in Norwegian-American Lutheran Churches
Norwegians immigrants began arriving in the Midwest
in the 1830s. Already by 1853
they had established three Lutheran synods, not because of church doctrine,
but primarily on account of disagreements about the style of their worship
services, the governance of their congregations and how the church members
should conduct their lives.
However, in the 1870s a doctrinal controversy developed in the German
Missouri Synod concerning predestination that first spread to the
high-church Norwegian Synod and which eventually agitated much of American
Lutheranism. This class
discusses the predestination controversy of the 1880s, how it split many
Norwegian Lutheran congregations and what effect this often bitter
controversy had in many communities, - even well into the 20th
century.
Verlyn D. Anderson was born in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and grew up in rural Minnesota. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota and did his post graduate studies at the University of Minnesota where he received two master’s degrees, - one in English and another in library science, and his Ph.D. in American studies. His dissertation was a study of the history and acculturation of the English language hymnals of the Norwegian American Lutheran synods. He taught English and Latin in the Hawley (MN) and Waconia (MN) Public Schools before returning to Concordia College in 1962 where he spent the next 36 years on the faculty as Director of the college library and professor of history and Scandinavian studies.
He has been active in numerous organizations, societies and institutions, both in the United States and Norway that promote the knowledge and appreciation of Norwegian culture, language and history. These include the Hadeland Lag of America and that lag’s significant “Hadeland Immigrant Identification Project,” the Western Norway Emigration Center in Sletta, Norway, the Norwegian American Genealogical Center and Naeseth Library, Madison, Wisconsin, Skogfjorden, Concordia College Norwegian Language Village, Bemidji, Minnesota and others. During two semesters, he was a visiting professor at the Hedmark College in Hamar, Norway and has served as a lecturer on many Smithsonian Museum sponsored Study Tours of Scandinavia and the Baltic. His publications include genealogy and Norwegian immigrant studies.