David Luther Vikner was born in Linju, Honan Province, China on January 1, 1916. He was the son of David Wilhelm Vikner and Lily Callerstrom Vikner, missionaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America. From the third grade (1925) he attended and boarded at the American School of Kikungshan (ASK) in Honan Province, graduating from there in 1935.
Anna Louise Lindbeck-subsequently known as Louise-was also born to Augustana missionaries in China. Born in Luoyang, Honan Province on October 18, 1916, she was the daughter of the Rev. Walter Lindbeck and Madga (nee Hallquist) Lindbeck. She too attended the American School of Kikungshan (ASK), graduating in 1934.
Following their respective graduations from ASK, David and Louise relocated to the U.S. to pursue their educations. Louise received an R.N. degree in 1938 from the Swedish Hospital Nurses Training School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while David graduated from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois (with an A.B. in history) in 1939. Louise graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota in 1941. She and David were married in Minneapolis on August 18, 1942.
David graduated in 1944 from Augustana Theological Seminary in Rock Island, Illinois with a B.D. degree in theology; he was ordained on June 15, 1944. From 1944 to 1945 he studied Chinese at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1946 he returned to China as an Augustana Lutheran Church missionary, serving for one year (June 1946-May 1947) at a church in Kaifeng, Honan Province. He then before joined the staff of the Lutheran Church of China (Committee on Youth Work) as "national student pastor"-that is, as pastor to students in Lutheran universities throughout China. The latter position lasted until June 1949 and involved work primarily in Peiping, Shanghai, Hankow, Nanking, Wuchang, and Canton. Louise rejoined David in China in June 1947 (with their two children) and worked alongside him in his subsequent mission fields.
From September 1949 to June 1950 David attended the Yale Divinity School at New Haven, Connecticut, for studies in missions. He then moved to Tokyo in 1950, where he studied Japanese for two years at the Tokyo School of the Japanese Language. From 1953 to 1958 David served as a missionary in Hiroshima. David was president of the Augustana Lutheran Mission in Japan (1950-58) while in Japan and a member of the executive board of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church (1956-58).
Louise Vikner lived abroad with her husband through almost his entire career as a missionary. She suffered from asthma, which by the late 1950s was severe enough to influence her husband's decision to return to the U.S. as a missionary board official. In 1959 David became Secretary for East Asian with the Board of Foreign Missions of the United Lutheran Church in America. After the formation of the Lutheran Church in America in 1962 he kept the same position with the LCA Board of World Missions (BWM). Also in 1962 he received an honorary D.D. degree from Augustana Theological Seminary. In 1971 he became Associate Executive Secretary of the BMW, and in 1972 the Executive Secretary. In 1973 he became Associate Director of the LCA Division for World Mission and Ecumenism (DWME) and in 1974 was promoted to the position of Executive Director.
Based on his personal experiences in China and Japan during times of profound and rapid change within each society, by the early 1970s Vikner had developed an analytical model for missions that he widely promoted in his speeches and writings. He maintained that the history of missions could be divided into three states. The first, the missionary stage, he dated as beginning in 1842 and ending in 1945 "or shortly thereafter." It was characterized by the large numbers of European and North American missionaries sent abroad; by the rise of powerful mission societies; the division of overseas work into territorial "mission fields" for exclusive work by various Protestant denominations; and the theological uniformity of most Protestant missionaries (believing in the authority of the Scriptures, the uniqueness of Christianity, and in Christ's command to preach to all people everywhere). Stage two, the era of the younger church (1945-70), saw the emergence of independent national churches in the mission fields, staffed with indigenous personnel but heavily subsidized from the outside to support the costs of infrastructure. Stage three, which Vikner called the era of interdependence, began in the early 1970s. It was characterized by growing relationship of equality between the former missionary-sending churches and the rapidly-growing and increasingly confident churches of the Third World. Vikner recommended that in this third stage the regular, heavy subsidies from First World churches should be phased out and replaced with funding allocated on a project by project basis, for limited periods of time-to promote Third World self-reliance.
Interestingly, Vikner's papers document that in the mid-1950s he turned down the offer of a major post of "stage two" responsibility, that of Lutheran World Federation Liason Officer in Indonesia (a position designed to coordinate assistance to the independent but still heavily-subsidized Batak church). Vikner's belief in the importance of cutting the ties of dependence between former mission churches and the West made it possible for him to return many times to China after 1979 in collaboration with the now separate Protestant church there, though he had reservations about the independence of that church from the Communist government.
Following his retirement as DWME Executive Director on September 30, 1982, David Vikner served as an Adjunct Professor for World Mission at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) until 1995.
Much of David Vikner's retirement was spent authoring various books and articles on mission topics, traveling extensively (including several visits to China), and participating in conferences. Louise died in Minnesota on September 9, 1994. On May 8, 1998 David married Ann Campbell. He died suddently on April 22, 2003 at Evanston Hospital, Evanston, Illinois following an angioplasty procedure.
The Vikners had three children: David W. (b.1944), Margaret (b. 1946), and Paul (b. 1949). David W. has continued his parents' and grandparents' missionary work in the Far East, serving in China, Hong Kong, and Japan.
From the description of David L. Vikner and Louise Lindbeck Vikner Papers 1934-2002 ; 1946-1999. (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Library). WorldCat record id: 70413330
