The Lutheran Hour

"Bringing Christ to the Nations" on the airwaves

Lutheran congregations in the nineteenth-century kingdom of Saxony found themselves at odds with the Reformed Church as it was developed by neighboring Prussia during the Prussian Union of 1817. Several hundred Saxon Lutherans choose to emigrate to the US in 1838 and settled in the wooded lands of the American Midwest.

The dense forests of the American Frontier led to isolation among the German immigrants, however, the community managed to stick together thanks to their faith. The was debate amongst the congregations over the relationship between the New World Lutherans and the Lutheran hierarchy in Germany. The prevailing view came to be that the American Lutherans constituted a new and independent church.

On April 26, 1847, fourteen congregations sent twelve pastors to meet in Chicago, and the meeting resulted in the formation of what would become the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The LCMS subscribed to a conservative form of Lutheranism, requiring all members, pastors and congregations alike, to swear fealty to the Book of Concord in its entirety.

The conservatism drove a wedge between the LCMS and other American Lutheran congregations, however, the Missouri Synod soon became the largest Lutheran Church body in the US. This was largely due to continuing efforts to welcome German immigrants into the fold while building more churches and parochial schools.

Sadly, with growth came debt, and in 1917 the Lutheran Laymen's League was formed to help alleviate the debt. The LLL instituted a plan to hold individual congregations accountable for business dealings and contributions. The effort was successful enough to not only pay down the debt but also establish a pension fund for church workers,

The efforts of the LLL to contribute to the Lord's Kingdom both at home and abroad were successful enough that an outreach ministry in the form of The Lutheran Hour was able to be funded, despite going on the air at the onset of the Great Depression.

First airing on October 3, 1930, and still on the air, The Lutheran Hour is one of the longest-running Christian broadcasts on the Radio. The Hour's first speaker was the theologian and scholar Walter A. Maier. Airing in the half-hour after CBS hit mystery programs, The Hour was getting as much or more fan mail as secular programs like Amos 'n' Andy.

The program featured organ and choral music followed by a sermonette by the Speaker and a recitation of the Lord's Prayer. The underlying conservatism of the LCMS remained a part of The Lutheran Hour both on and off the air. In 2002, Associate Speaker Dr. Wallace Schulz had just been elevated to Main Speaker when in his capacity as a Vice President of the LCMS he suspended Pastor David Benke for participating in an interfaith event commemorating the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (not allowed by the teachings of the LCMS). Schulz had been asked to recuse himself for the good of the Lutheran Hour Ministries, but felt he had to rule, and was, therefore, dismissed as well.