The foundations of the Lutheran church were laid in the 16th century by Martin Luther, a German priest in the Roman Catholic Church and his fellow reformers, who provide us with our rich legacy of a Lutheran understanding of our Christian faith.
Lutherans trace their roots back to the sixteenth century when Martin Luther, an Augustinian Roman Catholic monk, challenged some of the teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church for which he could find no biblical basis. His primary insight into the Gospel was that salvation is never earned by our own effort, but is a free gracious gift of God. On October 31, 1517, he posted a challenge on the church door at Wittenberg University to debate 95 theological issues. Luther's bold action was the spark that ignited the Protestant Reformation throughout Europe. Luther's hope was that the church would reform its practice and preaching to be more consistent with the Word of God as contained in the Bible. Such hope on Luther's part was finally dashed in 1530. In that year a written summary of Lutheran beliefs (The Augsburg Confession) prepared by Luther's scholarly colleague at Wittenberg University, Philip Melanchthon, was largely rejected by the Roman Catholic theologians of that time. This turned out to be a defining moment in creating Lutheranism as a separate movement. The Augsburg Confession became recognized as the public creed of the Evangelical Lutheran movement and it is to this day the basic core Lutheran confession. It has been described as being "like a banner that unites us and a rampart that defends us against error". The Augsburg Confession together with other confessional writings by 16th century Lutheran theologians based on Scripture are contained in The Book of Concord - The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (or commonly simply referred to asThe Lutheran Confessions). The Book of Concord of 1580 provides a summary of the Lutheran church's beliefs and teaching. Lutherans still hold to the basic principles of theology and practice as summarized in The Book of Concord:
We are saved by the grace of God alone not by anything we do.
Our salvation is through faith alone we only need to believe that our sins are forgiven for Christ's sake, who died to redeem us;
The Bible is the only norm of doctrine and life the only true standard by which teachings and doctrines are to be judged.
Being a Lutheran is one who believes the truths of God's Word, the Holy Bible, as they are correctly explained and taught in The Book of Concord.
With a church so firmly grounded on Scripture and The Lutheran Confessions (as per Article II (Confession of Faith) of the ELCIC Constitution) , one would expect it, unlike many of the other mainline churches, would not be affected by the liberalization tendencies and secular influences so common today. And yet, remarkably, a National Post article ("Church of tough love") published in December 2006, identified "Lutherans", along with Anglicans, our full communion partners, as being in the category of "the more liberal Canadian churches" such as the United Church of Canada!
The public perception that the Lutheran church is one of "the more liberal Canadian churches" is in no small part promoted by the efforts of a large fraction of the ELCIC's leadership, who are engaged in radically changing the ELCIC's doctrine and theology. One symptom of such liberalizing tendencies is the promotion of the acceptance of same sex blessings. That public perception is very unfortunate and disconcerting. For, as Jonathan Malloy, a political scientist at Carleton University, points out in the National Post article, "There's no doubt that the religions that are growing are the ones that hold fast to certain answers, and are more definite in their answers, that are more clear in their doctrine and their teachings about what's right and wrong. For better or for worse, that's what people want to hear, that's what attracts them". With their historical strong emphasis on the authority of Scripture, Lutheran churches should be a beneficiary of such growth, not positioning themselves for attrition and decline. As the revisionists continue with their radical theological makeover of the ELCIC, it becomes less and less recognizable as the Lutheran church that we inherited from Martin Luther and the Reformers.
Although the efforts of some to radically transform the ELCIC's theology and doctrine is disturbing for many of its biblically-faithful members, the consequences are felt by all those who call themselves "Lutherans", within and outside of the ELCIC denomination. Essentially the "Lutheran" 'brand', so firmly established by the 16th century reformers and defined in The Book of Concord, is being severely tarnished by the kind of manoeuvrings occurring within the ELCIC. The determined efforts by some to transform the ELCIC will have the same disastrous long-term consequences for us, as it has for already-liberalized denominations like the United Church of Canada, and they will jeopardize the survival of Lutheran church denominations in Canada.
Ron Voss
Cochrane, Alberta
