Erb, Earl S.

While attending Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Earl S. Erb set a school track and field record that stood for twenty years by running the mile in four minutes, twenty seconds. Years later the Rev. Earl S. Erb would employ an even faster form of transportation, the airplane, to log approximately 500,000 miles while traveling in his capacity as executive secretary for the Board of Foreign Missions of the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) and then its successor, the Board of World Missions of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA).

Rev. Earl S. Erb, once described as a revolutionary and leader in advocating a new missionary philosophy, when interviewed for an article in an alumni publication of Muhlenberg College remarked, "The work of the Lutheran church is a fellowship. It is not a question if there is a place for the missionary or the national, but as to what place each should fill." This philosophy of fellowship was very different from the early days of mission work when missionaries were in place primarily to convert indigenous people to Christianity. Rev. Erb and others involved in mission work began working as advisors "to informed, independent nationals on a multitude of complex church-related topics."

Born on March 4, 1899, in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, Earl Styer Erb was the son of cigar maker and salesman George Hoffman Erb and his wife Sally Ann Styer Erb. He attended East Greenville High School and graduated in 1915. For one year he attended the preparatory school Perkiomen School, Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, and then enrolled at Muhlenberg College were he received a bachelor of arts degree in 1920. At Muhlenberg, he served in the Student Army Training Corps in 1918 and business manager of the Muhlenberg Weekly. During both of his senior years at college and seminary, he served as president of the student body. He was an avid student athlete and a standout in tennis and track and field. Muhlenberg College later inducted him into its Athletic Hall of Fame. While in school and before, Rev. Erb worked at various jobs: telephone operator, farm worker, lumber company, grocery store, and for the Swarthmore Chautauqua Association. After college he enrolled at Mt. Airy Theological Seminary, later known as the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia where he graduated in 1923 and received a bachelor of divinity in 1925. While attending Mt. Airy he married Alma Glen Dunkelberger on May 22, 1922. They would later have a son and daughter.

He was called on February 25, 1923, to serve as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania, in the Poconos of Northeastern Pennsylvania. After graduation, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania ordained him in Reading, Pennsylvania, and he began his service at Grace on June 1, 1923. He served at Grace from 1923-1925 when he took a call to serve the Nescopeck parish, Nescopeck, Pennsylvania, which he did until 1929 when he received a call to St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Easton, Pennsylvania. From 1929-1940 he served the St. Paul's congregation.

In 1941 the Ministerium of Pennsylvania appointed Rev. Erb Executive Secretary for the Board of Christian Education. He served there until 1944 when he was appointed Secretary of Benevolence for the Ministerium. He served in that office until 1953 and from 1946-1953 also served as the Secretary of the Ministerium. In 1947 Rev. Erb received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Muhlenberg College.

Dr. Erb first became involved in the mission work of the ULCA when he was elected to its Board of Foreign Missions in 1950. He served as a board member until 1953. It was in 1951 that the board appointed him to the post of Commissioner of the BFM to the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church of India (AELC). He received this appointment because at the time, the ULCA Mission Council in India and the AELC were experiencing difficulties. Dr. Erb was sent because of the fact he had not been a missionary and could be perceived by those involved in the matter as being a neutral party. The problems that existed pertained to the AELC's inability to communicate or negotiate directly with the ULCA. Their requests, questions, and concerns had to first be channeled through the ULCA's India Mission Council. The AELC wanted more freedom and direct contact with the ULCA. The ULCA work in India had been very much missionary-oriented. Dr. Erb worked as commissioner for a year and in that time was able to alleviate the problem by suggesting changes to the constitution of the Mission Council as well as to the constitution of the AELC.

Dr. Erb believed his work as Commissioner was a factor in becoming BFM Executive Secretary. His work as a commissioner, the resignation of BFM Executive Secretary Dr. Luther Gotwald to take a position in the Division of Foreign Mission at the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and knowing many members of the board contributed to Dr. Erb being asked to consider election to the position of executive secretary. Elected at the July 1952 BFM meeting, Dr. Erb took office February 1953. He became secretary at a time when throughout areas in which the ULCA worked, there was a spirit of anticolonialism. Twenty nations since WWII had gained their independence. The challenge for Dr. Erb was to guide mission work through this turbulent time while recognizing that it presented an opportunity for the church's mission work to evolve into a more partnership-based approach.

In 1962 the ULCA merged with three other Lutheran churches to become the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), Dr. Erb became Executive Secretary of the LCA's Board of World Missions. He continued the work he began with the ULCA and incorporated the mission areas of the other merging churches. Dr. Erb continued to rely heavily on travel to these areas as a way of maintaining a personal relationship with the indigenous churches. Even though his own travel decreased the BFM hired additional area secretaries to administer the work in individual areas, Dr. Erb still managed in his career as Executive Secretary to cross the Pacific Ocean twenty-four times and the Atlantic Ocean forty-eight times.

When asked in an oral history interview, conducted in 1984, what were the accomplishments of his tenure as ULCA secretary and then LCA secretary for foreign missions, Dr. Erb believed them to include a policy conference held in September 1957 with leaders from Lutheran churches and Lutheran organizations from around the world and mission representatives from other countries. Out of this conference came a policy statement addressing the future direction of the work of the BFM. He also pointed to the development of leadership through the support of the educational pursuits of potential indigenous leaders in sister churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and other ecumenical organizations. The church also supported persons studying in other fields: law, education, and medicine with the idea they could also become leaders in their countries, develop their nations, and witness to others in their society. Other accomplishments included the transfer of ULCA properties in India to the indigenous church and assistance in establishing a school of missions at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

In addition to his work for the ULCA and LCA, Dr. Erb also served in posts other Lutheran and ecumenical organization, as well as those related to his academic career at Muhlenberg College. In 1960 he was elected a vice-president for the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches. He also served as president of the Lutheran Foreign Missions Conference of North America. He served as a member of Board of Trustees of Muhlenberg College and was a former president of the Muhlenberg College Alumni Association.

After Dr. Erb retired in 1967 from his position with the BWM of the LCA, he served a one-year appointment in the Christian Education department of the LCA's Synod of Eastern Pennsylvania. He and his wife moved to Germantown Home, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Rev. Erb remained active within the church in his involvement with the Southeast Pennsylvania Synod of the LCA and through service to his community on committees focusing on work with senior citizens. In 1985 the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia awarded him its first alumni award for distinguished service. Dr. Erb passed away at the Lutheran Home of Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at age of 94 on June 8, 1993. Preceding him in death, his wife Alma Dunkelberger Erb passed away in November 1984.