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The Effects of grace in a great life:Bishop Herbert Chilstrom’s autobiographyFaculty book reviewby Ralph W. Klein, Christ Seminary-Seminex Professor Emeritus of Old TestamentWhat does it take to be a leader? Whatdoes it take to be the church? Theseare the questions that engage HerbertChilstrom in his lengthy autobiography,and they are answered prolepticallyin the book’s title A Journey of Grace:The Formation of a Leader and a Church.His family of origin was lowincome, blessed with eight children.Of those siblings he writes most of hisbrother David, who is developmentallychallenged and who has lived out hiscalling in a simple and profoundlyfaithful way. In that family his faithand piety were nourished, but thoseloving contours were deepened andtranscended in a lifetime that has nowreached 80 years.After an undistinguished record in elementaryschool and high school, he found himself academicallyat the Lutheran Bible Institute in Minneapolis,Augsburg College, Augustana Seminary, PrincetonSeminary, and New York University, where he earneda doctorate. LBI and Princeton especially seemedto have kindled his love for and knowledge of theBible. He wrote a master's thesis at Princeton onbaptism in the early church and published a bookHebrews—A New and Better Way in 1983.After serving several years at two small parishesin northwestern Minnesota, Chilstrom became aprofessor and dean at the Lutheran Bible Institutein Teaneck, N.J., and then served as pastor at FirstLutheran in St. Peter, Minn. From there he waselected president/bishop of the very large MinnesotaSynod, and then became the first bishop of theELCA, an office now known as presiding bishop,thanks to his recommendation at the end of hiseight year tenure. His recommendation to reducethe number of synods from sixty-five to thirty-eightfailed.In 1954, he married Corinne Hansen, and herlife and vocational choices play a major role in theautobiography. Trained as a nurse, she later earneda B.S. and an M. Div. and became ordained in 1985.Together they adopted three children,one of whom, Andrew, took his ownlife. Corinne published a book aboutthat experience, Andrew, You Died TooSoon.In addition to the first personnarrative, this book is full of excerptsfrom sermons, letters, position papers,and his personal journal. It namesoutstanding fellow leaders and identifiesothers who were less than outstandingor were very contentious.Chilstrom played a major role inthe Commission for a New LutheranChurch (CNLC), a 72-person committeethat put the ELCA together.Chilstrom suggested the name forthis church body and was among those who optedfor Chicago rather than Milwaukee as its nationalheadquarters. He does not mention the controversyabout the naming of the Trinity in the CNLC.Most people, I suppose, will start with the twochapters dedicated to his tenure as national bishopsince that is the context in which most of us knowhim. He praises the competence of the executiveofficers and the Church Council, and shares honestlyabout the loneliness of leadership and the exhaustingchallenges of travel. His proudest accomplishmentwas Mission90, a program designed to foster Biblereading, stewardship, and evangelism and that establisheda companion synod program between the sixty-fivesynods and international Lutheran churches,especially in the developing world.From the start, the ELCA ran into money problemsthat have continued and even worsened overthe years. There were already major cutbacks in personneland programs during his tenure. The issueof homosexuality was controversial back then, too,and the book records his gradual evolution from aninitial advocacy only for civil rights for these sistersand brothers in the Minnesota Synod, to his strongadvocacy of including gays and lesbians on the clergyroster in more recent years. A premature releaseof a study of sexuality in 1993 made all hell break8