The American Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) was one of the many denominations formed when Lutherans immigrated to America. Originally known as the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (DELCA), the predominantly Danish-American church was informally known as "the Danish Church."
In 1872 Grundtvigian pastors and lay people from Denmark formed a Church Mission Society. The Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was started in 1874 and formally organized as a synod in Neenah, Wisconsin in 1878. A constitution was accepted in 1879, and the present name was adopted in 1954. In 1962 the AELC–with about 24,000 members–joined the Lutheran Church in America.
The AELC established Grand View College and Seminary in 1896.
Read more about American Evangelical Lutheran Church: Presidents
Famous quotes containing the words american, evangelical and/or church:
“The Americans are violently oral.... That’s why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all—isn’t respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“It is an evil world. The fires of hatred and violence burn fiercely. Evil is powerful, the devil covers a darkened earth with his black wings. And soon the end of the world is expected. But mankind does not repent, the church struggles, and the preachers and poets warn and lament in vain.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)