Jon Diefenthaler

Rev. Jon Diefenthaler is a President Emeritus of the Southeastern District of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, having served in that office from 2003 to 2012.

He is currently a Church-Relations Advisor for Lutheran World Relief and an Adjunct Professor at Concordia Seminary St. Louis. He also serves on various boards of directors, including Faith and Work Enterprises in Baltimore, Mid-Atlantic Lutherans in Mission, the Lutheran Historical Conference, and the Lutheran Historical Society–Mid-Atlantic. He is also on the editorial committee of the journal Lutheran Mission Matters.

Dr. Diefenthaler was born and grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is graduate of Concordia College Milwaukee (1963), Concordia Senior College Ft. Wayne (1965), and Concordia Seminary St. Louis (1969). He also received an M.A. in American History from Washington University St. Louis (1970), and a Ph.D. in American Religious History from the University of Iowa (1976). The subject of his doctoral dissertation was H. Richard Niebuhr, and he has published two books on the work of this 20th century American theologian: H. Richard Niebuhr: A Lifetime of Reflections on the Church and the World (1986), and The Paradox of Church and World: Selected Writings of H. Richard Niebuhr (2015).

During the course of his career, Dr. Diefenthaler was on the faculty of Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield (1972– 1975), and he served as pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Waynesboro, Virginia (1975–1997). He later served as senior pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Laurel, Maryland (1997–2003). As a District President, he was a member of the LCMS Board of University Education (2005–2009), the Commission on Theology and Church Relations (2009–2112), and Vice Chair of the Council of Presidents (2009–2012). In addition, he was a member of the Board of Regents, Concordia College New York (2013–2016), as well as the Board of Directors of Lutheran World Relief (2009–2012) and the We Raise/Wheat Ridge Foundation (2013–2020).

Dr. Diefenthaler has been widowed two times: Linda Reineck (1994) and Vivi Provine (2018), and he has four children: Andrew (Beth) in Richmond, Virginia; Katie Wiltse (Eric) in Overland Park, Kansas; Lisa Woodson (Tracy) also in Richmond; Heidi Bernardi (Sam) in Valparaiso, Indiana. He has twelve grandchildren. He lives in Columbia, Maryland, where he has been for the past two decades.