The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) was a U.S. church body that existed from 1976 through the end of 1987. The AELC formed when approximately 250 dissident congregations withdrew from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 1976, and ended as an independent body when it became part of the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) on January 1, 1988. 1976 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Official cross symbol of the Missouri Synod The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS) is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. ... 1976 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or ELCA is a mainline Protestant denomination headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ... January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ... 1988 is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Formation

The AELC's forerunner was Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM), a moderate caucus within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) that opposed the Missouri Synod's more conservative turn in the early and mid-1970s. ELIM was formed when, in the wake of conservative victories at the Missouri Synod's 1973 convention, moderate opponents had convened a conference in Chicago to chart out strategies. The conference's eight-hundred delegates promised moral and financial support for church members who faced pressure due to their opposition to LCMS convention actions, and established ELIM as a network and rallying point for the moderate wing of the LCMS. Official cross symbol of the Missouri Synod The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS) is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. ... Events and trends Although in the United States and in many other Western societies the 1970s are often seen as a period of transition between the turbulent 1960s and the more conservative 1980s and 1990s, many of the trends that are associated widely with the Sixties, from the Sexual Revolution... 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ... Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ...

In 1974, the LCMS was rent by the Seminex controversy, a walk-out by the vast majority of students and faculty at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis that led to the establishment of a new, rival "Seminary in Exile." In 1975, presidents of eight LCMS districts were threatened with removal from office for allowing their congregations to ordain Seminex graduates as ministers, and four were removed in April 1976. In the wake of the Seminex controversy and these removals, a movement to leave the Synod took shape among dissident congregations and church officials, most of them members of ELIM. The largest number of departures came from the LCMS's non-geographical English District, which had joined the LCMS in 1911. Upon leaving the Missouri Synod, the English District leadership and many of its congregations immediately reconstituted the pre-1911 English Synod, and a number of officials and congregations from other districts followed their lead by exiting the LCMS. 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... Seminex is the widely used abbreviation for Concordia Seminary in Exile (later Christ Seminary-Seminex). ... Concordia Seminary is located in Clayton, Missouri, an inner-ring suburb on the western border of Saint Louis, Missouri. ... The Gateway Arch, shown here behind the Old Courthouse, is the most recognizable part of the St. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... 1976 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... A database query syntax error has occurred. ...

In the end, approximately 250 congregations left the Missouri Synod. In December 1976, these congregations banded together to form a new, independent church body, the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). Not surprisingly, the AELC proved to be more socially and theologically moderate than the LCMS, and shortly after its inception, it departed from LCMS practice on ordination by opening the ministry to women. The AELC was a disappointment in some respects, since it garnered far fewer dissident Missouri Synod congregations than its leaders had initially expected. With congregations totaling about 100,000 members, the AELC represented less than 4 percent of the membership of the 2.7-million-strong Missouri Synod. 1976 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Official cross symbol of the Missouri Synod The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS) is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. ... Controversy in a number of churches over the ordination of women as priests or ministers. ...

The Rev. Will L. Herzfeld, an associate of Martin Luther King, Jr. and former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Alabama chapter, served as the AELC's second and last presiding bishop. He was the first African American to lead a U.S. Lutheran church body. Martin Luther King Jr. ... The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) (first known as Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration) is a civil rights organization founded in January 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. ... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ...

For a fuller account of the AELC's birth, see wikipedia article on Seminex. Seminex is the widely used abbreviation for Concordia Seminary in Exile (later Christ Seminary-Seminex). ...

Merger

The AELC did play an important role in efforts toward Lutheran unity in the United States. In particular, the AELC's leaders, Seminex president John Tietjen among them, served as the catalyst for merger talks between two other Lutheran church bodies: the American Lutheran Church (with approximately 2.25 million members), and the Lutheran Church in America (with approximately 2.85 million members). These two churches, both also more moderate than the Missouri Synod, agreed along with the AELC in 1982 to unite as one church. The three bodies officially completed their merger on January 1, 1988, thereby creating the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The ELCA today is the largest and most liberal Lutheran church body in the United States. The Lutheran movement is a group of denominations of Protestant Christianity by the original definition. ... John Tietjen (June 18, 1928-February 15, 2004) was a Lutheran clergyman, theologian, national church leader in the United States. ... The American Lutheran Church (ALC) was a Christian Protestant denomination in the United States from 1960 to 1987. ... 1982 is a number and represents a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar Events January-February January 6 - William Bonin is convicted of being the freeway killer. January 8 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions January 11 - Mark Thatcher, son of the British... 1988 is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or ELCA is a mainline Protestant denomination headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ...

Presidents/Presiding Bishops

• William Kohn (1976-84).
• Will L. Herzfeld (1984-87).

Note: The designation used for the AELC leader was initially "president," although the title was later changed to "presiding bishop."