(Thanks to Byron Lovering for this graphic - www.lovering.com)

This page is a collection of thoughts to answer the question... "Why Lutheran?" The point of this page isn't to disparage non-Lutheran believers. We recognize that all who are in Christ, regardless of denominational affiliation, are our brothers and sisters in the faith. Lutherans will be a minority in heaven because God has given new birth to millions through many other denominations as well. Lutherans have a unique voice in the choir of faith because they have treasured (and even been persecuted over) some particular doctrines. These doctrines frankly thrill us about the gospel. This page is a chance to sing of these good things that Martin Luther seems to have grasped like few others.
If you have some other helpful answers to "Why Lutheran?", please email them to us at livingfaithchurch@gmail.com

(this is a work in progress... check back often to read other additions)

• Lutherans know that God comes down the ladder. We are not able to climb up any ladder of righteousness or spirituality or piety or goodness to reach God and attain some status of holiness or purity. We are not able to climb up some ladder to achieve happiness, fulfillment, contentment. Though we constantly struggle to get up the ladder, to get above others, the ladders we climb just lead us further and further from God and true community. Rather, God comes down the ladder to us, blesses us, graces us, loves us. What did I do to deserve this? Nothing. That's just the nature of God.
• Lutherans know that God dwells where we least expect God to dwell. We know that God is most clearly seen in odd, out-of-the-way places such as the suffering on the cross, or the shame of the animal stable, or among the outcasts. Or with people who can't climb a ladder to save themselves. When we humans draw lines dividing us from them, good from bad, righteous from unrighteous, God is on the other side of the line. And the Cross forces us to the other side of the line, the other side of the train tracks, the other side of life, to look at and experience God's presence amidst suffering and brokenness.
• Lutherans take sin seriously. In our liturgy many of our churches proclaim, "We confess that we are in bondage to sin, and we cannot free ourselves." Lutherans admit that on our own we cannot escape the power of sin. We do not have a free will - our will and our whole being is bound to sin. Lutherans are, frankly, quite pessimistic about human nature.
• Lutherans embrace paradox. We live in a complex world that is many things at the same time. Our world and our worldview is not a black and white, either/or kind of world. But rather, the world is a mucky, messy simul (Latin, meaning at the same time). We Lutherans embrace many paradoxes, many tensions in our theology and practice:
  * Simul justus et pecador - we are at the same time sinner and saint.
  * God's Word is law and gospel at the same time.
  * We live in two kingdoms - a kingdom of God and a kingdom of man - at the same time.
  * By the grace of God we are free to live yet are bound to serve - at the same time. Because we are people of paradox, Lutherans can't draw clear lines of either/or, us/them, etc.
• Lutherans preach about God (not about us!). Preachers in our churches are called to proclaim the acts and comfort of God. Sermons, while addressing our human condition, do not proclaim (for example) 3 Steps to a Better Life or How to Have a Closer Relationship with God. Lutheran preaching is emphatically not about us. Lutheran preachers proclaim God's grace, love, compassion, presence . . .
• Lutheranism embraces the common stuff of everyday life. Martin Luther valued daily life and the vocation of common people (once saying that it is more blessed to change a baby's diaper than to be a priest). In the tangible things of daily life, Lutherans find God. Our spiritual life and encounter with God is daily - daily we die to sin and daily we rise with Christ. Church is not a Sunday recharging of the batteries that gets us through the week, because in the week itself we Lutherans acknowledge the blessedness of "ordinary" work that might not otherwise seem spiritual or important in the eyes of our world.
• Lutheranism has such potential. For me, Lutheranism is less about traditional forms of worship or polity (though I greatly appreciate those things) and more about a pastoral theology and appreciation of the grace of God that speaks to humanity in many different ways. As such, I think Lutheranism has the potential to be the church in many different ways, proclaiming the Gospel/Good News and administering the Means of Grace - Baptism, Holy Communion, God's Word - in creative and comforting ways at the dawn of the 21st century.
  (the preceding thoughts come courtesy of Rev. Chris Duckworth - Resurrection Lutheran Church (ELCA)- Arlington, VA)

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Lutherans embrace a theology of the cross instead of a theology of glory... for a couple helpful articles about this, click HERE and HERE.

For five brief audio messages on the book of Galatians that help to contrast Lutheran thought with Arminian and Calvinist theology, click HERE.

Lutherans embrace mystery... Baptism, Christ's real presence in Holy Communion, God's election of the saved, the power of the Word to do great things, the Holy Trinity. These and other incomprehensible, illogical doctrines are at the center of our faith. They are not explained out of existence by human reason and are allowed to exist only insofar as they arise in the scriptures.

Billy Graham called Lutherans "The sleeping giant"

"Lutheranism seems almost unknown in American Christianity. Catholics, Episcopalians, Baptists, Charismatics, and Calvinists are well-represented in theological debates, opinion polls, and articles in Christian publications, but Lutherans -- who have their own distinctive approach to everything from salvation to politics -- are often theological wallflowers." - Veith

To read an essay on the spectrum of Lutheranism by Gene Edward Veith, click HERE.

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Why Lutheran?  Because Lutherans believe in acknowledging that God is god and we are not.  They don't pretend that they can somehow manipulate God into loving them by some puny act of their own like "Making God my personal lord and savior."  Imagine telling your drill sergeant that you've decide to allow him to give you orders for the next nine weeks.  Don't think you'd get a happy reply.  God is god because God is god not because we choose to acknowledge him.  God's love doesn't sit around and wait for us.  God comes to us.  Overwhelms us in our sin.  Drags us back to God kicking and screaming.  Leaving things in God's hands gives us another vision of how we are to act in this world.  We don't have to judge others.  We don't have to decide who is going to hell and who is going to heaven.  We just proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit.  If a person has never heard of God and God's grace, we proclaim the good news of Jesus to them.  If a person has been living with a knowledge of God since their mama shared that story with them when they were still nursing, we proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to them.  That's why I'm a Lutheran.  I'm an accomplished sinner.  It comes naturally to me.  Jesus is an accomplished savior.  It's just who he is and what he does.  He loves me in spite of my sin and he loves me so much he won't allow me to live in my sin.  He changes me even while the sin continues to live in me.  He just keeps coming to me.  That's what the Lutheran church teaches.  That sounds a lot like what the Bible teaches.  That sounds a lot like how this world and my life works.  So I'm a Lutheran.  I don't see anything that will change that, ever.
- Rev. Dave Nerdig, Faith Lutheran Church - Des Moines, IA - ELCA

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1) All of our life is wrapped up in Christ. Life as a Christian begins, continues, and ends with our being "clothed with Christ."
2) The Law and the Gospel. The Law shows me my sin. The Gospel points me to Christ. Luther makes the distinction clear, and he always puts them together. This understanding of Scripture humbles me as a sinner and frees me from guilt.
3) The theology of the Cross. A theology of glory is always looking for power, victory, the miraculous, etc. in the life of the Christian. A theology of the cross finds all of these things in Christ even when we suffer illness, heartache, persecution, and rejection in this life.
- Dr. David Veum, Lutheran Brethren Seminary - Fergus Falls, MN

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Why I'm a Confessional Lutheran:
I'm probably not a confessional Lutheran in the strong sense of the term. Some folks who are "confessional" are adamant about it, fastidious in their attention to being confessional. It is a mark of pride, a crypto-fundamentalism. I don't consider myself a confessional Lutheran of that stripe.

I think I tend towards more a "big-tent" confessionalism. How to define this... Well, let's just say that in any given conversation that is ecumenical or multi-faith in some way, I let my church's confession take precedence in what I say, preach, or teach, over my own personal opinions or reflections. I hope that my own thinking is coming into greater and greater alignment with the confessions of the church.

If I fail to preach or teach in a way that is congruent with the confessions, I would strive to admit that I have failed to understand them, have forgotten them, but would like to understand them better.

I take a similar approach to Scripture. Since I consider the confessions of the Lutheran church to be a solid interpretation of Scripture, I value them highly, but I place Scripture even higher. I don't just want to read Scripture. I hope to be read by Scripture. I hope Scripture will shape how I preach and teach and believe to such a degree that my own faith will be submerged in the waters of the canon of Scripture.

But by "big tent," I mean that I offer that position with a certain humility in the wider ecumenical conversation. I don't try to disguise that I'm Lutheran in my presuppositions. But I let it be a voice in the conversation, and I assume I can learn more about my own confession by listening well and diligently to others of a different persuasion.

It is also "big tent" in the sense that I believe that the authors of the confessions were striving, in their confessional writings, to be in continuity not just with Scripture, but with the tradition of the church, especially the Church Father's and the ecumenical creeds and councils, what is sometimes called the regula fidei or the analogia fidei.

However, it is not "big tent" in the sense that I claim not to have a confession. I have trouble imagining being a pastor in a non-denominational or non-confessional tradition. I can't honestly say that I'm "just a Christian," or I just believe what the bible says, full stop. I find this position disingenuous, even if people don't intend to be disingenuous when they say it, because it fails to admit the various hermeneutical lenses that people employ when they read the Scripture or confess faith. In this way, being "confessional" is much like being self-aware about your hermeneutic, or what Gadamer called our "horizon of interpretation."

And when we are unable or unwilling to identify our horizon of interpretation/confession, it's impossible, ultimately, to achieve a Horizontverschmelzung.

So in the end, I happen to believe that being confessional is a much more open position for dialogue, mission, ecumenism, than supposedly non-confessional forms of belief. It is so precisely because it knows better how to dialogue, because it has identified presuppositions and concepts, even has a confessional text to refer to. And it has a kind of humility, because it tries to be part of a larger tradition, and subject to it, rather than individual and free-floating.

So that, at least in part, is why I'm a confessional Lutheran.  - Rev. Clint Schnekloth, ELCA

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Theology of the Cross by LCMS pastor - Jonathan Fisk

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Check out these fun videos: The first contrasts Lutheranism & Calvinism and the second contrasts Lutheranism & Methodism :)

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