wfn.org | Sewanee professor embodies Lutheran

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org]

June 6, 1997
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

97-1786
Sewanee professor embodies Lutheran-Episcopal Concordat

by Emily McDonald
   (ENS) Don Armentrout considers himself a natural to explain and
support the proposed Concordat of Agreement between the Episcopal
Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA).
   Armentrout is an ordained Lutheran minister who has lived, worked
and thrived in an Episcopal setting for 30 years. He has been a professor
of church history at the School of Theology at the University of the
South since 1967 and is equally at home discussing Martin Luther's 95
Theses or the role of Elizabeth I in the establishment of the Anglican
Church.
   Armentrout's interest in the Concordat, however, has been from the
standpoint of an observer and advocate rather than as a participant in the
process of putting the document together.
   "I come in at a level of being unscathed and uninvolved, and I can
support it honestly and openly without feeling like it was my baby," said
Armentrout, who is confident the Concordat will be passed by the
conventions of both denominations this summer.
   A frequent speaker in Episcopal parishes and at various Episcopal
gatherings and events, Armentrout said that he found his predominantly
Episcopal audiences "about 99 percent positive" on the Concordat, with
more resistance evident in Lutheran audiences.
   In general, "lay people both understand and support it," he observed.
"Their major concern is why weren't they told about it sooner."
   Despite his confidence in the final outcome, he acknowledged that "it
may be harder to pass in the ELCA Churchwide Assembly simply
because it requires a two-third vote. The Episcopal General Convention
requires only a majority."
   
Strong Lutheran background
   Armentrout's Lutheran roots are embedded in his German Lutheran
ancestry and were nurtured in a Lutheran home and church in
Harrisonburg, Virginia, and at Lutheran Theological Seminary in
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His vast store of knowledge about the
Episcopal Church, however, was learned on-the-job at the School of
Theology.
   "I had to read really fast to catch up on the Episcopal Church history
and Anglicanism," he said. "I really had to take hold of it on my own."
   Armentrout was nearing the end of his last year of doctoral study at
Vanderbilt University and didn't have a job lined up when Dean George
Alexander of the School of Theology approached him about the
possibility of teaching church history for a year. Church history was his
first love, and he was sure he wanted to teach rather than go into parish
ministry.
   "I was lucky to get a job," Armentrout said. "Church history
teachers with Ph.Ds were a dime a dozen."
   He and his wife, Sue, who works in the university library, went to
Sewanee intending to stay a year but never left.
   "I don't think I would have been asked to stay if I was a Baptist,"
Armentrout said with a grin, "but because I was a Lutheran there was no
reason not to ask me." Today he is one of three non-Episcopalians on the
11-member faculty.
   "I have been treated here as a fully ordained person," he said of
Sewanee. "The only thing I cannot do is preside at an Episcopal
Eucharist. When the Concordat passes, I can."

A full academic career
   Armentrout has held other positions in addition to his teaching
duties, and he has written extensively on American church history,
including many articles on Episcopal topics. His office is lined with
books from floor to ceiling, many of them accessible only by a ladder.
Stickers, photographs and posters are attached to almost every available
surface.
   Armentrout's current writing project is A Concise Encyclopedia of
the Episcopal Church that will contain over 3,000 entries. The book is
co-authored by the Rev. Dr. Robert Slocum of Marquette University and
is to be published by the Church Hymnal Corporation. It will be the first
such publication for the Episcopal Church.
   Right now, however, the Concordat is keeping Armentrout busy with
speaking engagements, primarily at diocesan conventions. He is quick to
point out that the Concordat won't bring a merger between the two
denominations but rather full communion. And he offers a personal as
well as a professional perspective on how Lutherans and Episcopalians
can enjoy that communion without giving up their identities, calling it
"the most natural development on the ecumenical scene over the past
three decades."
   Offering his own example, he noted that "I have been doing much of
what the Concordat anticipates after being here at the School of Theology
for 30 years. It is easy for me as a Lutheran to live in a very strong
Episcopal place."
   Two of his children are Episcopalians and he was ordained at Otey
Memorial Episcopal Church in Sewanee. He generally attends services at
Otey rather than at Trinity Lutheran Church in Tullahoma, where he is a
member. 
   "It made good sense to me," he said. "When there's not a local
church, the logical place for a Lutheran to go is an Episcopal Church."
   In more and more places, he observed, those natural affinities are
being institutionalized.
   "The Lutheran synod in Kentucky and Indiana has pledged to give
$75,000 over the next three years to establish an Episcopal church," he
said. "The point is there won't be a Lutheran church there because
there's no need for a Lutheran Church there."
   With the enhanced ties, he noted, "the Episcopal Church could make
the Lutherans more deeply aware of social issues. We, Lutherans, could
make you possibly more doctrinally focused."

--Emily McDonald is editor of the East Tennessee Episcopalian, the
newspaper of the Diocese of East Tennessee. Sarah Moore, director of
church communication for the University of the South at Sewanee,
contributed to this article.