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The Canon · No. 070

Lutheranism

Evangelical Lutheran Church

1517 CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · Germany, Scandinavia, Baltic states, US, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea

VI. REFORMATION & EARLY MODERN — 1500 – 1800

How many

About 75–80 million. The largest Lutheran church in the world by membership is now in Ethiopia.

Who began it

Martin Luther (1483–1546), an Augustinian friar and professor of theology at Wittenberg.

What it is for

Initially to reform abuses in the Catholic Church, above all the sale of indulgences. Luther did not set out to found a church; he was excommunicated into one.

What it worships

The Trinity.

What it holds

Sola fide — justification by faith alone, not by works. Sola scriptura — scripture alone as final authority, against church tradition and papal claims. Sola gratia — by grace alone. Also the priesthood of all believers: every baptised Christian has direct access to God and no priestly caste is required to mediate. On the Eucharist Luther broke with the more radical reformers, insisting Christ is really present in, with and under the bread and wine — his refusal to concede this to Zwingli at Marburg in 1529 split Protestantism permanently in its first decade. Two-kingdoms doctrine separating spiritual and civil authority.

What it does

Liturgical worship, retaining much of the Mass structure, in the vernacular. Congregational hymn singing — Luther wrote hymns himself, including A Mighty Fortress, and used them as doctrinal instruction. Two sacraments: baptism and communion. Married clergy; Luther married a former nun, Katharina von Bora, in 1525. Catechism instruction for children, which drove literacy across northern Europe.

After death

Standard Christian resurrection and judgment. Luther firmly rejected purgatory, indulgences and prayers for the dead, since these implied salvation could be influenced after death and undermined the sufficiency of grace. He personally favoured the idea of the dead sleeping until the resurrection, a view Lutheranism has never made binding.

Its texts

The Bible, in Luther's own German translation (New Testament 1522, complete 1534), which effectively created modern standard German. The Book of Concord (1580): the Augsburg Confession, Luther's Small and Large Catechisms, and the Formula of Concord.

Its branches

State churches of Scandinavia and Germany; the Lutheran World Federation; confessional bodies such as the Missouri Synod; large and growing churches in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Of note

The Reformation succeeded where earlier reform movements failed largely because of the printing press. Luther's tracts sold in the hundreds of thousands; he was Europe's first mass-media author.

Its timeline

  1. <strong>31 October 1517 CE</strong> Luther's Ninety-five Theses against indulgences. Whether he nailed them to the Wittenberg church door is uncertain; that he sent them to his archbishop is not.
  2. 1520 CE Luther burns the papal bull threatening excommunication.
  3. 1521 CE Diet of Worms. Luther refuses to recant before the emperor; he is outlawed, and hides at the Wartburg translating the New Testament in eleven weeks.
  4. 1524–25 CE German Peasants' War. Peasants invoke Luther's rhetoric of Christian freedom; Luther writes Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, urging the princes to crush them. Perhaps 100,000 die. It is the darkest episode of his career.
  5. 1529 CE Marburg Colloquy; Luther and Zwingli fail to agree on the Eucharist.
  6. 1530 CE Augsburg Confession presented to the emperor.
  7. 1543 CE Luther publishes On the Jews and Their Lies, a viciously antisemitic tract later exploited by the Nazis and formally repudiated by Lutheran bodies in 1994 and after.
  8. 1555 CE Peace of Augsburg: cuius regio, eius religio — the ruler's religion is the territory's.
  9. 1618–48 CE Thirty Years War.
  10. 1675 CE Pietism begins with Spener, emphasising personal conversion over doctrinal correctness.
  11. 1934 CE Barmen Declaration; the Confessing Church, including Bonhoeffer, opposes the Nazified German Christians. Bonhoeffer is executed in 1945.
  12. <strong>1999 CE</strong> Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification signed by Lutherans and the Vatican, agreeing on the issue that split Western Christianity — 482 years later.

Sources

Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.

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