General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America

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The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America, or, in brief, the General Council was a conservative Lutheran church body, formed as a reaction against the new "Americanized Lutheranism" of Samuel Simon Schmucker and the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America.

The General Council was founded in November, 1867, with ten Lutheran synods becoming members Founded at the instigation of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, the General Council placed special emphasis on the Lutheran Confessions and their role in the life of the church. In 1872, the General Council adopted the Akron-Galesburg Rule, written by Charles Porterfield Krauth, reserving Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran pastors and Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants.

Theodore Emanuel Schmauk was the president of the General Council from 1903 until the formation of the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) in 1918. The ULCA was formed by the merger of three independent German-language synods: the General Synod, the General Council, and the United Synod of the South.^[1] In 1917, the General Council consisted of 14 synods (including the Augustana Synod, which did not join the merger), 1,680 pastors, 2,564 congregations, and 524,259 confirmed members.^[2]