun as early as 1849. However union was slow to come and it wouldn't be until 1853 that a formal union known as the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America became reality.

Controversy would be at the heels of the Norwegian Synod throughout its history. In fact the birth of the Synod saw the first doctrinal fight. The constitutions of various congregations as well as the prototype constitution of the Synod contained the so-called "Grundtvigian error" (see the article "Built on the Rock"). The error, simply put, regarded the Apostles' Creed as inspired and "a Living Word."

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