What is the Bible? The Bible, The word Bible means books.  As do other Christians, Lutherans understand this collection we call The Bible to be authoritative for faith and life.  Together the 66 books in The Bible read by most Protestant Christians today, including Lutherans, comprise what is called the canon, or canonical (approved) books.  This canon came into being over several centuries.  At first individual books were used for teaching and worship during both the Jewish Old Testament period and the Christian New Testament era.  At various times and places a combination of books was recognized as canonical.  Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians include an additional number of Old Testament canonical books, often called deutero-canonical, which are sometimes printed between the testaments in Protestant Bibles. (See "Apocrypha" for an explanation of this material and how Lutherans utilize it.)  The 39 Old Testament books were written over many centuries, the last one around 165 B.C., and, as in the Hebrew Bible they are grouped by literature type rather than chronologically.  Most Christians group these books into several blocks of literature which, except for the interspersed Writings are found in this order in our Bibles:  The Law – Genesis through Deuteronomy – first recognized as Holy Scripture by about 400 B.C. and often called The Books of Moses or Torah, History – Joshua through Esther (except for Ruth) Wisdom Literature (Job through Song of Songs) The Prophets (The Major Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and the so-called 12 minor prophets – recognized as Scripture by 200 B.C.) The Writings, a group (including Ruth and Jonah) which gained stature over the years until they were accepted into the present Old Testament of Hebrew Bible about A.D. 100, well into the first Christian century.  In the third century B.C., the Hebrew Bible began to be translated into Greek in order to meet the needs of many Greek-speaking Jews who were living outside of Palestine.  This translation, which took several centuries to complete, is called The Septuagint and includes deutero-canonical books.  The Roman Catholic canon has been based on the traditional inclusions of this translation, whereas Lutherans and other Protestant denominations have followed what was included in Hebrew Scripture. The New Testament books were written over a period of time beginning about the middle of the first century A.D.  Various of these, as well as other writings sometimes called the New Testament Apocrypha, enjoyed widespread use throughout the early church.  By A.D. 200 the letters of Paul (probably the first New Testament era writings), the four Gospels and several other books were considered canonical.  The 27 New Testament books, as we know them, were not firmly recognized until around A.D. 350.  ELCA Lutherans find the creative and redemptive acts of God disclosed in Scripture - first revealed in the history and faith of the Jewish people, then in God’s ultimate self revelation in Jesus.  God’s emptying of self into Jesus provides not only the promise but the precursor for gathering all humanity into this divine relationship.  We turn to the Bible to see where God has been and, guided and instructed by it, discover God’s activity in our world and God’s will for all creation.

 The Bible as authority for faith: Lutherans believe that the Bible is the most important of all the ways God’s person and presence are revealed to humanity.  That is because it is in reading the biblical books that we most reliably hear and encounter the living Word of God, who is the risen Jesus. The Bible’s very name begins to tell us what we have between its covers.  In Greek "the Bible" literally means "the books."  The Bible that Lutherans use is a collection of 66 books produced over a period of as much as 1,000 years.  Each of these books had a life and use of its own prior to its incorporation into what we know as the "sacred canon." The Bible contains the story of God’s interaction with humankind, first through the understanding of the Jewish people (Old Testament - 39 books), and subsequently to all people through God’s self revelation in Jesus (New Testament -27 books). Lutherans believe that people meet God in Scripture, where God’s heart, mind, relationship to - and intention for - humankind are revealed.  Through an ongoing dialogue with the God revealed in the Bible, people in every age are called to a living faith.

The Bible’s authority rests in God: ELCA Lutherans confidently proclaim with all Christians that the authority of the Bible rests in God.  We believe that God inspired the Bible’s many writers, editors and compilers.  As they heard God speaking and discerned God’s activity in events around them in their own times and places, the Bible’s content took shape.  Among other things, the literature they produced includes history, legal code, parables, and letters of instruction, persuasion and encouragement, tales of heroism, love poetry and hymns of praise.  The varying types and styles of literature found here all testify to faith in a God who acts by personally engaging men and women in human history. At the same time, we also find in the Bible human emotion, testimony, opinion, cultural limitation and bias.  ELCA Lutherans recognize that human testimony and writing are related to and often limited by culture, customs and world view.  Today we know that the earth is not flat and that rabbits do not chew their cud (Leviticus 11:6).  These are examples of time-bound cultural understandings or practices.  Christians do not follow biblically prescribed dietary laws such as eliminating pork from one’s diet (Leviticus 11:7) because the new covenant we have with God has replaced the Old Testament covenant God had with his people.  Because Biblical writers, editors and compilers were limited by their times and world views, even as we are, the Bible contains material wedded to those times and places.  It also means that writers sometimes provide differing and even contradictory views of God’s word, ways and will. Listening to the living Jesus in the context of the church, we therefore have the task of deciding among these.  Having done this listening, we sometimes conclude either that the writer’s culture or personal experience (e.g., subordination of women or keeping of slaves) seems to have prompted his missing what God was saying or doing, or that God now is saying or doing something new.

The Bible’s authority is interpreted through Jesus: By no means does that human presence in sacred Scripture detract from the Bible’s testimony to God.  Rather, this human testimony provides layers of faith and insight by those who contributed to the canon.  The Bible’s reliability lies not in reading it as science or proscription, but as humankind’s chief witness to God, reflecting on faith as it is to be lived,  Again, ELCA Lutherans judge all Scripture through the window of God’s chief act - that of entering human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth - and they interpret Scripture by listening to the living Jesus in the context of the Church.  Because Jesus’ person, life and witness become the lens through which we read and interpret all Scripture, we can judge slavery as "not of Jesus," yet understand the customs of the time and read Paul’s inspiring letter to Philemon, master of the slave Onesimus, as testimony to faith. On several occasions, Martin Luther suggested that not all books of the Bible have the same value for faith formation.  Similarly, as in all of life, ELCA Lutherans ask, "Is what we find here consistent with God’s revelation in Jesus?"  This is a central question/prescription that provides guidance for acting as moral beings and for calling humankind to justice; it also becomes the authority for our reading Scripture, for it is the Jesus of Scripture, the living Word, who reveals God and judges Scripture, just as he is the judge for all else in life.  Therefore, it is a question that ELCA Lutherans find best answered within the life of the Church in community, for this risen Jesus is Lord of the Church.

Who is Jesus, and why should I believe in him? The New Testament is the only document that gives us a reliable picture of Jesus of Nazareth -- who he is and what he means for humankind.  St. Mark, the earliest of the recorded Gospels, (about A.D. 70) writes, "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased," (Mark 1:9-11). The writer of The Letter To The Hebrews calls him "...the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross ... and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2). And St. Paul, the earliest the New Testament writers says, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him.  He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:15-20). St. John’s Gospel calls this Jesus the Word, saying "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (John 1:1-5).

Do Lutherans believe Jesus was born of a virgin?                       

Virgin Birth, Perhaps a more accurate title for this essay would be "Virginal Conception."   From about A.D. 80 to the present, most Christian faith groups, including Lutherans, have taught that Jesus was conceived by his mother, Mary, while she was still a virgin.  This is believed to have happened through the action of the Holy Spirit without an act of sexual intercourse. The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and all other Lutherans, also state: Our churches also teach that the Word – that is, the Son of God – took on man’s nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So there are two natures, divine and human, inseparably conjoined in the unity of his person, one Christ, true God and true man.... (The Book of Concord, Augsburg Confession III  - The Son of God) 

This statement, written in the 16th Century, supports the Western Church’s traditional understanding of the doctrine referred to as The Virgin Birth.  While it remains official and normative for the Evangelical Lutheran Church today, it has not closed the doctrinal debate over Jesus’ conception for many Lutherans, and by inference that includes ELCA members.  It is a doctrine debated by many other Protestant Christians, scholars and those who inquire about the Christian faith and its tenets.

What do Lutherans believe about Jesus' resurrection? The Bible records incidents that define two kinds of resurrection: (1) restoration of a deceased person to the conditions of the present life, and (2) resurrection that confers upon the deceased a new and permanent form of life.

Before Jesus, The firstresurrection type, a restoration or resuscitation, is stated or implied in a few Old Testament passages (i.e. the Elijah and Elisha cycles - 1 Kings 17:17-24 and 2 Kings 4:18-37 respectively).  At the same time, the absence of a general resurrection concept of the second type is consistent with the Old Testament’s silence on any form of afterlife.  The Hebrew understanding of the self as this earthly body made it impossible to conceive of a resurrection that was not restorative of that self, as can be observed in the passages cited. Belief in a general resurrection as an afterlife first surfaces in the Inter-testamental period during the three centuries before Jesus' birth, particularly the Maccabean period, 167-37 B.C. (cf. Daniel 12:2, 2 Macabees 7:9, 11, 23 and 14:46).  We learn from the New Testament and First Century (A.D.) historian Josephus that, by Jesus' time, the Pharisees believed in this kind of resurrection to an afterlife while the Sadducees and Samaritans did not (Matthew 22:23, Mark 12:18, Luke 20:27 and Acts 23:8).

Trinity - Holy Trinity God’s three faces, The term Trinitas (Latin) was coined by the early church theologian Tertullian (A.D. 160-225) and probably first used in the sense of the coexistence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the unit of the Godhead by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch in Syria (A.D. 169-177).  While not a biblical term, The Trinity represents the crystallization of New Testament teaching.  In writing his first letter to the Corinthians in about A.D. 55, just two decades after Christ’s death and resurrection, St. Paul correlates Spirit, Lord and God (1 Corinthians 12:4-6).  There is a similar correlation in the benediction of 2 Corinthians 13:14 and in the trinitarian baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19. The church’s confession of faith originated as a baptismal formula. "In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit asserts that God reveals himself in a threefold manner because he is a triune God.  The doctrine is founded on the events of revelation in which the living God has disclosed himself to the world and manifested his determination to establish communion with humankind" (Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church).

Creation, redemption, reconciliation, "When the church, on the basis of the prophetic and apostolic witness, confesses one God it confesses its faith that the creator at the beginning of time and the re-creator at the end and the redeemer at the center of time is one God.  And again, when the church, in obedience to the same witness, worships this one God by three distinct names, it recognizes and acknowledges the difference between creation, reconciliation, and redemption, and it confesses in the one God the three distinct persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church).

God as God is, ELCA Lutherans believe that God reveals who God really is to us.  Therefore the Christian church must confess its faith in the essential Trinity.  God is one God, revealed in three persons.  Article 1 of the Augsburg Confession affirms the doctrinal decisions of the fourth century that deal with the oneness of the divine substance which is God, and the difference of the three persons (sometimes spolen of by their functions as Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier), declaring them fundamental for the faith of the Reformation.  ELCA Lutherans fully subscribe to these confessions presented by the reformers to Emperor Charles V in 1530 in Augsburg, Germany.

Of the Godhead Article 1 of the Augsburg Confession says, "We‘unanimously hold and teach, in accordance with the Council of Nicea, that there is one divine essence which is called and which is God, eternal, incorporated, indivisible, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the maker and preserver of all things, visible and invisible.  Yet there are three persons, of the same essence and power, who are also co-eternal: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, together with the other 135 Lutheran World Federation* member churches, therefore, are Trinitarian churches, understanding that God has chosen to reveal God's self in triune fashion so that we might better know, understand and witness to God’s activity in the world.  With Western Christian churches, we celebrate the Sunday after Pentecost as Trinity Sunday. * Lutheran World Federation Churches span 76 countries, with approximately 65,388,000 members 

Forgiveness of sin and salvation, Luther’s Large Catechism (IV, 83) instructs that Baptism "overcomes and takes away sin."  Marty suggests that the water of the old creation and the Word of the new achieve the new creation in human beings.  Sin is washed away, the sinner is ‘drowned,’ the old self is shattered, "helpless as a crying infant with empty hands and uninformed head and no report card at all."   This time, newness comes not by the breath of God, as at creation, but by the death of Christ.  "Once this is seen ... the center of Baptism has been properly located.  The forgiveness of sins becomes the glowing core, the center out of which the full Christian life will flow.  At baptism the sign of the cross is made over the person; he is invited to enjoy the fellowship of the resurrection and to share the burden of Christ’s suffering." ELCA Lutherans believe that baptism addresses itself to the question of salvation.  In God’s gift of Baptism we are assured the forgiveness of sins to live a free, responsible and joyful life - in order that we might be saved everlastingly.  With Luther we can say that, "No greater jewel ... can adorn our body and soul than Baptism, for through it we obtain perfect holiness and salvation, which no other kind of life and no work on earth can acquire."  Baptism is truly God’s gift, drawing us into Christ’s church and bestowing upon us forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. In it, we are marked by the cross of Christ forever.  (ELCA Service of Holy Baptism, Lutheran Book of Worship, pg 124, "... child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."  Martin E. Marty, "Baptism," Muhlenberg Press (now Augsburg Fortress Publishers), 1977.

Martin Luther: The ELCA, along with other Lutheran churches, can trace its roots directly to the Protestant Reformation that took place in Europe in the 16th century. Martin Luther, a German monk, became aware of differences between the Bible and church practices of the day. His writings, lectures and sermons inspired others to protest church practices and call for reform.

By the late 1500s the Reformation had spread throughout Europe. Followers of Martin Luther's teachings were labeled "Lutherans" by their enemies and adopted the name themselves. Lutheran beliefs became widespread, especially in Germany and the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland), later spreading throughout the world as early explorers took their faith with them on their voyages. Lutheranism came to the Americas that way; some of the earliest settlers in the Americas were Scandinavians, Dutch and German Lutherans. The first permanent colony of them was in the West Indies, and by the 1620s there were settlements of Lutherans along the Hudson River in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey.

As people migrated to the New World they continued to speak and worship in their native languages and use resources from their countries of origin. Europeans from a particular region would migrate to a particular region in America and start their own churches. As the number of these congregations grew, scattered groups would form a "synod" or church body, and as the nation expanded so did the number of Lutheran church bodies.

By the late 1800s the 20 or so Lutheran church bodies that would eventually merge to become The American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America had been established. Massive immigration from traditionally Lutheran countries had started, and between 1840 and 1875 alone 58 Lutheran synods were formed in the U.S.!

There were "revivalist" and "confessional" movements within Lutheran churches in Europe and in America, and as Lutherans migrated to this country they were influenced by the "fundamentalist" movement here. Consequently, there developed a wide variety of expressions of Lutheranism in North America. Nineteenth century Lutherans still looked to their homelands to supply pastors and worship materials, but as second and third generation Americans spoke English more than German, Norwegian or Danish, a need arose to provide formal theological training, hymnals, catechisms and other materials.

As early as 1812 the North Carolina Synod had inquired about the possibility of better intersynodical cooperation, and that synod worked with Pennsylvania publishing houses and the new theological seminary at Gettysburg rather than set up its own support systems.

Cooperative Work Begins: Immigration of Lutherans continued to be heavy through the first two decades of the 20th century, and the first significant mergers of church bodies happened in 1917 when three Norwegian synods joined to form the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA) and in 1918 when three German synods joined to form the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA). With World War I taking place, the next logical step in denominational consolidation was to form a joint agency of these two large synods and other smaller ones in order to provide relief.

The National Lutheran Commission had been formed in 1917 because the churches were concerned about the spiritual well-being of U.S. service personnel being sent into combat. In a short time 60,000 laymen were involved in the effort, which proved a vast and complex enterprise. The laymen stayed active in the relief and ministry of the commission, but formed their own organization, the Lutheran Brotherhood, which supported the work of the commission by building facilities and supplying equipment. After the war the Lutheran Brotherhood continued to develop lay leadership and to foster intersynodical relationships.

The various Lutheran churches, with the exception of the Synodical Conference, continued to work together closely, but were limited to soldiers' and sailors' welfare efforts. There was a growing need to provide missionaries to America's expanding industrial centers and to render aid to Lutherans in Europe, and by September 1918 the National Lutheran Council (NLC) was formed to meet those needs. Representation on the council was proportionate, based on membership figures of participating church bodies.

The Early 20th Century: For the first 12 years of its existence, the NLC concentrated on overseas relief programs, then from about 1930 through the entry of the United States into World War II it developed its domestic programs. In 1945 it reorganized and expanded the work it did on behalf of the participating churches. In addition to the refugee and chaplaincy work, the council provided coordination of establishing new congregations, town and country ministry, student services, public relations and uniform statistical reporting, among other services. In 1930 three churches with German origins had merged to form the American Lutheran Church, which had become one of the eight member churches in the NLC, along with the ULCA.

As cooperative work proved beneficial to all the participants, and as the 32 councilors continued to meet on a regular basis, other areas of commonality naturally surfaced. In the late '40s and '50s there were proposals by the ULCA and Augustana to merge all the member churches of the NLC, and although they failed, in 1952 the American Lutheran Conference Joint Union Committee presented the document The United Testimony to its member churches, agreeing they were in "essential agreement" with the positions of the ULCA and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The next round of mergers occurred in the early '60s.

The '60s and '70s: In 1960 the American Lutheran Church (German), United Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Norwegian) merged to form The American Lutheran Church (ALC). The Lutheran Free Church (Norwegian), which had dropped out of merger negotiations, came into the ALC in 1963.  In 1962 the ULCA (German, Slovak and Icelandic) joined with the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church (Swedish), Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church and American Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish) to form the Lutheran Church in America (LCA).

Meanwhile, the Lutheran World Federation's (LWF) 1957 resolve to study contemporary Roman Catholicism with the possibility of entering "interconfessional conversations," and the reforms proposed by the Second Vatican Council, led to a series of theological dialogues. Lutherans also accepted the invitation of Reformed churches (Presbyterian) in America to begin discussions of possible pulpit and altar fellowship. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), not a member church of the NLC or the LWF, participated in these ecumenical dialogues at the national level, and joined the NLC churches in 1967 to form the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. (LCUSA).

A New Player Takes the Field: The LCMS firmly rooted in confessional conservatism and relatively unchanged since its organization in 1846-47 as "The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States," stood firmly on its belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. "A Brief Statement" had been adopted in 1932, stating:

Since the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, it goes without saying that they contain no errors or contradictions, but that they are in all their parts and words the infallible truth. "Historical criticism," an understanding that the Bible must be understood in the cultural context of the times in which it was written, was gaining ground in both Europe and America. Trouble was brewing in the LCMS as some seminary professors began to adopt historical critical methods in their classrooms. A new seminary president with experience in inter-Lutheran and ecumenical affairs was challenged by the new conservative synodically president. Athree-year investigation ensued and the 1972 convention voted to censure the faculty. In 1974 the seminary president was suspended and many seminarians and faculty left the seminary to continue their work in another setting, forming "Seminex," a seminary-in-exile. Meanwhile, a moderate movement in LCMS called Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM) was formed. The issue of whether or not to ordain graduates of Seminex led to the removal of four district presidents at the 1975 convention, and by 1976 the moderates had gathered forces to form the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). Approximately 300 congregations and 110,000 people moved into the AELC from LCMS with a stated goal from the beginning of promoting unity with the ALC and LCA.

In 1977 the LCMS decision to place fellowship with ALC "in protest" along with the AELC's "Call to Lutheran Union" nudged the three church bodies, ALC, LCA and AELC, toward merger. The 1978 ALC and LCA conventions adopted resolutions aimed at the creation of a single church body. The AELC joined them, and the ALC-LCA Committee on Church Cooperation became the Committee on Lutheran Unity (CLU) in January of 1979.

Presiding Bishop David Preus (ALC), Bishop James Crumley (LCA) and President and later Bishop William Kohn (AELC) met with the CLU over the next 16 months, and the 1980 conventions of all three church bodies adopted a two-year study process. Documents were in the hands of congregational leaders by November of that year, and by 1982 all the pieces were in place for the three churches to have simultaneous conventions so that, on September 8, 1982, with telephone hookups so each could hear the others' votes, all three church bodies voted to proceed on the path toward a new Lutheran church.

The ELCA Takes Shape: The CLU proposals included the structure and operating procedures for a new group, the Commission for a New Lutheran Church (CNLC), and a timetable for the churches: The 1984 conventions to discuss, review, and respond to a statement of theological understandings and ecclesial principles, and a narrative description of the new church;

The 1986 conventions to discuss, review, and respond to the articles of incorporation of the new church, the constitution and bylaws of the new church, and be able to take action to cease functioning by Dec. 31, 1987.

The 70-member CNLC, its members deliberately chosen to be widely representative of the membership of all the merging bodies, met 10 times over the next five years, making full reports which were widely disseminated to church members.

By August 1986 the CNLC had completed its work and again the three church bodies met in simultaneous conventions, again with telephone hook-ups, and voted overwhelmingly to accept the constitution and bylaws of the new church as well as the proposed agreement and plan of merger, thus creating the fourth largest Protestant body in the United States. William Kohn had retired, and the new AELC bishop, Will Herzfeld, steered that church body through its final vote and the months of transition to follow. The 10-member Transition Team met 15 times in the process, hiring a coordinator and settling issues such as specific location, staffing and budget for the new church.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was finally born at its constituting convention in Columbus, Ohio, April 30-May 3, 1987. The three churches had "closing conventions" the day before, taking care of constitutional matters and saying good-bye. In the four days of the first convention of the new church delegates finalized legal details and elected the ELCA's first bishop, Herbert Chilstrom, other officers and 228 other people to various boards, councils and committees. At 12:01 a.m., Central Standard Time, January 1, 1988, the ELCA became the legal successor to its predecessors, a mosaic reflecting not only the ethnic heritages of traditional

Lutherans through its original churches, but also the full spectrum of American culture in which it serves, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. A more detailed history of Lutheranism in North America may be found at www.elca.org/communication/timeline. 

The Constitution of the ELCA may be found at http://www.elca.org/secretary/constitutions/index.html  MOSAIC, video magazine of the ELCA, has produced videos with study guides on the lives of Martin Luther and his wife, Katharina von Bora, as well as Lutheran Roots in America