Lutheranism

• Motto: God’s work. Our hands. (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America)
• Formation: 1517–21 CE
• Founder: Martin Luther

Lutheranism is the oldest church in the Protestant Christian tradition, tracing its origins back to Martin Luther and the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century. Luther was an Augustine monk and teacher at the University of Wittenberg in Germany. His initial effort was not to create a schism within the Roman Catholic Church; he originally only wanted to reform some Church practices and theological beliefs. Thus, the Reformation inspired by Luther was very conservative; the original Lutherans sought to retain Roman Catholic elements to the greatest possible extent. As a result, Lutheran worship is more similar to the Roman Catholic style of worship than any other Protestant church.

Martin Luther’s challenges to church doctrine and various church practices led to his excommunication and consolidated a movement that grew into one of the largest Protestant denominations, one with nearly 80 million members in 150 churches worldwide in the 2020s.

History

Martin Luther was a monk in Erfurt, Germany, who sought to reform the Western Roman Catholic Church in the early 1500s. On October 31, 1517, he published his "Ninety-Five Theses," calling for changes in Catholic doctrine and practices that he felt were inconsistent with scripture.

One of Luther’s primary concerns was the idea that all humanity needed to be punished for original sin and thus suffered God’s anger. People, in this view, could enter heaven through good works as expiation. This concept stemmed from medieval interpretations of multiple biblical sources, one of which was the Book of Romans 1:17. Luther had an insight that the original Greek passage could be translated two ways. It could mean that "[t]he one who is righteous will live by faith"; in this interpretation, those individuals who are good and do good works will have faith. This was the teaching of the Church. Luther realized that the passage could also mean something else: "The one who is righteous by faith will live"; in this rendering, it is the gift of faith that God gives that makes a person righteous. To Luther, the idea that his salvation was not in his own hands but in God’s was an immense relief.

Doctrinally, humanity’s relationship with God was at the heart of Luther’s reforms. However, what triggered the creation of Lutheranism was the controversy surrounding indulgences. They were part of Roman Catholic confession. Depending on the sins confessed, the priest could direct the confessor to say prayers or do something else to atone for those sins, including a work of satisfaction. Such a work could be a cash contribution to the church, otherwise known as indulgences. Viewed in one way, this meant an individual could buy absolution.

In 1517, Pope Leo X needed money to renovate and expand St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and he authorized the archbishop of Mainz to sell special indulgences in northern Germany. The archbishop also needed money to repay the pope for having appointed him to his position; the pope had done so in return for the promise of a large financial contribution that had yet to be paid. In Wittenberg in 1517, one preacher took the idea to its logical conclusion, selling a guarantee of a speedier arrival in heaven in return for cash donations.

Along with many other clergy in Germany, Luther was aghast at this development. He thought people in his district were putting their eternal salvation at risk with such a deal. He also felt that the Church and Pope Leo X should give forgiveness away at no cost, just as Christ had done. Luther wrote his arguments in his "Ninety-Five Theses" and posted them on the doors of a church. He wrote his treatise in Latin because he hoped to reform the Church, not to start a popular opposition. However, the document was swiftly translated into German and widely disseminated.

The pope responded by sending a Vatican lawyer named John Eck to debate Luther in 1519. During the course of the debate, a public affair, Eck named the new movement, derisively calling Luther’s followers Lutherans and their ideas Lutheranism. Among Eck’s arguments was an insistence that whenever a disagreement about doctrine or scripture arose, the pope had the final word in the argument. Luther disagreed, insisting that a person of conscience could not put the pope’s authority above the Bible when that person knew with certainty the meaning of scripture.

The Church could not tolerate Luther’s position. The monk was excommunicated in 1521, and no one who followed him could remain within the Roman Catholic Church. Thus began the Protestant Reformation.

Lutherans immediately adopted Luther’s basic tenets, which are often called the three great Reformation Solas. As the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) explains, Lutherans believe "that sinners are justified (declared right) with the Creator God by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), on the basis of Scripture alone (sola scriptura)."

Luther’s ideas had immediate appeal throughout Germany and across northern Europe. For example, regular Lutheran services have been held in Copenhagen since 1520—before the Protestant Reformation was actually underway. The new faith was adopted in the sixteenth century by the monarch of Denmark-Norway, which included Iceland and the Faroe Islands as well, and the same was true for Sweden, which at the time also controlled Finland. Because Baltic-German rulers and the Swedes controlled the Baltic region, Lutheranism spread quickly into Latvia and Estonia.

Under King Frederick, Denmark-Norway remained officially Catholic, but the king refused to persecute Lutherans, as he had promised Rome he would do. Instead, he protected Lutheran preachers.

Martin Luther himself did not want the movement labeled with his name. He preferred to give the reformed church the name Evangelical, a name that other reform-minded theologians, such as John Calvin in Switzerland, also adopted. To differentiate the movements, one branch was called Evangelical Lutheran, and the other was called Evangelical Reformed. By 1597, Luther’s followers had made the term Lutheran the religion’s official name.

Violent conflict erupted after Martin Luther died in 1546; it was then that papal forces joined the fray. Philosophical and sometimes physical battles arose between competing reform movements as well. Once religious freedom was secured for Lutherans in most of northern Europe, religious and political leaders—no fewer than eight thousand of them—met to mediate the issues. They signed the "Formula of Concord," which resolved the internal disagreements on the basis of scripture. Martin Luther’s writings on faith and doctrine were assembled into the Book of Concord, which provided all Lutherans with a unified doctrine.

There have been amazingly few schisms within Lutheranism since the end of the sixteenth century. Tensions and debates have certainly occurred, but the main divisions within the Lutheran Church have been ethnic/nationalistic in nature. Lutheranism has a tendency toward nationalism, taking on unique characteristics according to the nation in which it spread and the language used in its worship services. Nonethnic synods did not exist to any meaningful degree until the 1960s in the United States, when Lutheran immigrants from different cultures joined together.

There were, of course, setbacks or stumbles along the way. A low point for Lutheranism occurred in the 1930s when Adolph Hitler attempted to align the Lutheran Church with Nazism. His efforts succeeded in Germany, but in Denmark and Norway, those efforts failed.

Initially in the United States, Lutheran synods were based on the land of origin of the immigrants who brought Lutheranism with them. The first American synod was formed by German immigrants in Pennsylvania in 1748, but Lutherans from Scandinavia were already living in New Jersey and New York in the 1620s. The largest single Lutheran body in the United States until the late 1980s, the LCMS, was founded by Prussian immigrants in 1847. That group has remained independent ever since, even as other US synods have merged.

During the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, Lutheranism experienced a relative decline in Europe and North America, following the trend of most mainstream religions over the same period. At the same time, Lutheranism experienced rapid growth in Asia and Africa. By 2019, while Lutherans numbered approximately thirty-five million in Europe and more than four million in North America, they had grown to nearly twnty-one million in Africa and almost eleven million in Asia. This number continued to climb steadily into the 2020s, with around eighty million individuals identifying as Lutheran.

Another important trend for the Lutheran Church was North American unification. In 1917, three Norwegian synods merged into the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America. The next year, three German synods joined to form the United Lutheran Church in America. In 1987, three Lutheran synods merged to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which is the largest Lutheran denomination in North America. The LCMS has resisted the trend toward consolidation due to disagreements over a number of doctrinal issues.

Internationally, Lutheranism has also followed a tendency toward unity. In 1947, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) was formed. LWF members recognize ministers ordained by a bishop from one synod as valid in another synod. The LWF entered into dialogue and cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church in the mid-1960s. In keeping with this tendency toward ecumenicalism, the LWF signed a "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" with the Roman Catholic Church in 1999 and, between 2016 and 2017, jointly commemorated the five-hundred-year anniversary of Luther posting the "Ninety-Five Theses" while emphasizing Christian unity and commonalities between the Lutheran and Catholic faiths. Despite that rapprochement, it remained unlikely that the denominations would remerge.

The International Lutheran Council is another, smaller international body of "confessional Lutheran churches" that was founded in 1993. Among its members is the LCMS.

Beliefs and Practices

In terms of practices, most Lutherans have a highly liturgical worship service. Martin Luther loved music, and almost all Lutheran churches include a lot of music in their services. A liturgical emphasis shows in the celebration of the Eucharistic Mass (Holy Communion), which is the central sacrament of Christian worship. Lutherans believe that the actual blood and body of Christ are present in the Eucharist, but they do not believe in transubstantiation. The Lutheran belief is given the name Real Presence—that is, Jesus is present in, under, and around the bread and wine. So-called offices are also held, which are worship services that do not include Holy Communion.

In practice, Lutheran worship bears a closer resemblance to Roman Catholic services than it does to most other Protestant denominations. Luther did not seek to reject the Roman Catholic Church but to reform it. Many aspects of Lutheran worship are quite similar to Catholic services, and generally speaking, Roman Catholics will feel a greater familiarity with Lutheran practices than most other Protestants.

In 1580, the Book of Concord was compiled. It remains a foundational document for Lutherans, a distillation of everything they believe, confess, and teach. Dr. Samuel Nafzger, an official of the Missouri Synod, writes that the Book of Concord is considered to be "a true and unadulterated statement and exposition of the Word of God." As source material, it ranks only behind the Bible itself. Lutherans regard themselves as a catholic, or universal, church that follows scriptural teachings alone in all religious matters. Although there are differing schools of thought among Lutherans, Nafzger of the LCMS states that all synods would agree that their faith is in the traditions of the "trinitarian and Christological formulations of the fourth and fifth centuries." "Trinitarian" means believing in the Holy Trinity: God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

The material principle of Lutheranism is the doctrine of justification. Human beings are saved from their sins by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, on the basis of scripture alone (sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura, respectively). According to Lutheran belief, all things in the world were perfect as God made them, but humanity chose to disobey God. Adam and Eve trusted their own strength and wisdom instead of God’s, thereby tainting all of humanity with original sin. It is original sin, in this view, that is the basis for all actual sin in human lives.

Humans are able to do good things, but there is nothing a person can do to expiate original sin. All of humanity deserves eternal damnation in hell. However, God loves all people and does not want anyone to suffer that fate. He sent Jesus Christ into the world to provide salvation to humanity. Faith alone enables people to receive this gift of salvation—but faith does not cause the gift. Lutherans utterly reject the modern evangelical notion of decision theology—the idea more colloquially known as born again.

In contrast to Catholics, who observe seven sacraments, Lutherans have only two or three—baptism and the Eucharist, and sometimes confession and absolution, although this last sacrament is tied to baptism. Lutherans also reject the idea that humans have free will when it comes to spiritual issues. Salvation comes from God alone, and humans cannot have spiritual righteousness without the presence and help of the Holy Spirit.

Lutherans reject the idea of an earthly kingdom of Christ. When Christians die, their souls join Jesus to await the Second Coming of Christ on the last day. At that time, the bodies of the dead will be resurrected, and their souls will be reunited with their bodies. The bodies are changed according to righteousness or wickedness, which is determined by Christ according to the faith of the righteous or unbelief of the wicked.

Bibliography

Englebrecht, Edward A. The Lutheran Difference: An Explanation & Comparison of Christian Beliefs. Concordia, 2010.

Granquist, Mark. Lutherans in America: A New History. Fortress, 2015.

Gritsch, Eric. A History of Lutheranism. 2nd ed., Fortress, 2010.

"History of LWF." The Lutheran World Federation, lutheranworld.org/who-we-are/history-lwf. Accessed 15 Dec. 2024.

Kinnaman, Scot A. Lutheranism 101. 3rd ed., Concordia Publishing House, 2021.

Lohrmann, Martin J. Stories from Global Lutheranism: A Historical Timeline. Fortress Press, 2021.

Lura, D.J. So What’s a Lutheran, Don’tcha Know? Amazon Digital Services, 2011.

Nafzger, Samuel. "What Lutherans Believe." St. Johns Lutheran St. Louis, June 1994, stjohnslutheranstlouis.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/what-do-lutherans-believe.pdf. Accessed 15 Dec. 2024.

Paulson, Steven. Lutheran Theology. Bloomsbury–T & T Clark, 2011.

Remensnyder, Junius. The Lutheran Manual. Just and Sinner, 2014.

Sherwood, Harriet. "Catholics and Lutherans Sign Joint Declaration 'Accepting Common Path.'" The Guardian, 31 Oct. 2016, www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/31/catholics-lutherans-joint-declaration-pope-francis-christian-sweden. Accessed 15 Dec. 2024.

"Who We Are." The Lutheran World Federation, lutheranworld.org/who-we-are. Accessed 15 Dec. 2024.