wfn.org | Anderson Closes His Tenure as ELCA Presiding Bishop

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

October 31, 2001

ANDERSON CLOSES HIS TENURE AS ELCA PRESIDING BISHOP
01-274-FI

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- In 1517, Oct. 31 was the day Martin Luther
posted 95 theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany,
launching what became the Protestant Reformation.  In 2001, it is the
Rev. H. George Anderson's last day as presiding bishop of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the world's second
largest Lutheran church body.
     A scholar of Lutheran history, Anderson was president of Luther
College, Decorah, Iowa, when he was elected to a six-year term as
presiding bishop on Aug. 19, 1995, during the ELCA's fourth Churchwide
Assembly in Minneapolis.
     "It's gone very quickly," Anderson said in an interview.  "I
remember when I began, I thought, 'Six years is such a long time.  Will
I last?  Will I be healthy at the end of it?'"
     "There's always been something to do, always a new challenge or a
new question.  New opportunities come up, and the days just have flown
by," he said.
     "There's lots of uncertainty about the future.  It was that way
when I began, and it's still that way as I finish my time," said
Anderson.  "It's always been a matter of trying to ask God, 'What in the
world should we be doing next, and how should we proceed?'"
     Anderson described the past six years as a deeply spiritual
experience.  "I have understood how little any one person is able to do
and how fully it's the work of the whole church that makes the decisions
and gets the work done," he said.  "It's been the Holy Spirit -- God
working throughout the whole church -- that's made this time so
exciting."
     Poverty was a focal point for Anderson.  "We, as a church, could
be more fully God's church if we took people living in poverty seriously
instead of simply seeing them as an object of charity," he said.
     "I would like to see us as a church that's known not simply for
our great liturgy and our wonderful theology but as a church that's
known as 'the church that works with the poor,'" he said.
     Anderson said he was confident his successor, the Rev. Mark S.
Hanson, will continue that cause.  "There is a strong, clear emphasis in
his speaking that he too sees that as an important objective," he said.
In August the ELCA Churchwide Assembly elected Hanson to six-year term
as presiding bishop beginning Nov. 1.
     Formerly Lutheran co-chair of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue
in the United States, Anderson undertook the ELCA's ecumenical agenda.
"The church had decided earlier in the '90s that in the later '90s they
would be making decisions on full communion," he said.
     The ELCA approved relationships of full communion with the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and United
Church of Christ in 1997.  In 1999 it entered into full communion with
the Moravian Church in America.  Full communion with The Episcopal
Church, USA, went into effect this year.
     The ELCA's 1997 Churchwide Assembly approved the "Joint
Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," an international
Lutheran-Catholic statement that condemnations of the two traditions in
the 16th century do not apply to their current teachings about the grace
of God.  As a vice president of the Lutheran World Federation, Anderson
was one of the declaration's signers Oct. 31, 1999, in Augsburg,
Germany.
     The ecumenical agreements illustrated a "profound" change in the
ELCA's perception of itself, Anderson said.   "We now see ourselves more
as a part of a global Lutheran family and as a part of a wider Christian
family," he said.
     Anderson credited the ELCA's "companion synod program" with
developing the church's "interest in what other Lutherans are doing
around the world."  The program establishes relationships between the 65
synods of the ELCA other Lutheran synods or churches outside the United
States.
     The companions have an opportunity to compare programs and
determine which are more effective, said Anderson.  "We can begin to
learn from them and see ourselves as not simply the giving church -- the
mother church that is sending money to these groups overseas -- but now
able to receive from them," he said.
     The program's opportunity for international visits has also been
important, Anderson said.  "People's lives are changed, and they have a
vastly greater respect for Lutherans overseas and what they have to
offer us," he said.
     U.S. Lutherans have also taken an interest in "working together
with other Christian bodies here," said Anderson.  Full communion has
brought congregations of the various church bodies closer together, he
said, and it has brought the churches together at a national level.
"We're interested in some of the same issues -- from copyrights and how
we can make it easier for congregations to deal with this 'jungle'
today, to matters of strategies on interfaith work and international
work with Islam, for example," Anderson said.
     The historian recognized that he would lead the ELCA from the 20th
century into a new millennium.  "I wanted to find out where could we put
some energy that would start the ball rolling and get us ready to be a
truly effective church both in Word and Sacrament ministry and in the
care of people for the next century," said Anderson.  The church
developed seven "Initiatives for a New Century" -- significant areas of
ministry "that we needed to work on," he said.
     The Initiatives explored "the life of the church in its worship
and its teaching -- the basics of our faith," said Anderson.  They were
also reaching out "to children, youth and young adults and looking at
the area of leadership in the church," he said.
     "We learned some very important things.  We tested some programs,"
said Anderson.  "Those kinds of experimental programs have paid off, and
many of them now are incorporated into the life of the church."
     Anderson pointed toward "Called to Discipleship," which was to be
a one-year emphasis on the basics of the Christian faith.  "Now we've
got a full-blown program working in congregations," he said, because
many congregations found the focus on prayer, worship, study and
invitation to be valuable.
     Born March 10, 1932, in Los Angeles, Anderson was adopted by
Reuben and Frances Anderson.  On the day he was elected presiding bishop
Anderson compared that adoption with the unconditional love of God.
"Adoption by those parents and adoption as a child of God has been a
gift with me all my life," he said, "a feeling of being appreciated and
valued by someone."
     A 1953 graduate of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., Anderson
earned his bachelor of divinity degree from the Lutheran Theological
Seminary at Philadelphia (LTSP) and was ordained in 1956 in the former
United Lutheran Church in America.  He earned master's degrees from the
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and LTSP.  He earned a
doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962.
     Anderson was a teaching fellow at LTSP for two years and joined
the faculty of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S.C.,
in 1958.  In 1970 he was named president of Southern Seminary -- the
position he held until 1982, when he became president of Luther College.
     In 1978, while president of Southern Seminary, Anderson was the
leading candidate to become president of the former Lutheran Church in
America.  He withdrew his name from consideration, saying he could not
"visualize" himself as head of the church.
     Personal tragedy marked the next four years of Anderson's life.
His wife was diagnosed with and then died of cancer.  The parents who
adopted him died within 10 weeks of each other.
     Anderson assumed the role of a single parent to two teenagers at
the same time that he assumed the role of Luther College president.  He
said he found comfort in the grace of God through Decorah Lutheran
Church and the college chapel.
     Anderson renewed a friendship with Jutta Fischer, a former student
at Southern Seminary.  They were married in 1983, and Anderson adopted
her two children.
     Family is Anderson's focal point in retirement.  "People say, in
retirement, that they're going to travel.  I've done enough traveling
for a while, so my first goal in retirement is not to travel very much,"
he said.
     "We have a new grandchild due any day now.  I've got two
grandchildren already that I'd like to see more of.  So, I think our
life is going to be centered on picking up those family interests," said
Anderson.
     Another interest is to restore "some of the intellectual capital
that I think I've spent in the last few years," he said.  "I have
accumulated books that I've wanted to read and haven't had time to
read."
     The ELCA has 5.13 million members across the United States and
Caribbean.  The only larger Lutheran church body is the Church of Sweden
with 7.4 million members.  The Lutheran World Federation is a global
communion of 133 member churches in 73 countries representing 60.2
million of the world's nearly 64 million Lutherans.
-- -- --
     Photos and other information about the Rev. H. George Anderson are
available at http://www.elca.org/ob/Anderson.html on the ELCA Web site.

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