As part of its continuing effort to document and share the history of Lutherans in our region, the Lutheran Historical Society of the Mid-Atlantic is offering Congregational Heritage Day on Saturday, September 28, in Valentine Hall at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg. Registration will begin at 9:00 a.m. and there is a $25 registration fee. Church secretaries, amateur historians, people interested in genealogical records, and congregations planning to use archival materials for important congregational anniversary celebrations will want to attend.
One purpose of the event is to help congrega- tions identify and use archives. Archival materials answer the "who, what, where, when, and why" questions of congregations (ELCA's "A Brief Guide for Archives of Congregations"). They represent the "collective memory of an organization," and are as common as a letter, pictures of a congregational event, or Sunday School material. At the very least they include minutes of council meetings and reports of committees. That is why church secretaries are so important for the preservations of congregational histories. The value of archives is recognized when someone in the congregation starts to write a congregational history or the church decides to celebrate an important anniversary. Participants will learn about the collection, care, and use of these materials that are critical for preserving the history of our Lutheran life together.
Congregational Heritage Day will begin with a plenary session featuring Sharron Reissinger Lucas, Project Coordinator of the Seminary Ridge Historic Foundation. Her talk is entitled, "Not Your Ordinary Pickle: Preserving an Institution's Legacy and Stories." Ms. Lucas is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, a professional in institutional advancement, public relations and education, and a current Master of Divinity middler at Gettysburg Seminary. She will relate historic preser- vation to the church's mission and will engage, energize, and encourage individuals working in congregational record preservation.
Following the plenary session, workshops will run concurrently in two one- hour sessions. Registrants may choose two of the following five workshops:

1. Organizing Archival Material: How shall we organize our archives? What should we save? How do we find it again? Leader: Pamela Whitenack, Director of Hershey Community Archives, Hershey, PA

2. Preserving Historical Materials: How do we keep this book together? How do we protect it from staining and fading? Leader: Carolyn Sung, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

3. Genealogy: How can we find our founding members? How did they get here? Leader: Woody Crist, ELCA Region 8 Archivist, Adams County Historical Society

4. Writing History, Oral History Research: How do we write? What should we ask? What should we include? Leader: Dr. Donald Housley, Professor of History, Susquehanna University

5. Celebrating Congregational Anniversaries: Let's celebrate! But how do we prepare? Leader: Rev. Kurt Strause, Pastor, Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Lancaster The day will conclude with a catered lunch during which Ms. Leslie Hobbs will bring greetings from the Seminary at Gettysburg and speak of its history and future. Bishop H. George Anderson defined Lutherans in 1996, "We are a people who are both remem- bering and reforming" ("Just Who Are Lutherans?" The Lutheran, 1996). In order to remember we must preserve our "collective memories" and celebrate our past. Please join us and tell your friends about this September 28th event where you can acquire valued analytical and archival skills from professional archivists, librarians, scholars, pastors, and administrators. Benefit preservation, proclamation, and celebration within your congregation and beyond!

RESERVATION: Return the registration form on page seven with a $25 check by Friday, September 20, to: David Hedrick, 238 Hoffman Road, Gettysburg, PA 17325. The registration fee includes a continental breakfast, the program, the choice of two workshops, and lunch.

Susquehanna University: An "American and Lutheran" College

The Missionary Institute founded in 1858 was the forerunner of Susquehanna University. Its charter made a claim to be "An American and Lutheran College," words that were also used in the motion by which the Institute was transformed into a college in 1894. They suggest how important College - Church relation- ships have been in the nearly 150 years of the institution's history.
From its founding as the Missionary Institute, Susquehanna University had a marginal status in Lutheran circles. Its founder, Benjamin Kurtz, was a pioneer in church building, working in the middle period of American history with Samuel S. Schmucker and others to establish a seminary and college at Gettysburg, the General Synod, Lutherville Female Seminary, the Parent Education Society, and other bodies of the infant Lutheran Church, all carrying the perspective of "American Lutherans." In the late 1840's this perspective was challenged and conquered among Lutherans by an influx of Confessional Lutherans from Germany and the transition of young, native-born Lutheran clergy to orthodoxy. Kurtz founded the Missionary Institute to sustain the methods of American Lutherans, serving poorer converts and appealing directly to Lutherans predominately from rural and poorer areas of the East. The opprobrium Benjamin Kurtz acquired among orthodox Lutherans in the 19th Century coupled with the poverty of the Institute's natural constituency made it a marginal institution among Lutherans.
Still, the college and the church have sustained a relationship since 1858. This relationship has been formal, in the form of institutional ties, and informal, in the form of shared social and cultural values. Legal ties have been formed solely at the will and whim of the college. Susquehanna has from its beginning been a free standing institution. The initial Charter or Constitution called for 26 members of the Board who were Lutheran, half lay and half clerical, and required that faculty members accept the doctrinal peculiarities of American Lutheranism. These conditions have been adjusted over the years, at the instigation of the college, often in consultation with officers of the church. Until 1971, the President had to be a Lutheran pastor, and until 1983, a member of a Lutheran Church. Until 1971, faculty had to be communing members of a Christian Church.
Synods have sent representatives to the Board since 1921 and almost since the beginning of the Institute included the college among the recipients of their benevolence. For the first century of the college's life, the Lutheran Church was the chief source for development money, as "Field Secretaries," often Lutheran ministers, plowed the fields of parish charity on behalf of the school.
Legal and financial ties between the college and the church were important, but the most telling ties between the two were social and cultural. Until World War II, the majority of Susquehanna's students were Lutheran (in the 1970's Catholic students became a plurality of the student body). These young people had a seamless social and cultural transition from home, to college to postgraduate adulthood. Some of this transition was facilitated by the pervasiveness of in loco parentis, the practice by which colleges imposed parental-like rules aimed mostly at women, but stemming from social and cultural affinity between the socio-cultural life on the campus at Selinsgrove and the values and behavioral expectations of the average Lutheran or Protestant parish.
Thus, at Susquehanna, a student would experience sit-down meals begun with grace, Sunday vespers led often by fraternity members, and morning classes broken by chapel services that were required of students and faculty, as was Sunday worship. The mother-church of the college, Trinity Lutheran in Selinsgrove, had a section set aside for college students and many of its Sunday School teachers were members of the faculty. Until 1935, the dominant clubs on the campus were the YMCA and the YWCA, and when they merged in 1935 to form the Student Christian Association, that organization became the dominant club on the campus. The Susquehanna, the student newspaper, rarely was without an article giving a religious slant on current events either on or off the campus.
Presidential rhetoric was the most elementary expression of affinity between the social and cultural life of the college and the church. A good example comes from the voice of G. Morris Smith who had the longest term of any Susquehanna President, 1928-1958. Worrying about the effect of the "vets" in 1946, Smith told the Board: "The opportunity presented at Susquehanna is to rebuild in students the desire for a truly Christian life; the hazard we face is that unless the administration and faculty are genuinely convinced of the necessity of living by Christian standards in all their ways, the college will soon become secularized and differ little or none from institutions of governmental or secular foundation.
This would rob the institution of its original purpose and give it little reason to exist."
So for more than a century, Susquehanna's history could easily be told with reference to the Church, as the two institutions were socially and culturally complementary. This ended in the 1960's through a profound on-campus cultural conflict, pitting administrators and older faculty members against students and younger faculty members.
The flashpoint of this conflict was compulsory chapel, an ancient tradition in American higher education, but at bottom it was about values and behaviors. Students and younger faculty wanted freedom of life and inquiry in a campus setting focused not on instilling Christian character, but solely on the intellectual and emotional maturation of young people. After five years of local battle, in 1969 the dust cleared, and the Christian college culture of over a century was thrown, somewhat unceremoniously, into the dust-bin of history. The remnant of the Church- college relationship centered around a Chaplain which Susquehanna acquired in 1964 (when the whole campus is a chapel, no chaplain is needed), a Chapel Council, Committees of Religious Life and Religious Interest. Diversity was evident in the Catholic Campus Ministry and Hillel.
What caused this change? Some scholars think schools like Susquehanna have become "secular," that is no longer sharing old-time social and cultural ties to the Church, due to the weakness or ineptitude of faculty and staff at the colleges. This argument neglects the power of social and cultural currents working on both institutions, loosening them from ancient moorings and connections.
Susquehanna University suddenly faced the brunt of such forces in the 1960's. Then baby boomers flooded colleges, taking advantage of new opportunities and responding to expectations of emergent economic structures. At Susquehanna, the easy assurance that the majority of students would come from Lutheran homes and all the faculty would be communicant members of a Christian Church ended. Educational psychology, vocational preparation and intellectual liberalism created a new culture of expectations that rubbed against and eventually conquered the traditions of a Christian college culture. Now an education meant more than refining cultural values and behaviors, more than instilling Christian culture.
Just as these forces induced change at Susquehanna University, more change faced the Lutheran Church in America. During the 1960's, the central place mainline Protestant churches, such as the Lutheran Church, had in American life eroded. The larger culture continued to be religious but found less and less satisfaction in these inherited institutions. Ethnic diversity, extraor- dinary individualism and even narcissism, dimin- ished the influence of organized religion and enhanced the fortunes of "niche churches." Although the Central Pennsylvania Synod of the LCA worked hard to sustain its contribution to the college through the 1970's and Susquehanna's adminis- tration worked to keep institutional ties alive, the distance of time indicates that both college and church had to succor their own wounds, worry for their own future, in a society whose values and behavioral expectations had altered. Now, the institu- tional channels created after the cultural revolution of the 1960's sustained the relationships between the college and the Lutheran Church.
What's does the evolving character of these college- Church relationships reveal about the history of Susquehanna University? The institution was founded to fulfill specific social and culture purposes. These altered over time in tune with changes in the larger society and culture. Adapting to the forces of change made Susquehanna University a vital institution. The will and commitments of Board members, administrators, and faculty influenced the direction of the college in significant ways but have been less crucial than what young people expect of their college experience, expectations significantly shaped by larger social, cultural and economic realities in America.

Donald D. Housley Degenstein, Professor of History, Susquehanna University

Comments based on book tentatively entitled, A Goodly Heritage: Mission and Market at Susquehanna University, 1858-1985.

Members Study Union Churches And Approve Constitution at Annual Meeting

The discussion of Union Churches at the Annual Meeting on April 21 was both informative and entertaining. In the comfortable setting of the remodeled Valentine Hall at Gettysburg Seminary, Dr. Charles Glatfelter presented an overview of the history and operation of Union Churches from l738 when the first Union Church was formed in Montgomery County to the present. It is a tale that reflects the changing shape of the church in America. Dr. Glatfelter defined a Union Church as "one in which separate Lutheran and Reformed congregations jointly own church property, land and buildings and share the upkeep according to the terms of an agreement, either written or oral, some of which were made 200 years ago." He described why these congregations appeared, how they operated and their relationship to the synods in which they appeared. He views the Union Church as a peculiarly American institution, the "response of Lutherans and Reforms in America to a problem they experienced in America." These problems included, but were not limited to, small financial resources, lack of clergy and isolation of the congregations on the American frontier.
Since the status of the Union Church was tied to the American environment, it should not be surprising that its development shifted as the American context changed. For instance, the greatest growth of Union Churches took place between 1738 and 1800. In Pennsylvania, 126 Lutheran and 123 Reformed churches were founded by 1776, of which 156 were Union Churches. However, between 1800 and 1899 only 29 Union Churches were founded and most of these were by people in rural areas who had had experience with Union Churches and preferred them to separate churches. In the twentieth century no Union Churches were formed and in fact they began to decline. A large factor in their declension was the lack of support for these churches from their sponsoring church bodies. Early in the nineteenth century there was some discussion for an ecumenical alliance between Lutherans and Reformed with regard to training clergy, but this initiative never captured much support. Instead the denominations established separate institutions which made support of Union Churches both difficult to understand and difficult to staff. After World War II the sponsoring bodies increased their efforts to separate Union Churches into one or the other denomination. The result is that today out of an original 400 churches fewer than forty remain. Dr. Glatfelter, himself a product of these two great traditions, is preserving this history for future generations who may learn from it how to construct ecumenical alliances for a new age.
Dr. Glatfelter's presentation was followed by the more immediate history of Union Churches in Pennsylvania. Bishop Guy Edmiston, recently retired from the Lower Susquehanna Synod of the ELCA, and The Rev. William R. Swisher, Jr., also recently retired Area Minister for the Upper Susquehanna Conference of the UCC, related with great humor and sympathy the recent history of Union Churches in their regions. Of the two, Pastor Swisher has the greater number of Union Churches in his territory. None of these churches are typical since each has its own peculiar history, but a most auspicious example is Himmels, a "really wonderful 1950's congregation." Members of the church know to which congregation they belong, but they amicably decide issues as varied as hymnals (they chose neither a Lutheran nor UCC text, but a Methodist) to cemetery care. Swisher and Edmiston both described the difficulty of administering a union setting. In one case, a Union Church wanted to change its worship hours, which would affect the worship of twenty-six other churches that were in related charges! Bishop Edmiston spoke movingly about the ultimate union of these congregations in their jointly owned cemeteries. Much history of these churches can be discovered merely through visiting their graveyards. Each of these presentations gave those present much to consider and many questions to pursue. In the final session of the day, the membership approved the revised constitution of the LHS, now the LHS/MA. Pastor Kurt Strause, board member and chair of the Constitution Committee, explained how the new and document would simplify and clarify the work of the Society in the future. The membership was also encouraged to visit the web site of the LHS/MA (abs.net/~lhs) to keep abreast of the business of the Society. Thanks is extended to Susan Hill and to her Program Committee and to Kurt Strause and his committee for making this day such a success.

Two Archives Centers serve Region 8

The area of Region 8 of the ELCA is fortunate to be served by two Archives centers. One is located at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg and serves the Synods of Delaware - Maryland, Washington DC, Upper and Lower Susquehanna, and Allegheny.
The other, known as the Tri-Synod Archives Center, is located at Thiel College in Greenville, PA. This Center serves the Synods of West Virginia-Western Maryland, North- western, and Southwestern Pennsylvania, and also includes records from some congregations in New York and Ohio.
The Tri-Synod Archives is the institutional descendant of an archives proposed by the pastors of the Pittsburgh Synod as early as 1858. By 1880, the archives had been established and located at Thiel College. The archives were consolidated under the Western Pennsylvania-West Virginia Synod in 1962, and were operated by that Synod until the formation of the ELCA in 1988. With the division of the predecessor Synod into three successor synods, the management of the Archives Center and its funding became more diverse and more complicated.
Under a restructuring of the agreements related to the Archives in the middle 1990's, policies were clarified, relationships were formalized and reaffirmed between the three Synods and Thiel College, and operating policies were re-defined and established. A managing Board made up of equal representation from the three Synods was established, and an endowment was set- up to help with ongoing funding issues and supplement the annual funding supplied by the three constituent Synods.
The Tri - Synod Archives Center holds over 7,000 feet of records pertaining to congregations, synods, and individuals from Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and adjacent areas of Ohio and New York. The earliest records date to the 1700's. Records are in print, magnetic, and photographic media. The Center also includes a small collection of genealogical materials and artifacts from defunct congregations. The Tri - Synod Archives is the only Archives of the ELCA located within the Appalachian region. In 1999, the Tri-Synod Archives Center was named as the official repository of records related to LCA and ELCA Appalachian ministry and mission by the Evangelical Lutheran Coalition for Mission in Appalachia (ELCMA).
Archivist Sarah (Sally) Fox Roth staffs the Tri-Synod Archives Center. The Center recently relocated to a new and larger home in the basement of the Passavant Center at Thiel College in Greenville, PA. The Center is staffed Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon, and is also open to researchers by appointment. The Center is available to genealogical researchers during regular operating hours. Genealogical research is performed on a limited basis for a nominal fee. The Tri-Synod Archives welcomes donations of materials from congregations and individuals from its catchment area, but reserves the right to disperse excess materials that are received in multiple copies. The Archives Board will also discuss with interested individuals the donation of special research collections pertaining to the history of Lutheranism and Lutheran congregations in its catchment area or that represent unique items related to the history of Lutheranism in any form.

President's Corner
Annabelle S. Wenzke

Recently I attended a gathering where there was a large number of clergy, both active and retired, in attendance. The wife of a retired pastor, who due to illness could not himself attend, searched the room for a familiar face. Finally she introduced herself to a young clergyman as the wife of ------. His face was blank and hers was confused: how could she and her husband's ministry have been so quickly forgotten? Many of us have shared similar experiences in the church, but it reminded me of what we are trying to do in this Society. We are the inheritors of a brave and proud tradition that is often forgotten and more often unacknowledged, by the present generation. My college students reflect the attitude of a generation that considers itself entitled to what others have created. Not understanding their debt to others, it robs them of an understanding of their own responsibilities and limitations. History is not just a link to the past; it is a reminder of who we are. So we in the LHS/MA are engaged in a very important task. The Congregational Heritage Workshop that we offer in the fall is one way we have of preserving and narrating our history. Urge those you know who are responsible for preserving history or interested in writing about it to attend, or register yourself. It can only benefit the important mandate we hold.