The Dream of a Free Lutheranism

Historians studying immigrant religion in America don’t generally spend a lot of time on Norwegian Lutherans. We’re a fairly small group, after all. But if you’re rash enough to “drill down,” as they say, you’ll encounter a welter and confusion of tiny Lutheran church bodies that split off and recombine like some protean monster out of a Lovecraft story. A book on Norwegian Lutheranism in America will generally contain a chart resembling some OCD attempt to organize a can of worms. (Don’t worry, I won’t include one here. I’m concentrating on one church body—the Lutheran Free Church (LFC)—and the broad brush is my tool of choice.)