United Church. 1890-1917.

The United Church formed in 1890 by the merger of the Anti-Missourian Brotherhood, the Norwegian-Danish Conference and the Norwegian Augustana Synod. The United Church sought to find a middle way between the pietism of Hauge’s Synod and the orthodoxy of the Norwegian Synod, and was heavily shaped by the large number of immigrants who arrived in the later part of the 19th century. The Norwegian Augustana and the Norwegian-Danish Conference both traced their roots back to the Scandinavian Augustana Synod organized in 1860, together with the Swedes. The Norwegians withdrew in 1870. They split into the Conference, which emphasized orthodoxy and congregationalism and the Norwegian Augustana, which emphasized pietism and centralized church leadership. In 1890, these two churches joined the call of the Anti-Missourian Brotherhood, a splinter of the Norwegian Synod, and formed the United Church.