Franklin Clark Fry - Interdenominational Work

Interdenominational Work

In 1944, Fry was elected president of the United Lutheran Church in America, one of the larger of many U.S. Lutheran denominations, which had been established in 1918 with the merger of three independent German synods. He expressed a wry ambivalence following his election, claiming that he "would much rather have a pastorate than squirt grease into ecclesiastical machinery."

Nonetheless, during his time as president, Fry became known among many church leaders as "Mr. Protestant," a moniker that captured his tireless work on behalf of greater unity among Protestant church bodies and made famous by the cover story on Fry in Time magazine. Seeing it as his mission to heal the Christian church's fragmentation into numerous splinter groups, Fry was a prime mover behind the formation of the Lutheran World Federation in 1947, the World Council of Churches in 1948, and the National Council of Churches in 1950. Among his many activities with these groups, Fry presided over the constituting convention of the National Council of Churches, and he headed the policy-making central committee of the World Council of Churches. He described the World Council as a means to "hold Christianity together, to keep the means of communication open, to keep conversation going even if there is no success in our lifetime." Fry also became president of the 72-million member Lutheran World Federation in 1957.