What's a Lutheran? (1) So What Is a Lutheran, Anyway?

Unless you grew up around Lutherans – and here in northern Virginia, most people didn’t – you may not really know what is distinctive about the Lutheran church or what we mean here at Epiphany by calling ourselves a Lutheran congregation.

The official definition of a Lutheran church is one that subscribes to a confession of faith called the Unaltered Augsburg Confession of 1530.  This statement summarized the position of the “evangelical” movement around Martin Luther and was aimed – unsuccessfully – at reaching agreement and reunification with Roman Catholics.  This 16th-century document doesn’t touch on every question we have today, but much of it is still relevant, and to this day the technical definition of a Lutheran congregation is one that professes and teaches in accord with this confession (and usually a collection of other, related Reformation documents such as Luther’s catechisms known as the Book of Concord).

Practically, the end of the European religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in the established state churches of parts of Germany, Scandinavia, and other places accepting the Augsburg Confession and so adopting the “Lutheran” label. Immigrants to North America from these places brought their home churches with them.  Over the years the majority of U.S. Lutherans combined to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1988, although a significant number of other, more sectarian Lutheran groups continue to exist in the United States.  Many other churches around the world also identify themselves as Lutherans.

But the best understanding of Lutherans is that we belong to a movement within the one universal (or “catholic”) Christian church, in continuity with historic Western Christian faith.  We have a distinctive theology and spirituality, which we’ll explore in this series, but Lutherans have an approach to Christianity intended to be an offering to all Christians – we never intended or wanted to be a “denomination” separate from other Christians.  In fact, the ELCA has full-communion agreements with six other Christian denominations (including The Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, the Reformed Church in America, and The Moravian Church).