The church had split from the Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod in North America (SAS) in 1870.
Prior to the split the SAS had placed a Norwegian seminary in Marshall, Wisconsin, which today is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and known as Augsburg University.
The difference between the NAS and the Conference was the inclusion of the Book of Concord.
The NAS wanted to include the entire Book of Concord as the confessional base.
The Conference wanted to use only the three ecumenical creeds, Luther's Small Catechism, and the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.