The latter part of the 20^th century was a time of great change for Lutherans in America. A series of mergers ultimately led to the establishment of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1987. Right from the start, some pastors had concerns about the way the “new church” was shaping up—particularly its lack of clarity about the office of the ministry. Those concerns became the context for a group of pastors, mostly on the East coast, who began to meet together to pray and talk about the future of their church. One result was the publication of a document dubbed “The 9.5 Theses,” which summarized the group’s concerns about several doctrinal issues. The theses were mailed to every pastor in the ELCA.

The intent was to provoke conversation about these matters, but in the face of outright resistance from the leadership of the ELCA, the group decided to turn in a different direction. Convinced that the root problem was a faulty understanding of the holy ministry, these pastors (along with several others) in 1996 began to think about forming a society of pastors who would seek to renew the ministerial office by praying together, teaching and supporting one another, and committing themselves to fostering a spirit of renewal within the Lutheran churches.

The result was the decision to establish the Society of the Holy Trinity. The Society was to be structured around a “Rule” drafted by those founders. It called for regular retreats for prayer and study, committed itself to “the common liturgy” (“the orders and texts that have come down through the catholic tradition [and] received by the Lutheran reformers”), and described what the faithful pastoral life might look like in terms of personal and pastoral practice. The founding statement was distributed to Lutheran pastors in various synodical bodies. At the Society’s first General Retreat in 1997, the text of the Rule was finalized and some twenty-eight pastors subscribed to that Rule, officially bringing the Society into existence.

Over the next few years, the Society grew as more pastors subscribed to the Rule; it now includes approximately 170 pastors of several Lutheran church bodies in the United States and Canada. There have been many changes in the landscape of American Lutheranism over the past quarter century, but the Society remains a context where pastors can freely discuss theological matters, worship and pray together, and edify one another as we seek to be faithful to the vows we made when we were ordained.