Lutheran Free Church
The Lutheran Free Church (LFC) was a Lutheran denomination that existed in the United States, mainly in Minnesota and North Dakota, from 1897 until its merger into the American Lutheran Church (ALC) in 1963. The history of the church body predates its official organization, and a group of congregations that did not join the ALC formed the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations.
Georg Sverdrup and Sven Oftedal were two scholars from prominent Haugean families in Norway who came to Augsburg Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to teach in the 1870s, bringing with them a radical view of Christian education that was centered on Scripture and the simple doctrines of Christianity. The Haugean movement took its name from Norwegian lay evangelist Hans Nielsen Hauge who spoke up against the Church establishment in Norway. Sverdrup and Oftedal had been concerned about hierarchy within the Christian church as well as the study of the Bible. They believed that, according to the New Testament, the local congregation was the correct form of God's kingdom on earth. Their vision was for a church that promoted a “living” Christianity, emphasized an evangelism that would result in changed lives, and enabled the church member to exercise his/her spiritual gifts.
Augsburg was the seminary of the Conference of the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America In 1890, the "Conference" joined with two other Lutheran church bodies to form the United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (UNLC).
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