Lutheran Church in America
| Lutheran Church in America | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Protestant |
| Orientation | Lutheran |
| Structure | National church, middle level synods, and local congregations |
| Associations |
Lutheran World Federation Lutheran Council in the United States of America |
| Region | United States and Canada |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Origin | 1962 Detroit, Michigan |
| Merger of |
United Lutheran Church in America Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America American Evangelical Lutheran Church Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church |
| Separations | Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada (1986) |
| Merged into | Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (1988) |
| Congregations | 5,832 (1986) |
| Members | 2,896,138 (1986) |
| Ministers | 8,586 (1986) |
The Lutheran Church in America (LCA) was a U.S. and Canadian Lutheran church body that existed from 1962 to 1987. It was headquartered in New York City and its publishing house was Fortress Press.
The LCA's immigrant heritage came mostly from Germany, Sweden, Slovakia, Denmark and Finland, and its demographic focus was on the East Coast (centered on Pennsylvania), with large numbers in the Midwest and some presence in the Southern Atlantic states.
Theologically, the LCA was often considered the most liberal and ecumenical branch in American Lutheranism, although there were tendencies toward conservative pietism in some rural and small-town congregations. In church governance, the LCA was clerical and centralized, in contrast to the congregationalist or "low church" strain in American Protestant Christianity. With some notable exceptions, LCA churches tended to be more formalistically liturgical than their counterparts in the American Lutheran Church. Among the Lutheran churches in America, the LCA was thus the one that was most similar to the established Lutheran churches in Europe.
The LCA ordained the country's first female Lutheran pastor, the Rev. Elizabeth Platz, in November 1970. In 1970, a survey of 4,745 Lutheran adults by Strommen et al., found that 75% of LCA Lutherans surveyed agreed that women should be ordained, compared with 66% of ALC Lutherans and 45% of LCMS Lutherans.
It subsequently ordained the nation's first female African American Lutheran pastor (1979), first Latina Lutheran pastor (1979), and first female Asian American Lutheran pastor (1982).
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