Under Totalitarian Rule

A Statement of the United Lutheran Church in America, 1934

1934: Minutes, 9th Biennial Convention, ULCA, pp. 474, 475.

With reference to the situation confronting Lutherans in Germany the Convention in 1934 took the following action:

To the German members of the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Convention:
The United Lutheran Church in America, in convention assembled at Savannah, Georgia, October 17-24, 1934, looks with deep distress and grave apprehension upon the situation that has arisen in its sister churches in the land of the Reformation. It prays that, even amid the most serious perplexities and in the face of the gravest difficulties, the members of those churches may be given grace to maintain their spiritual integrity and their allegiance to the historic faith of our Church. And it assures them that in their trials our hearts are with them and our supplications are being offered for them.

To Reichsfuehrer Adolf Hitler:
The United Lutheran Church in America, together with all other Lutheran churches throughout the world, has been greatly disturbed by the reported efforts of the leadership of the German Reichskirche to force the pastors of the German Church into the service of a political program, even at the expense of their fidelity to the historic confessions of the Church.

We of the United Lutheran Church in America, in convention assembled protest against such coercion and express the hope that the Lutheran churches of Germany may have entire freedom to proclaim the Gospel according to those confessions.