The Evangelical Lutheran Synod Of Australia: A Brief History (1)
© Rev. Kenneth Fischer
EARLY LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT
"I myself will gather the remnant of my flock ... and will bring them ...where they will be fruitful and increase ..." -- Jeremiah 23:3
Throughout the history of Lutheranism in Australia, two distinct theological streams flowed quite separately from one another. Almost from the very beginning vital doctrinal differences existed between them. It was this situation which led to the negotiations between the traditionally confessional Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (E.L.C.A.) and the liberal United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia (U.E.L.C.A.) in the late twentieth century. Each of these streams can be traced back to two of the first Lutheran pastors to arrive in Australia -- Pastor August Kavel and Pastor Gotthard Fritzsche.
Pastor Kavel arrived in Adelaide with a flock of approximately 200 souls in November of 1838. With subsequent boatloads his congregation swelled to about 570 people. They settled in the newly founded Colony of South Australia. For reasons of conscience, they had fled the oppression of the Prussian Union under King Frederick Wilhelm III. The voyage was only possible through the generosity of a Baptist businessman named George Fife Angus. He appreciated their piety, and recognized their potential as industrious and hard workers for his land in the new colony.
Later that year, another wave of oppressed Lutherans arrived on October 28 with Pastor Gotthard Fritzsche and a company of 274 people. With new-found religious freedom they enjoyed a happy time of blessed cooperation. This lasted for a number of years. But on August 18, 1846 at a stormy convention held at Bethany in South Australia their fellowship was shattered. Pastor Fritzsche rejected Pastor Kavel's protest against a number of statements in the Lutheran Confessions, his insistence on teaching the millennium, and his "Apostolic Constitution" which Fritzsche felt placed an undue and unscriptural emphasis on the office of elders.
Hence, the two distinct streams began to flow separately. Their courses would clash, often turbulently at times, for the next 100 years. Pastor Fritzsche was regarded as the founder of the congregations which became known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (E.L.C.A.). Until the 1940s they were named the Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Australia (E.L.S.A.). On the other hand, Pastor Kavel was generally credited as the spiritual father of the Immanuel Synod and all the other splinter churches which merged in 1921 to form the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia (U.E.L.C.A.). In many ways this merger was possible because many controversial subjects were labeled "open questions" and then dismissed. This same method of compromise allowed a brief confessional union in 1864 between the forerunner of the U.E.L.C.A. (the Immanuel Synod) and the conservative E.L.S.A.. The union quickly dissolved over the old question of the millennium. In the 1880s, the conservative E.L.S.A. developed stronger fellowship links with the Missouri Synod in America while the liberal U.E.L.C.A. developed ties to Iowa Synod and eventually the American Lutheran Church (A.L.C.).
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