Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)

• Motto: God’s work; our hands
• Formation: Early sixteenth century (Lutheranism); 1988 (ELCA)
• Founder: Martin Luther (Lutheranism)

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) traces its origins to the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the early sixteenth century. The ELCA was formed in 1988 by the merger of three existing American Lutheran organizations—the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches. The ELCA is thus part of the broader Lutheran Church in the United States, which includes nearly two dozen distinct church bodies.

According to the ELCA, the group had nearly four million baptized members at the end of 2024. It is among the largest denominations in the United States and is the largest American Lutheran Church. As with many other churches, membership declined significantly in the second half of the twentieth century, with a drop of just under 15 percent from the 1960s to the 2000s.

By the second decade of the twenty-first century, nearly a third of the ELCA’s clergy were women. Elizabeth A. Eaton became the first woman to serve as the group’s presiding bishop in 2013. At the end of 2024, the ELCA had roughly 8,900 congregations grouped into sixty-five regional synods that provide an overarching structure and support for the congregations. Synods are led by a bishop, and they meet as the Conference of Bishops to advise the Church Council. That council is, effectively, the Church’s board of directors. The Churchwide Assembly, made of clergy and lay members, determines Church policy. The ELCA’s constitution requires that 60 percent of the members of the assembly be lay individuals. The assembly chooses members of the Church Council and the presiding bishop.

The Church has twenty-six colleges and universities, at which students can earn undergraduate and graduate degrees, and also seven seminaries, at which new members of the clergy are taught Lutheran theology. Individual congregations and synods operate nearly 1,400 early childhood programs, hundreds of elementary schools, and multiple high schools.

As an evangelical church, the ELCA emphasizes strict adherence to the Gospel and personal piety, or religious devotion. Evangelical churches tend also to have active missionary movements, and the ELCA is no exception, with missionaries active in dozens of countries. Although the Lutheran Church emphasizes that Christians receive salvation through the grace of God and not through good works, the ELCA is active in trying to build a better world in several areas. These activities reflect the Church’s motto of "God’s work; our hands."

In addition, the ELCA has joined with nearly 150 church organizations in nearly 100 countries to form the Lutheran World Federation. This group does not establish doctrine for member churches, but it does facilitate mission work and interfaith dialogue. It is also part of the World Council of Churches, a large international ecumenical group.

History

The Lutheran Church began in Germany in 1517, when Martin Luther, a Catholic monk and university professor, produced the Ninety-Five Theses, which charged the Roman Catholic Church and its leadership with errors of doctrine and practice. His criticisms of the Church, which struck a chord with many people, challenged Church authority. Pope Leo X declared Luther’s ideas to be heresy; Luther defiantly burned the papal order and responded with several works that set out his ideas. He said that the only authority for doctrine was the Bible; that faith, not works, was the basis of salvation; and that Church officials needed to live as simply as the apostles had done.

In 1521, the pope excommunicated Luther, and Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, issued the Edict of Worms, condemning Luther’s views. Yet, Luther’s cause had become entangled with politics because some German princes were intent on challenging imperial authority. The ruler of Saxony protected Luther from imperial arrest. By 1526, Luther’s teachings had become widespread across Germany. His followers called themselves Evangelicals because they focused on the teaching of the Gospel. Another imperial diet, held that year in Speyer, relaxed the ban on Lutheran teaching issued five years earlier.

In 1530, Luther began to formalize the nascent organization of a new church. The principles of the faith were set forth in the Augsburg Confession, which was drafted mainly by Philipp Melanchthon from Luther’s writings. Three-quarters of the twenty-eight articles were similar to Catholic teachings. The remaining seven reflected Luther’s views on where Catholicism had strayed from scripture. Lutheranism developed and changed over time. Divisions arose even in the sixteenth century, and an effort was made to settle them by creating the Book of Concord in 1580.

Lutheranism grew across Germany, and in 1555, Charles V had to accept the Lutheran Church’s right to exist. Meanwhile, the faith had spread outside Germany as well. Lutheranism was adopted by King Gustav Vasa of Sweden in 1527, in part as a way of breaking the power of the Catholic Church. In 1531, King Christian III of Denmark made Lutheranism the official state religion of his realm, which included Norway.

Lutheranism reached North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the arrival of Dutch and Swedish settlers. The first large group of Lutherans came in the mid-eighteenth century with the wave of German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania. In the 1800s, many Scandinavian Lutherans settled in the upper Midwest, and more German immigrants arrived. The American Lutheran Church developed both the Pietistic tradition begun in the sixteenth century, which cultivated a strong faith and a simple life, and the more conservative theologically strict strain. Lutheran churches were generally independent and reflected the language and traditions of the immigrants who formed them. In 1850, there were more than 150 distinct church organizations. Over time, they began to coalesce.

The movement to build larger, more encompassing Lutheran bodies grew strong in the twentieth century. Many church organizations joined together in 1918 to form the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA). The ULCA was committed to creating a unified body of American Lutherans. It achieved another step in that direction in 1962 when it formed the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), along with existing Danish, Finnish, and Swedish Lutheran organizations.

The Lutheran Church in America became one of the three groups that later formed the ELCA through a series of mergers. The second of those churches that became part of the ELCA was the American Lutheran Church, which had formed in 1961 and included German, Norwegian, and Danish Lutheran organizations. The third church to become part of the ELCA was the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, which had been created in 1976. It was formed by bishops of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), who had moved away from that church’s more conservative views.

Beliefs and Practices

The ELCA believes in the Christian Trinity and accepts the Bible as the source of God’s inspired word. The ELCA accepts three creeds, or statements of Christian faith. First is the Apostles’ Creed, which achieved its final form in the early seventh century and is accepted by Protestant and Catholic churches, although not by the Eastern Orthodox churches. This creed includes a statement on the Trinity, accepts the virgin birth, the Second Coming of Jesus, the final judgment of all humans, and the resurrection of the body. The second such statement of faith is the Nicene Creed, which was adopted by the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, and it establishes that Jesus is "one in Being with [God] the Father," not created by God. It is accepted by the Eastern Orthodox churches as well as by the Catholic and Protestant faiths. The third such statement of faith is the Athanasian Creed, and it is both much longer than the others and also accepted by Catholics and some Protestants. The other central statement of ELCA belief is the Book of Concord. This collection of documents was compiled in 1580 as a definitive statement of Lutheran faith. It includes the creeds that Lutherans adhere to, the Augsburg Confession, the catechism written by Luther, and other documents. It is essentially the statement of orthodox Lutheran belief.

The ELCA, following Luther’s teaching, believes in only two sacraments: baptism and communion. In this belief, it is similar to other Protestant faiths but differs from Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox belief, both of which accept seven sacraments. Luther believed that these two sacraments were sacred because Jesus had commanded them—he told his followers to baptize believers and to share the communion feast in memory of Christ’s sacrificial death. In addition, both of these sacraments have physical manifestations—namely, the water of baptism and the bread and wine of communion. Finally, these sacraments offer God’s grace, or his forgiveness of sins. In a change from earlier practice, the ELCA now conducts infant baptism before the congregation during services. Previously, baptisms were private and for the family only. The new policy reflects the belief that baptism means being accepted into the community of worshipers.

Communion is considered a symbolic memorial of the Last Supper. Lutherans do not accept the Catholic teaching of transubstantiation, in which the wine and bread, through a holy mystery, become the blood and body of Jesus. In Lutheran practice, all communicants take both the bread and the wine. In traditional Catholic practice, only the priests drink the wine, although that practice has changed in some churches.

The ELCA is in full communion with several churches, including the Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, and Reformed churches, as well as the United Church of Christ. As a result, members of any of these churches are free to worship in the other churches, and the sacraments of baptism and communion are mutually recognized.

Female clergy were accepted in 1970 among the groups that later formed the ELCA. The year 1992 was the first time a woman was chosen as a bishop. The first gay clergy members were accepted in 1990; gay clergy with a partner were allowed to serve openly in 2009; and the first gay bishop took office in 2013. In 2009, the Church issued a statement on human sexuality that addressed same-sex marriage ("A Social Statement on Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust"). That statement accepted the notion that there are strong divisions on the issue and acknowledged that people of belief and good conscience are on both sides. The 2009 decision to accept partnered gay clergy was controversial. More than two hundred congregations left the ELCA as a result of this decision.

The ELCA has come under some criticism for other policies as well. As early as 1995, just a few years after the Church was formed, critics complained both that the new Church had abandoned the traditions of the Church organizations that composed it and also that it had lost its focus because it no longer recognized congregations as the core of the Church. David Preus, the last president of the American Lutheran Church before the ELCA was formed, complained that "[m]issionary priority has diminished while commitment to an agenda for social and political action has increased."

In the 1990s, more than two dozen ELCA ministers formed a group called the Society of the Holy Trinity that vowed mutual support to pastors who adhered to traditional Lutheran teachings. This group was concerned about efforts to reword the fundamental creeds to which the ELCA subscribed, creating statements with gender-neutral language in the process. The group began when the founding pastors issued the "9.5 Theses" to stimulate debate within the Church. One thesis protested the false doctrine that the name "God the Father . . . is inherently oppressive to human beings in general or women in particular." The ELCA, however, rejected the call for discussion.

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, the ECLA maintained a reputation as one of the more liberal major Christian organizations in the US. For example, in 2021, it installed its first openly transgender bishop, Megan Rohrer, who became the first openly transgender bishop of any major Protestant denomination in the US. However, Rohrer's tenure ended in 2022 when they resigned amid accusations of racism against a Latino pastor in their synod who was forced to resign in 2021. The dispute over these accusations against Rohrer developed into a major scandal within the ECLA, with some members arguing that the church had failed to address issues of systemic racism within its leadership and structure.

Despite occasional internal conflicts and other issues, the ELCA remained committed to its relatively liberal theology and commitment to a social agenda well into the twenty-first century. The ELCA justifies its commitment to making the world a better place in the document titled "ELCA Facts," which states, "We are a church that believes God is calling us into the world—together."

Bibliography

Chitwood, Ken. "'I Don't Know Which Way to Turn': ELCA Grapples with Racism, Resignation of Trans Bishop." Sojourners, 12 July 2022, sojo.net/articles/i-don-t-know-which-way-turn-elca-grapples-racism-resignation-trans-bishop. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Gassmann, Günther, Mark W. Oldenburg, and Duane H. Larson. Historical Dictionary of Lutheranism. 2nd ed., Scarecrow Press, 2011.

"Fast Facts About American Religion." Hartford Institute for Religion Research, hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast‗facts.html. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Jacobson, Diane, Mark Allan Powell, and Stanley N. Olson. Opening the Book of Faith: Lutheran Insights for Bible Study. Augsburg Fortress, 2008.

"Relief and Development." Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, www.elca.org/Our-Work/Relief-and-Development. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

“Schools.” Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, www.elca.org/our-work/congregations-and-synods/schools. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

"A Social Statement of Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust." Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 19 Aug. 2009, download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/SexualitySS.pdf?‗ga=1.29942655.1349622578.1455364094. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Trexler, Edgard D. Anatomy of a Merger: People, Dynamics, and Decisions That Shaped the ELCA. Augsburg Fortress, 1992.

"Who We Are." The Lutheran World Federation, www.lutheranworld.org/content/about-lwf. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.