Lutheranism

C

Baptism

Lutheranism affirms the traditional practice of infant baptism as a sacrament in which God's grace reaches out to newborn children. For Lutherans, baptism signifies God's unconditional love, which is independent of any intellectual, moral, or emotional achievements on the part of human beings.

D

Christian Life

For Lutheranism, saints do not constitute a superior class of Christians but are sinners saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ; every Christian is both saint and sinner. The Lutheran doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is related to baptism, by which all Christians, both male and female, are made priests of God, serving him during their entire life in their chosen vocations, all of which are to be understood as equal opportunities for discipleship. The office of the pastor is a special office in Lutheranism based on a call from God and from a congregation of Christians. Unlike Roman Catholic priests, Lutheran clergy may marry.

E

Doctrinal Texts

Although Lutherans accept the canonical books of the Bible as “the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be judged” (Formula of Concord), they also recommend the books of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament for Christian edification and have traditionally included them in vernacular versions of the Bible. Lutherans accept the authority of the three ecumenical creeds (Apostles', Nicene, Athanasian) and use the first two regularly in worship services. The special doctrinal statements of Lutheranism are Luther's Schmalkald Articles (1537), Small Catechism (1529), and Large Catechism (1529); the Augsburg Confession (1530), Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531), and Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (1529) of Philip Melanchthon; and the Formula of Concord (1577), which was written by a commission of theologians after the deaths of the original reformers. Together with the creeds, these documents constitute The Book of Concord, adopted by Lutheran princes and cities in 1580. Only the creeds, the Augsburg Confession, and Luther's two catechisms, however, have been recognized by all Lutheran Churches.

F

Church Organization and Government

Because of their origin in the 16th century, the older European Lutheran Churches are closely tied to their respective governments as established Churches, either exclusively, as in the Scandinavian countries, or in a parallel arrangement with Roman Catholicism, as in Germany. (In both situations other religious groups have complete freedom of worship but not the same support and supervision from the government.) In non-European countries, Lutheran Churches are voluntary religious organizations. A uniform system of Church government has never developed in Lutheranism; congregational, presbyterian, and episcopal structures all exist, although a tendency emerged in the 20th century to give the title of bishop to elected leaders of judicatories (synods, districts, churches).

III

History and Influence

The early development of Lutheranism was greatly influenced by political events. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was unable to undertake the forceful suppression of Lutheranism because the empire was being threatened by the Turks. Despite the Edict of Worms (1521), which placed the Lutherans under imperial ban, the movement continued to spread. Intermittent religious wars followed, ending in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), which stipulated that the religion of the ruler of each territory within the Holy Roman Empire was to be the religion of his subjects, thus in effect sanctioning the Lutheran churches and also establishing the territorial princes as primates of their churches. The Formula of Concord (1577), prepared by theologians to resolve disputes among Lutherans, was signed by political leaders to ensure Lutheran unity at a time when renewed religious warfare threatened. The survival of Lutheranism after the Thirty Years' War was the result of the intervention of the Lutheran Swedish king Gustav II Adolph and of Roman Catholic France on the side of the Protestants. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) brought an end to the religious wars in Europe.

Beginning in the late 17th century, the reform movement called Pietism, which stressed individual conversion and a devout way of life, revitalized Lutheranism in Germany and spread to other countries. Lutheran theology during the 18th century reflected the rationalism of the Enlightenment. During the 19th century, the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, who emphasized universal religious experience, exercised a major influence on liberal Lutheran theologians. At the same time, idealism, the dominant movement of modern German philosophy, had a profound effect on Lutheran theological thought. In the 20th century, the neo-orthodoxy of the Swiss theologian Karl Barth and existentialism were the most prominent theological developments.

The political ascendancy of Prussia among the German states by the early 19th century led to the establishment (1817) of the Church of the Prussian Union, which united Calvinists and millions of German Lutherans into one Church. This development was bitterly opposed by a large number of Lutherans, some of whom broke away to establish a separate Church. The crisis of German politics in the 20th century gravely affected German Lutheranism. The attempt by Adolf Hitler to control German Churches led to the split of the German Lutheran Church and to the internment of some Lutherans (such as Martin Niemöller) in concentration camps and the execution of others (notably the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer). Lutheran leaders in Norway and Denmark took major roles in the resistance to Nazi occupation of their countries, and the German Confessing Church, which had resisted Hitler, made an important contribution to the reconstruction of West Germany (now part of the united Federal Republic of Germany) after World War II. Lutheranism arrived in America with the early European settlers. After the American War of Independence, each successive group of Lutheran immigrants founded its own churches and synods and conducted its services in the language of its country of origin. Because of the large numbers of immigrants to the United States and Canada in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Lutheranism was divided into numerous German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, and Slovak groups. By the early 1980s mergers had consolidated most Lutherans in the United States and Canada.