As we are all aware, in 2017 we celebrated the five-hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, and 2018 was the hundredth anniversary of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod. In 1918 at Lime Creek, the Norwegian Synod was reorganized as The Norwegian Synod of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church, which in 1958 was changed to the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS). 2018 was also the twenty-fifth anniversary of our world-wide fellowship, the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference (CELC). Here we express fellowship with like-minded Christians from around the world.
The constituting convention of the CELC took place April 27–29, 1993, at Oberwesel, Germany, a beautiful site overlooking the Rhine River. On the trip along the Rhine to Oberwesel, thoughts were not centered on Heine’s Die Lorelei, the castle ruins, the vineyards, or the beauty of the Rhine Valley but on far more important things. We were travelling to Oberwesel to establish an international organization which would unite confessional and orthodox Lutherans throughout the world.
We in the ELS were only a small church body by human standards, a remnant of Norwegian mergers in 1917. In 1918, the synod men had hearts of oak in the tradition of the oaks of Koshkonong, establishing a reorganization. We were sarcastically called the plucked chicken, but the healthy chicken began to grow feathers. We experienced the devastation of the demise of the Synodical Conference and its aftermath in the 1950s and 1960s. We were gathering remnants of confessional congregations in various places in the Midwest and elsewhere in the States, but what could be done to reach out to confessional groups in other lands? There were many lonely Lutherans spread across the globe. Yet there were men of vision in our midst, such as the Rev. Edgar Hoenecke, who called for a worldwide Lutheran fellowship already in the late 1960s.
Many people advocated such an international organization over the years and did much to bring it to fruition. However, three names stand out as individuals who worked to promote such an organization and make it a reality: Pres. Gerhard Wilde of the Evangelisch-Lutherische Freikirche (ELFK), Pres. George Orvick of the ELS, and Prof. Wilbert Gawrisch of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). Pres. Wilde emphasized again and again the need for such a fellowship for lonely Lutherans throughout the world. He had experienced that loneliness in his own country during Soviet times and later when his church body struggled to maintain its confessional stand. Pres. Orvick expended considerable effort throughout his presidency to make contact with confessional Lutherans in the United States and around the globe who were in need of a new confessional home. Prof. Gawrisch worked tirelessly for this organization. He put in more time and effort than anyone else to organize, promote, and establish such an international synodical conference.
We experienced some amazingly heady days in the spring of 1993. We in the ELS were mainly a rural Midwestern synod and now, on the twenty-seventh of April in Germany, the cradle of Lutheranism, we were establishing an organization including church bodies from Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The CELC has continued to reflect its international outlook with conventions in Puerto Rico, Sweden, Japan, Ukraine, and Peru. In 2017 the ninth triennial convention of the CELC commemorating the five-hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation took place in the German heartland of Lutheranism, and the 2020 convention will be held in Korea. The members of the CELC have now reached thirty-two orthodox Lutheran church bodies worldwide.
The Proceedings and the essays from all of the conventions are found on the CELC website (www.celc.info). The Theological Commission continues to produce The Eternal Word: A Lutheran Confession for the Twenty-First Century. Article I is a study of the doctrine of Holy Scripture, Article II of the doctrine of justification, Article III of the work of the Holy Spirit, Article IV of the person and work of Christ, Article V of the doctrine of eschatology, Article VI of the church’s mission, and Article VII on the doctrine of the church. These statements also may be found on the CELC website.
The CELC was established as the spiritual heir of the Synodical Conference and it is definitely fulfilling its purpose. The purpose of the CELC has been to preserve the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions in our midst and to proclaim the message of salvation in Christ throughout the world. The CELC has done this through mutual encouragement and strengthening of the member churches. Hearing brothers from across the seas confess the same doctrine and proclaim the same Gospel that we do in southern Minnesota is a wonderful encouragement and blessing. Having had the privilege of being able to attend every convention of the CELC since its establishment, I have seen firsthand the mutual consolation of brethren and strengthening that is the result of this gathering of orthodox and confessional Lutherans. Because of this international organization, I can count among my personal friends men and women from nearly every continent.
The CELC stands ready to give answer to the confident hope of salvation in Christ that is within us. It is a refuge for those seeking confessional homes and a beacon shining the light of the Gospel in a sin-darkened world. Here the central truth of the Reformation, justification by faith alone, continues to be proclaimed. We are declared righteous by nothing we do or accomplish, but alone on the basis of Christ’s redemptive work which is counted as ours through faith in the Savior. He accomplished salvation for all on the cross and announced it to all by His resurrection, declaring the whole world righteous in Christ. This treasure is brought to us personally through the means of grace and is received by faith alone in the Savior which is worked through those very means of grace.
We are filled with gratitude and thankfulness to the Lord for all the blessings He has bestowed on us through the CELC. Here He has preserved His Word in its truth and purity and His sacraments rightly administered, providing a refuge for lonely Lutherans in an ever more secularized world. On this, the hundredth anniversary of the ELS and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the CELC, we pray that as He has been our refuge and strength in the past, He would continue to be with us in the future through Word and Sacrament.
–Gaylin R. Schmeling
