Conrad Bergendoff

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Conrad Johan (John) Immanuel Bergendoff (December 3, 1895 – December 23, 1997) was an American

Bergendoff became dean of the Augustana Theological Seminary in 1931, and was elected to succeed Gustav Andreen as president of Augustana College in 1935. He saw the college through the difficult years of the Great Depression, through its separation from Augustana Theological Seminary in 1948, and into a long period of substantial growth and increasing prestige.^[1]

Among his most notable achievements was the ecumenical spirit he engendered in American Lutherans from the late 1930s going forward. Instrumental in gathering together the myriad branches of the European immigrant Lutheran bodies, Bergendoff used his considerable influence and power within the Augustana Synod to help unite those Swedish-background churches into the United Lutheran Church in America (1962-1987), a precursor of the current Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Bergendoff also devoted considerable attention to the ecumenical movement between major Protestant denominations, and on a more local and regional level he made many inroads towards official cooperation with leaders of conservative and reformed movements in American Judaism.^[3]

Selected works

• The Church of the Lutheran Reformation: A Historical Survey of Lutheranism (Saint Louis, Concordia Pub. House, 1967)
• Olavus Petri
  and the ecclesiastical transformation in Sweden, 1521-1552: a study in the Swedish Reformation (Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1965)
• The Doctrine of the Church in American Lutheranism (Philadelphia, Muhlenberg Press, 1947)
• The Making and Meaning of the Augsburg Confession (Rock Island, IL, Augustana Book Concern, 1930)

Recognition

In recognition for his work, Bergendoff received six honorary doctorates throughout his life, including one from Sweden's

As a young pastor in Chicago he met and married Gertrude Elizabeth Carlson of Rockford, Illinois, the daughter of Swedish immigrants. Their children were Conrad born in 1924, Beatrice born in 1928, and Elizabeth born in 1937. Bergendoff and his wife were the grandparents to nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.^[6]

References