Herzfeld—stepped down with the election of the
ELCA’s first presiding bishop, Herbert Chilstrom.
On January 1, 1988, the ELCA officially came into
being, with headquarters in Chicago and sixty-five
regional synods.
The ELCA is considered a Protestant denomina-
tion, recognizing the two sacraments of Baptism and
Communion and following the Old and New Testa-
ments as its source of doctrine, as expressed in the
sixteenth century Augsburg Confession. The name
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was care-
fully chosen with a traditional understanding of
“evangelical,” meaning “rooted in the gospel.” Its
place on the American scene was to be inclusive,
with a goal of establishing 20 percent of new con-
gregations in ethnic minority communities and pro-
viding 20 percent minority representation on all
churchwide boards and committees. Outreach was
centered on mission and service, seeking coopera-
tion with other North American churches and the
global community.
Impact The formation of the ELCA established
theological principles and organizational structures
held in common by the majority of North American
Lutherans. The five million Lutherans in the ELCA
represent two-thirds of all Lutherans in the United
States and compose the second largest Lutheran
Church in the world and the fifth largest church
body in North America.
Further Reading
Almen, Lowell G.One Great Cloud of Witnesses.Minne-
apolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2001.
Lagerquist, L. DeAne.The Lutherans: Student Edition.
Denominations in America 9. Westport, Conn.:
Praeger, 1999.
Skrade, Kristofer, ed.The Lutheran Handbook.Minne-
apolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005.
Fred Strickert
See also Religion and spirituality in Canada; Reli-
gion and spirituality in the United States.
Exxon Valdezoil spill
The Event Environmentally devastating oil spill
off the coast of Alaska
Date March 24, 1989
Place Prince William Sound, AlaskaTheExxon Valdezoil spill created an ecological and eco-
nomic disaster, severely damaging a fragile ecosystem. In its
aftermath, new laws were passed to attempt to prevent fu-
ture disasters and to ensure that those events that could not
be prevented would be cleaned up more effectively and pun-
ished more harshly.At 12:04a.m.on March 24, 1989, theExxon Valdezoil
tanker struck a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska.
The ship had left the Trans-Alaska Pipeline terminal
in Valdez, Alaska, at 9:12p.m.on March 23, 1989,
loaded with 53,094,510 gallons of oil from Alaska’s
Prudhoe Bay production facilities. As the ship tried
to negotiate the entrance to the harbor, called the
Valdez Narrows, it struck Bligh Reef. At the time of
impact, Captain Joe Hazelwood had left Third Mate
Gregory Cousins in control of the wheelhouse, with
Helmsman Robert Kagan steering the 986-foot ship.The Ship Runs Aground Captain Hazelwood had
left the bridge at 11:52p.m.At the time of impact, he
was in his private quarters. Before leaving, he had
alerted the U.S. Coast Guard that he was changing
course because of some small ice calves that had
drifted into the channel from the nearby Columbia
Glacier. Shortly after departing from the normal
shipping channel, theExxon Valdezran onto the reef.
Once he was notified of the problem, Hazelwood
contacted the Vessel Traffic Center at 12:27a.m.and
told officials that the ship had run aground on Bligh
Reef.
As a result of the accident, nearly eleven million
gallons of oil spilled out into Prince William Sound
and dealt a devastating blow to the region’s fragile
environment. Threatened by the spill were animals
including sea otters, whales, sea lions, and porpoises,
while millions of birds and numerous species of
plants also were negatively affected. The food chain
of the fragile ecosystem was at stake because of the
pervasive penetration of the spill into so much of the
area. Isolated shorelines were coated with oil.
At the time, neither the U.S. government nor the
state of Alaska had a disaster-management system in
place to address an oil spill with the scope and sever-The Eighties in America Exxon Valdezoil spill 347