There are 27 Lutheran Publication Houses, publishing in 1927 177 papers, having 1,699,385 subscribers; also 541 new books, 237 reprints, 106 pamphlets, a total of 3,126,510 copies.
Of Higher Schools there were 159: Theological Seminaries, 33, with 180 teachers and 1,637 students; Colleges, 36, with 779 teachers and 14,203 students; Junior colleges and academies, 90, with 793 teachers and 15,813 students;—a grand total of 1,752 teachers and 31,653 students, 18,614 boys and 13,039 girls.
Each Synod maintains or supports some Foreign Mission work, both through its regular Board of Missions and voluntary agencies, particularly the women’s federations and young people’s societies. The chief mission fields are in: China, India, Japan and Kurdistan, Liberia, South Africa, Tanganyika, Madagascar and New Guinea; also among Indians of North and South America, Negroes and Eskimos. 881 missionaries and 6,727 native workers are engaged in the foreign fields among a baptized membership of 262,760, on an annual budget of $2,681,963.00.
The Home Mission Boards, with an annual appropriation of $2,352,125.00 try to gather the unchurched Lutherans of America into the Church and aim also to bring the Gospel to the unchurched neighbors of every race and color within the United States and Canada.
The work of Charity is pushed in many ways by Boards, Committees, Societies and Institutions. Of institutions there are 73 Orphans’ Homes, with 597 employees, caring for 4,700 children; 69 Homes for the Aged, with 387 employees and 2,499 inmates; 106 Hospitals and Homes for Defectives, with 3,884 employees and 236,228 patients. There are 11 Deaconess Homes. The 31 Home Finding Societies, with 100 employees, placed 473 children in homes during 1927.
There are also many other activities, congregational, synodical and intersynodical. One of the chief intersynodical agencies is the National Lutheran Council, organized in 1918 to meet emergencies requiring common action. This Agency has expended several million dollars during the decennium in relief and reconstruction work in the countries afflicted by the World War; also in rescuing the foreign mission fields affected by the War.
The Lutheran Church in America emphasizes the importance of Biblical teaching and preaching and strict obedience to the Word of God by its members.
The Norwegian Lutheran Church of America was organized on June 9, 1917, by the union of the Hauge Synod, the Norwegian Synod and the United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America.
[9. Missions. Bible Societies]
After the Reformation, Christianity has been proclaimed in far distant lands by missionaries. Hans Egede, a clergyman in Vaagen, Nordland, Norway, resigned his charge to go and preach the Gospel in Greenland. None had gone there with the Word of God since the Black Death in the fourteenth century.