Just Another Jim's

Alaska Journal

Ch. 9: The Lutheran Congregation

Posted October 20, 2006 by James E. Nelson

There were a lot of similarities between the Korean Presbyterians and the local Lutherans. The main churches in town were the Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Assembly of God. (The Lutherans were late comers to the church scene in Delta.) In spite of the fact that the Presbyterian Church was one of the main churches, there were actually very few people who were Presbyterian before they came to Delta Junction. Most of the Presbyterians were Presbyterian primarily because they didn’t want to be identified as one of the other major groups (Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, or Pentecostal).

On the other hand, the Lutherans in the Delta area were Lutherans because their families back home (wherever that might be) were Lutheran. Most were either Norwegian or German. As well as being the normal expression of the their Christian faith, Lutheranism was a significant piece of cultural continuity for these people. It is in that sense that the Korean Presbyterians and Lutherans were alike: their faith and culture were intertwined in a way that was not true for many other people in Delta Junction, and certainly not for the Presbyterians.

The Lutheran congregation originally met at the base chapel on Ft. Greeley (the local Army base). There had been a core group of Lutherans in the Delta area for several years and when a Lutheran chaplain arrived at Ft. Greeley, a Lutheran fellowship was formed under the leadership of the chaplain. During my time in Alaska, the Army chaplain retired from the military but stayed on as pastor. During this period the fellowship voted to become a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Since there was no longer any compelling reason for them to meet at the base and the Presbyterians were short on money, we invited them to share our building. The Lutherans had an early service; the two congregations shared a Sunday School program; and the Presbyterians had a late service. For the last year and half I also served as pastor of the Lutheran congregation.

It was amazing how very different the Presbyterians and Lutherans were. There was not one farmer or rancher among the Presbyterians; almost all the Lutherans were employed in the agriculture industry. Most of the Presbyterians lived close to town; the Lutherans were spread many miles around the area. Finally, and most significantly, the Lutherans were a much more stable congregation. It is not because they had lived in the area a lot longer, nor that the stability of the membership was significantly different. It rather had to do with the agricultural roots of the Delta Lutherans. For the Presbyterians, Delta was an adventure, for the Lutherans it was home.

It wasn’t until I got to know the Lutherans that I actually began to understand Delta Junction. Historically Delta has been a stopping off point. During the gold rush, Delta was the best place to cross the Tanana River. It became a natural congregating point for people who had just crossed the pass through the Alaska Range and were preparing to move north into the Yukon. During World War II the Army Air Force made a huge strategic bungle and built their air base 100 miles too far north. If the planes had a tail wind they could make it, but if there was any headwind, they ran out of fuel before arriving at Eielson. Greeley Army Airfield was therefore built originally as a refueling point. Eventually the Alaska Highway (originally called the Al-Can) was built and Delta Junction is the highway’s terminus, so it was a natural stopping off point or destination for people who wanted to move to Alaska but had nothing particular in mind once they got there. Finally, the Alaska pipeline passes through Delta, so it boomed during the 70s when the pipeline was being built.

Because of these historical influences it is hard to compare Delta to the other parts of the interior. The native population is very small. The two closest Athabascan tribes are 80 miles southeast, near Tok, and 100 miles north, near Fairbanks. Given its overwhelmingly non-native population, the politics of native relations, something that predominates statewide politics, has largely passed Delta by. Tourism is also not a big factor because Delta is not a destination point, only a rest area for people passing through. Because of its economic diversity (barley and dairy farming, the river crossing, the military base, some local gold mining, and the pipeline) Delta also has a more secure economic base than many parts of interior Alaska, although it still suffers from the boom and bust cycle so typical of this region. The two congregations (Presbyterian and Lutheran) put a face on these two personalities of Delta better than anything else I know.

Early service (that is, the Lutheran service) on Sunday morning was clearly an anchor rooted in history for a people striving for normalcy. Entering the sanctuary every person took a green worship book for the service. There were no contemporary hymns or jazzed up liturgies. The liturgy was chanted using Setting One or Three (for those not familiar with the Lutheran worship book, those are the two traditional settings). Although the minister functioned as the liturgist, a member of the congregation always read the first two lessons. The Psalm was usually chanted in response to the first lesson, although if the chant was particularly difficult it would read responsively. Children were vital for worship and worship was vital for the children. They were as noisy and wiggly as any child in church, but worship was clearly a time of learning as the children learned the rubrics of standing and sitting, saying the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and becoming familiar with the hymnody that has supported Lutherans for generations.

There were children present at Presbyterian worship also, but they were there because their parents thought the kids needed a little bit of religion. Beyond that there was no great purpose in their presence. The Presbyterian minister was expected to include a children’s sermon and choose hymns and sermon topics that at least occasionally entertained the kids so they wouldn’t be too bored. The Lutherans, on the other hand, saw worship as very purposeful in relation to their kids. They were nurtured in the ways of their forebears so that they would always have that touchstone of Lutheran worship and culture throughout their life. No doubt this was at the heart of creating a home in contrast to simply living an adventure.

Presbyterian worship was completely different. It was not so much worship as it was an opportunity to gather for fellowship (and for some, the weekly gossip). The pianist was a beginner, so she chose hymns she could (sort of) play. As a result, the music was an odd hodge podge of vaguely Christian music. Being Presbyterians, the sermon was (in theory) extremely important, but in fact the “passing of peace” (that point in the service where everyone stands up and shakes other peoples hands and greets them) often took longer than the sermon.

While the Lutheran worship was liturgical, the Presbyterian worship was conversational. The two moments that defined the character of the Presbyterian worship more than anything else were two interruptions. One time the former pastor interrupted my sermon to add a point that he thought significant. That led to a bit of a conversation among the folks. No one (except me and Brenda) seemed to think it particularly odd. On another occasion a local man (whose wife often came to church, but hadn’t been there for a while) showed up. He was a bit drunk but not disorderly. Right after the Gospel reading he stood up and demanded that I preach on adultery because his wife was sleeping with another man. I said something to appease him and he sat down. When I didn’t preach on adultery, he got up and left. There was something about that Presbyterian congregation that seemed to invite this sort of informality.

This drove me nuts because worship (as historically defined) has always been extremely important to me. Worship is not something of our own making, it’s something that God asks of us and tells us how to do. Orderly, traditional, and thoughtful worship has always been the hallmark of my pastoral ministry. Of course that meant little to the Delta Presbyterians. Their religious culture clearly had other values that were far more important than orderly worship.

This difference in worship styles was just the tip of the iceberg. The Lutherans were orderly and thoughtful in all their church business dealings. The Presbyterians were freewheeling and spontaneous. The Lutherans sought to build a Christian culture within the community of Delta Junction so that they could raise Christian families and provide the stability they had known as children. The Presbyterians seemed to think that Sunday School and Church were important in pretty much the same way they thought it was awfully fun to get together for dinner once a month during the cold, dark winter. Church (in any traditional sense of the term) was clearly an afterthought for many of them.

Because of this, I found myself being more loyal and faithful to the Lutherans than to the Presbyterians. If it weren’t for the dramatic economic changes in Delta that led to our leaving the church for Iowa, I suspect that this sense of divided loyalties (which was also fed by “The House” would have ultimately doomed any thought of long term pastoral ministry.

I don’t want to be unfair to the Presbyterians; their self-identified mission had more to do with helping the needy and being a public presence for good in the community. And the community saw the Presbyterians in just that way. I can’t imagine that the A.A. group would have been comfortable meeting in the Baptist Church across the street because the Baptists were perceived as too nosy. AA didn’t gather to get converted by the Baptists but to find strength in their struggle against alcoholism. The Pentecostals wanted the chance to host the commodities program because they saw it as an opportunity for evangelistic outreach in spite of the fact that this sort of thing was very strictly proscribed by the rules of the program; the Presbyterians, on the other hand, were willing to work within the proper guidelines. Bob Carpenter, the former pastor of many years, was effective because he was a social worker of sorts while he didn’t put so much stock in a well-ordered worship service and a well-crafted sermon. Since there were no proper social workers in that part of Alaska, Bob played an absolutely vital societal role for years.

By the same token, if Bob had still been the pastor when the opportunity came about to share ministry with the Lutherans, I suspect it never would have happened. The Lutheran’s mission was clearly to create a self-consciously Christian community within the larger community, to develop a culture where children could be nurtured and Christians could gather to worship. Bob’s style was so antithetical to that sort of vision for the church that the Lutherans almost certainly would not have considered cooperation to be in their best interest.

So it is that I believe I was called to that particular church at that particular time because I could be a bridge where one was desperately needed. But just as the Golden Gate bridge doesn’t make Oakland and San Francisco culturally compatible cities, so the cultural differences and the issue of sharing a pastor led to many conflicts between the two congregations. Like the Anglos and Koreans, putting the Lutherans and Presbyterians together was like trying to mix oil and water. But in the end necessity won out over pettiness; and now, with some history to provide perspective, it was a cooperative scheme that has been very successful. All three congregations knew they couldn’t make it on their own, and so they worked together in spite of the differences. After we left Alaska the congregations called a Lutheran pastor. She has served the two congregations for many years (and continues to in 2006 at the time of this posting). Although no one is completely satisfied with the arrangement, in grand Alaskan style, everyone makes do with what they have. That is, after all, the Alaskan way.