Politics and Policy: The Genesis and Theology of Social Statements in the Lutheran Church in America

Abstract

The present volume is a study of this process within the Lutheran Church in America, a body formed in 1963 by the merger of various Lutheran groups of Scandinavian and German heritage. Since this body itself was merged in 1988 into a yet larger entity (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, ELCA rather than LCA; one has to watch for the nuances of denominational names), this organizational lifespan of twenty-five years provides a nicely delimited period for study. The chief author, an American church historian, was assisted by a younger scholar trained in social ethics, and they have done an admirable job in chronicling the story of the development and expression of an American Lutheran social conscience. Their working materials included not only extensive minutes and archives, but also numerous interviews, conducted in 1985-87, with persons who had been chief actors in the story. This lends to the narrative a now it can be told flavor, revealing, for example, the actual authors of statements that were supposed to remain anonymous. True to her craft as a historian, Christa Klein has prefaced the story with two chapters tracing the roots of social concern and social witness in American Lutheranism well back into the nineteenth cen-