Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

This source names ELCA directly: "Church in America's own magazine; ELCA is the 1988 merger successor to the Lutheran Church in America, which produced the series, so this is treated as the direct successor denomination's own..."

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "The Wikipedia entry for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose infobox states 2,677,239 baptized members across 8,386 congregations as of 2024, attributed to the denomination's own..."

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "on the 1970 decisions of two of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's predecessor bodies to admit women to the pastoral office: the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America..."

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "relief and development agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, founded in 1945 by the former National Lutheran Council as US Lutherans responded..."

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "relief and development agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, a member of the Corus International family..."

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "are in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, alongside its other twenty first century ecumenical relationships: full communion with the Episcopal Church, voted by the..."

The largest Lutheran body in the United States.

Classified as mainline Protestant tradition per Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Augsburg Confession devotes two articles to this, one against compulsory clerical celibacy and one against monastic vows, and the monasteries of the Lutheran territories were dissolved.

The dispute that began this tradition was about indulgences. Luther's ninety-five theses of 1517 argue that the pope can remit only what he or the canons have imposed, that true contrition seeks the punishment rather than release from it, and that the treasury of merits is not the church's to spend.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Pilgrimage stands in the Augsburg Confession among the human traditions urged as though they merited grace, and is refused on that ground rather than as a custom.

Lutherans hold the normative principle. The Augsburg Confession says rites instituted by men are not necessary for salvation but may be kept for good order, and the Formula of Concord treats such ceremonies as adiaphora, free in themselves though not free under persecution. Vestments, images and set liturgy were kept for that reason, the direct opposite of the Reformed rule.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Lutherans count the sacraments by the presence of a command of Christ and a promise attached to an outward sign, which yields two, or three when absolution is counted.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Augsburg Confession permits the remembrance of the saints as examples of faith and forbids their invocation, since Christ alone is the mediator.

The Augsburg Confession's article on the power of bishops confines that power to the word and the sacraments, denies bishops any authority over civil government and denies them any right to bind consciences beyond scripture, which leaves no ground for a universal jurisdiction or for infallible teaching.

No Lutheran confession makes a place for a purifying state after death, and the Augsburg Confession's treatment of the mass rejects the practice of applying its merit for the dead that the doctrine supported.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not include 1 Esdras in its Bible. Like other Lutheran bodies it holds to the Reformation's narrower Old Testament canon, the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and 1 Esdras, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy, falls outside that list along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not include 3 Maccabees in its Bible. Its Old Testament follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and 3 Maccabees, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy, falls outside that narrower canon along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not include Psalm 151 in its Bible. Its Old Testament follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and Psalm 151, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy and found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, falls outside that narrower canon along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America confesses justification by faith alone in the Lutheran sense, faith as trust rather than as a virtue completed by charity.

The tenth article of the Augsburg Confession says the body and blood of Christ are truly present and distributed to those that eat in the supper. The Formula of Concord defines that as a sacramental union, given in, with and under the bread and wine, and rejects transubstantiation on one side and the Reformed spiritual reception on the other. This is where Lutherans and Reformed have never met.

Sung on Reformation Sunday, when the church wears red.

Alb and stole are the ordinary eucharistic vesture across the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

This church elects bishops to fixed terms, and since 1999 has ordained them within the historic succession under its agreement with the Episcopal Church.

The ordinary title for the ordained minister of a congregation in this church.

Worn by the ordained in the colour of the season, and by deacons across one shoulder.

The churchwide assembly and the synods beneath it are the governing bodies of the church, and its bishops are elected by them.

North American Lutheranism traces its confessional descent to the town, and its anniversaries are marked there.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Almsgiving is treated as a fruit of faith rather than as a work that justifies, which is the whole of the Lutheran difference on the point.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Baptism is necessary to salvation and by it the grace of God is offered, and the Augsburg Confession condemns those who teach that children are saved without it.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Luther's instruction to remember one's baptism daily, drowning the old self and rising again, is the central Lutheran account of the Christian life.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The churching of a mother was retained in the Lutheran church orders of the sixteenth century, stripped of any suggestion that she needed purifying.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Compline stands in the modern Lutheran books as the last office of the day.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Luther retained private confession and absolution and defended it in the catechisms, though the practice fell away in most Lutheran churches in favour of a corporate confession at the start of the service.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Confirmation was kept as a rite of the church and denied the standing of a sacrament, since it has no command of Christ and no promise of grace attached to an outward sign.

This church is in full communion with several American churches of other traditions at once, including the Episcopal Church under an agreement that required it to receive the historic episcopate and Reformed churches under an agreement that required nothing of the kind. Holding both at the same time is unusual and is the practical shape of its ecumenical position.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Fasting is kept as an outward discipline that prepares a person to receive the sacrament, and is expressly denied any merit before God.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The burial office was retained, with the prayers for the dead removed and the promise of the resurrection put at the centre.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Ordination is to the one office of the ministry of word and sacrament, and no man may publicly teach or administer the sacraments unless he is rightly called to it.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Infants are baptised, and the Anabaptists are condemned by name in the Augsburg Confession for rejecting it.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Intinction is practised in many Lutheran churches, though the ordinary manner is to receive the host and then the cup.

The fourth article of the Augsburg Confession holds that men cannot be justified by their own strength, merits or works, but are justified freely for Christ's sake through faith. This church confesses that book, and its churchwide assembly approved the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1997, two years before it was signed.

The Formula of Concord treats law and gospel as two distinct words of God, the one convicting and the other forgiving, and makes the ability to distinguish them the test of a sound reading of scripture. Nothing in the Anglican or the Reformed confessions plays quite this role.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The liturgical colours were retained, along with vestments, the church year and the historic lectionary, on the ground that such things are matters of freedom and not of salvation.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The daily office was retained rather than abolished, reduced to Matins and Vespers and put into the language of the people.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Marriage is a civil estate blessed by the church rather than a sacrament, and Lutheran clergy marry.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Matins is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Benedictus as its gospel canticle.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Sunday is kept for the sake of good order and of hearing the word, and the Augsburg Confession denies that the observance rests on divine law.

The second article of the Augsburg Confession holds that all men are born with sin, without the fear of God and without trust in him, and that this disease and original fault is truly sin, condemning all who are not born again. The Formula of Concord later insisted that the corruption is not the substance of human nature itself.

The third article of the Augsburg Confession holds that Christ truly suffered, was crucified, died and was buried to reconcile the Father to us and to be a sacrifice not only for original guilt but also for all actual sins of men. Lutheran orthodoxy states the atonement as a vicarious satisfaction in which Christ bears the penalty of the law in the sinner's place.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Small Catechism teaches morning and evening prayer, grace at table and the Lord's Prayer as the shape of household devotion.

The Formula of Concord teaches election to salvation only. God's eternal election is a cause of the salvation of the elect, it says, but God is in no way the cause of anyone's damnation, which rests on man's own resistance to the word. That is single predestination, and it was a deliberate refusal, stated some forty years before Dort, of the double decree the Reformed churches would confess there.

The same article of the Augsburg Confession makes faith the sole instrument, and the confession's article on the new obedience insists that good works must follow while denying them any part in earning the remission of sins.

The Formula of Concord opens by naming the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments as the only rule and norm by which all teachers and teachings are to be judged, and places the creeds and the confessions under that rule as witnesses rather than as judges.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The breaking of the bread stands in the modern Lutheran books as a distinct action of the rite.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Churchwide Assembly voted 559 to 451 on 21 August 2009 to open ordained ministry to clergy in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same gender relationships, ending a policy that had required celibacy of gay and lesbian clergy.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Lutherans keep the liturgical shape but drop the language of sacrifice, teaching that Christ is truly present in, with and under the bread and wine, a presence distinguished from both transubstantiation and a merely symbolic view.

Lutherans hold that every baptised Christian stands as a priest before God, and the Augsburg Confession pairs that with the requirement that nobody teach publicly or administer the sacraments without a regular call. The office of ministry is a matter of order and public calling, not a different spiritual estate.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The words of institution are the heart of the rite, and Lutheran theology locates the presence of the body and blood in Christ's own words rather than in a prayer of the church.

The Formula of Concord affirms the title in its article on the person of Christ. Because the two natures are personally united, it holds, Mary conceived and bore the Son of God and is rightly called the mother of God, and it treats the point as a test of whether the union is being taken seriously rather than as a devotional claim.

Luther's Temporal Authority of 1523 sets out the two governments, the spiritual through the word and the temporal through law and the sword, both of them God's and neither to be confused with the other. The Augsburg Confession states the same in its article on civil affairs, holding that the gospel does not overthrow the state.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Vespers is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Magnificat as its gospel canticle.

Via the Lutheran Church in America, which the Suomi Synod merged into in 1962 alongside the United Lutheran Church in America, the Augustana Lutheran Church and the American Evangelical Lutheran Church; the LCA itself merged into the ELCA in 1988.