Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of Bethlehem (1860-present)
The Bethlehem Congregation in Adelaide was the fourth Lutheran congregation formed in the city of Adelaide and, before the formation of the Lutheran Church of Australia in 1966, was part of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Australia/Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia.
Background
By 1850, there were three Lutheran congregations in the City of Adelaide, each offering a slightly different form of Lutheranism.
The Dresden missionaries Teichelmann and Schürmann were Old Lutherans, Teichelmann from Saxony and Schürmann from Hanover, and had preceded Pastor August Kavel to South Australia in 1838 by about a month. They were initially tasked with setting up a congregation in the city under the direction of Kavel but, upon meeting with Kavel, decided to abandon this aim and focus on their mission work with the Kaurna people. Kavel, and later Daniel Fritzsche, were focussed on their own congregations of Old Lutherans and did not provide services in the city. After the Kaurna mission had failed, and with the schism between Kavel and Fritzsche in 1846, the missionaries began to offer Lutheran services aligned with Fritzsche's Bethany-Lobethal Synod, culminating in 1849 with the building of the first Lutheran church in the city, Trinity on Angas Street.
Friedrich Borgelt had arrived with a congregation of Hanoverian Pietists in 1848 and had settled at the largely abandoned Klemzig settlement. With no ordained pastor, they approached Kavel, but the doctrinal differences of the Old Lutherans and the Pietists meant Kavel would not offer them communion. The strong lay focus of Pietism allowed them to call Borgelt, who was not theologically trained, to the be their pastor.
The doctrinal differences in Lutheran congregations in the City of Adelaide was exacerbated by the arrival in 1848 of Pastor Andreas Kappler, a Saxon Wendish pastor, who wished to carry on delivering services in line with the Saxon Evangelical Lutheran Church, a form closely aligned with the Prussian Union of Churches. Kappler began preaching Lutheran services at the Scotch Church in Grenfell Street
Formation
The Bethlehem Church formed in 1860 due to doctrinal differences in both the Pirie Street Lutheran Congregation (St Stephen's) and the Angas Street Lutheran Congregation (Trinity).
Locations
Photo gallery
Bethlehem Lutheran Church Congregation 1920 [SLSA PRG-280-1-20-260
Church Interior c 1905 with Pastor Koch [SLSA B-31370
