News from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

June 6, 1996

Title: SWEDISH ARCHBISHOP SEES POSITIVE
AMERICA

America and its churches are the products of "people with
a positive vision," said Archbishop Gunnar Weman of the
Church of Sweden.  "Your forefathers might have been
looked upon by some as having landed on the shores of
this country as people without a positive identity ... as men
and women without a social framework, as families
without a home, as a people with an unjust past," he told
Chicago staff of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America (ELCA).  "But they saw themselves as a people
of a new life, a new homeland, a bright and promising new
future," he said.  "They saw themselves as a people
affirming a new destiny, as a people with a positive vision,
perhaps even a mission, to fulfill.  All around us is the story
of how such a vision can be realized."  The archbishop's
trip May 10-20 to the United States recognized the 150th
anniversary of Swedish migration to North America.
Weman visited Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill.,
which was founded in 1860 as America's first
Scandinavian college, and the Lutheran School of
Theology at Chicago.  The archbishop traveled to
Minnesota to visit Swedish heritage congregations there
and to tour the campus of Gustavus Adolphus College in
St. Peter, Minn.  The king and queen of Sweden are
planning a commemorative trip to the United States in
September.  The Church of Sweden is the world's largest
Lutheran church with 7.6 million members.  The ELCA is
second with 5.2 million members.

[ELCA News and Information: 8765 W. Higgins Road,
Chicago, IL   60631; phone 312/380-2963]