“Lutherans Uniting and Dividing”
The 2021 LHC meeting, now rescheduled for this fall, will return to the East Coast when it will meet in the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore, Maryland. This biennial meeting will commemorate several recent anniversaries, including the bicentennial of the General Synod (1820), the seventy-fifth anniversary of Lutheran World Relief (1945), and the eightieth anniversary of the Lutheran Immigration and Refuge Service (1939). This gathering will also visit Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the location of the largest battle of the American Civil War, fought in part on the grounds of Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, now part of United Lutheran Seminary.
The 2021 LHC Program Committee invites the membership of the Conference to submit proposals which reflect the themes of Lutherans either uniting for a common cause or Lutherans who felt compelled to divide for a greater good. Paper proposals dealing with any aspect of this theme will be considered. Since the 2020 LHC [in-person] meeting was canceled because of the global pandemic, all proposals that were sent to the Program Committee in 2020 remain accepted for the 2021 meeting, with the exception of the six papers that were presented at the 2020 LHC virtual meeting which was held online this past October. In creating the 2021 program of speakers, the Program Committee will contact those who submitted proposals in 2020 to ascertain if there is continued interest in presenting on this fall’s meeting.
Speakers will be given twenty minutes for their presentations, followed by five to ten minutes of Q and A and discussion. Paper proposals must include (1) title (2) a 250 word (maximum) abstract; and (3) a brief biographical sketch of the presenter.
Proposals and inquiries are due by Monday, April 12, 2021 and are to be sent by email attachment to the Program Chair: Joel L. Pless, at joel.pless@wlc.edu; office phone (414) – 443-8930. The other members of the 2021 Program Committee are Susan McArver: susan.mcarver@lr.edu and Timothy Grundmeier: grundmtd@mlc-wels.edu.
The Program Committee reserves the right to accept or reject any paper proposal for the good of the Lutheran Historical Conference and its biennial meeting. Presenters must be or become members of the LHC before the convening of the meeting. Presenters are alone responsible for covering conference fees and all travel costs and are encouraged to apply for financial support from their home institutions. Students are also encouraged to submit paper proposals and to apply to the LHC Board of Directors for limited scholarship assistance with travel-related expenses.
The 2021 Program Committee will seriously consider all legitimate submissions and will inform each submitter via email of its decision in a timely manner, whether or not to include his/her paper as part of the program in Baltimore. Besides listening to and reacting to scholarly papers, the LHC will transact official conference business, hold elections, and will participate in a bus tour of Lutheran sites of interest in the area.