Lutherans of the World

The Lutheran Church's estimated world membership is 81 million souls. It is third in size to the Roman Catholic Church (estimated worldwide membership, 331,500,000; Orthodox Eastern Church, 144,000,000) among all Christian denominations. Leading Lutherans have long felt that the energies of their church, now dissipated by national boundaries, could be concentrated to better effect through a worldwide federation. Such an alliance was already projected under the name of the Lutheran World Convention in 1923. Last week when the National Lutheran Council held its annual meeting in Manhattan, the work of the Lutheran World Convention was further expedited. An annual appropriation of $15,000 for three years was voted to cover the salaries and administrative expenses of the executive committee's two U. S. members. (They are six in all.)

Prime mover and President of the L. W. C. is Dr. John Alfred Morehead, 62, of Manhattan, native Virginian, onetime Lutheran pastor, onetime (1908-19) President of his alma mater, Roanoke College (Va.). He studied at Leipzig and Berlin, is well-traveled. His task of unifying Lutherans, even on paper, is calculated to require five or six years. Dr. Morehead is now the first world executive of any Protestant denomination.

Other business of the National Lutheran Council meeting included appropriating $69,000 for world service and emergency relief in 1930, and $50,000 for the encouragement, maintenance and relief of the Lutheran church in Russia and to help struggling Lutheran churches in smaller European countries. The $50,000 must also support European seminarians and foreign missionary emergency work. Dr. Gustaf Albert Brandelle of Rock Island, Ill., was re-elected President of the council for the coming year.

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