United Lutheran Church in America. Board of Foreign Missions. Secretary for Japan.

On August 14, 1945, the Board of Foreign Missions received word that a group of Christian leaders were going to Japan to contact Christian leaders there. Upon their return, it was concluded that only a few missionaries should be sent to Japan. By 1947, the United Lutheran Church in America had sent Martha Akard, L. S. G. Miller, Arthur J. Stirewalt, and Maude and Annie Powlas to Japan. Rev. Inoko Miura, former president of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church, was chairman of a committee to prepare a constitution to make the "Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan" a federation of independent churches.

Others, however, insisted that it remain a church and the Lutherans withdrew in 1947. In 1950, the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church became an "affiliated church" of the ULCA rather than an "associated synod". Between 1948 and 1953, eleven new Lutheran missionary groups from the United States and Norway began work in Japan. The Evangelical Lutheran Church provided a professor and financial support for the Japan Lutheran Theological Seminary of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church.

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