Biography Briefs: The ELS of 1918 January-February

We here begin a series of biographies of the pastors who attended the reorganization convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod in 1918. There is evidence for the presence of at least thirteen pastors along with two hundred guests at this convention.
In 1918, Christian Anderson continued his opposition to the “Madison Settlement” (Opgjør), which led to the merger of three Norwegian Lutheran church bodies the previous year. The Church Council of the Norwegian Synod had deposed this forty-four-year-old man from his call in 1916. The majority of his congregation reorganized as Fairview Lutheran Church (now King of Grace) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The minority of the Norwegian Synod gathered with this congregation in 1917. He later served as the pastor of Rock Dell and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches of Belview, Minnesota, and also as the president of the synod, 1926–30. He married Inger Wulfsberg and following her death, Bergine Livdahl. He died in 1959.
In 1918, A. J. Torgerson and the minority of the members of his congregations opposed the “Madison Settlement” (Opgjør). He refused to resign his call or vacate the parsonage, and after the court ruled against him in 1919, he served the reorganized Somber and First Shell Rock congregations at Northwood, Iowa. In 1918, he was elected as the treasurer of the synod, a position in which he served for fourteen years. He married Ingeborg Pederson. He died in 1963.