Episcopal Press and News
Chilstrom Elected to Head ELCA
Episcopal News Service. May 7, 1987 [87105]
COLUMBUS, Ohio (DPS, May 7) -- In electing Herbert W. Chilstrom of the Lutheran Church in America to head the newly formed Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, that Church has chosen a man who has lived with Lutheran merger on the home front -- his wife, Corinne, is an ordained pastor in the American Lutheran Church. The third group involved in the merger was the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.
The 55-year-old Minnesota native was elected on the ninth ballot of the Constituting Convention, held at Ohio Center here, April 30-May 3, by a vote of 626 to 411 over Presiding Bishop David Preus of the American Lutheran Church. The first ballot saw 67 people nominated, including two women, one of whom, Pastor Barbara Lundblad of New York City, ran an unexpectedly strong fourth.
Within his own Minnesota Synod, Chilstrom has a reputation for openness and being a reconciler, and indeed, he played a similar role as a bridge-builder on the 70-member Commission for a New Lutheran Church, which was formed as a result of 1982 resolutions by the three merging bodies to work toward union. In a press conference following his election, Chilstrom said his greatest challenge now is to bring the new church "into some sense of unity."
According to Lutheran sources, Chilstrom was raised in the "high-church" and somewhat pietistic background of the mostly Swedish Augustana Lutheran Church, which merged with the United Lutheran Church in America to form the LCA in 1962. Referring to his background at the press conference, he stressed his belief in the value of both sacramental and personal testimony. He also noted that the Lutheran Church has a history of ethnicity but that this is changing. In his acceptance speech, he referred to the "well-ordered German and stolid Scandinavian" stock and said he had learned much from the "inclusive" emphasis in the ELCA. He then addressed three questions to the black, Hispanic and other minority delegates: "Will you pray for us?," "Will you pray for other elected officials [of the new church]?" and "Will you pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit?" All three got a resounding "yes!" from the delegates.
An area in which Chilstrom, who has been a bishop for 11 years, confessed some lack of experience was in wider ecumenical dialogue. He does, however, support dialogue, which he believes works best when groups share while maintaining their individual identities. The bishop drew chuckles from his hearers with the statement, "Jesus didn't command us to go and make Lutherans of all nations."
Chilstrom also spoke of the importance of his family life and mentioned his and Corinne's three adopted children, one of whom, Andrew, committed suicide at age 18 in 1984. Of that tragedy, Chilstrom said, "We found that the theology we had been living with was valid. Whatever mistakes we made, we are living under grace."