The American Lutheran Church (ALC), with headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was influenced by descendants of the waves of Scandinavian and German immigration to the Midwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[12] A group of congregations left the LCMS after 1975 as it became dominated by theological and social conservatives; they formed the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC).

In part, this is related to the history of having assimilated three different Lutheran church bodies, each with its own factions and divisions, but also to responses to changing social conditions in the United States.

The socially liberal segment of the ELCA is represented by independent organizations such as ReconcilingWorks, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, and the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus.

The ELCA constitution states: "This church accepts the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life.

"[22] ELCA clergy tend not to subscribe to a doctrine of biblical inerrancy, but see validity in various scholarly methods of analysis to help in understanding the Bible,[23] a process sometimes called Higher Criticism.

With respect to the eucharist or the Lord's Supper, the ELCA holds to the Lutheran doctrine of the sacramental union, that is, that Christ's body and blood is truly present "in, with and under" the bread and wine.

Lutherans, however, reject the philosophical explanation of consubstantiation, preferring to consider the presence of the Lord's body and blood as mysterious rather than explainable by human philosophy.

In 2018, the ELCA elected its first African-American female bishops: Patricia Davenport in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Viviane Thomas-Breitfeld in South-Central Wisconsin.

[31] On August 21, 2009, the ELCA's Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis voted to allow congregations to call and ordain gays and lesbians in committed monogamous relationships to serve as clergy.

[32] By a vote of 559 to 451, delegates approved a resolution declaring that the church would find a way for people in "publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships" to serve as official ministers.

[36] The ELCA, in removing sexual orientation as a bar for candidacy in the professional ministry, joined most of its Lutheran sister churches in Europe, including in Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Austria.

A press release stated that the board was no longer "in good conscience" "able to commune and partner with ELCA Church that has willfully disobeyed the word of God and regrettably departed from the clear instructions of the Holy Scriptures" that "marriage is only between a man and a woman".

[42] Also in 2015, after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationally in the US, the office of the presiding bishop released a letter informing members that each congregation is free to marry gay and lesbian couples or to choose not to do so.

[44] The ELCA has not adopted an official position on creation or evolution, but there is general agreement on interpreting the Bible within its historical contexts and applying critical methods of research.

A section in this report which has been described by an independent reviewer as "a remarkably nuanced analysis and statement regarding a very complex scientific, social, and religious issue.

[49] The ELCA official statement on "End of Life Decisions", adopted on November 9, 1992, disapproves euthanasia: "We oppose the legalization of physician-assisted death, which would allow the private killing of one person by another.

[51] An extensive "Study of Ministry" was embarked upon immediately after the 1988 merger as it became apparent that there were still discordant viewpoints and influences, especially by the pressure for a renewal of the office of deacon and its different manifestations to a more ancient and traditional view predating the Reformation into the earliest days of Christianity.

The rite states: "Other symbols of the ministry of word and service may be given, which may reflect a particular focus of the deacon's call and vocation, such as a vessel containing oil, a Bible, or the book of worship.

Because of its use of the Book of Concord of 1580, with the Confessions, documents and beliefs of the Reformers, including the Augsburg Confession of 1530, Luther's Small Catechism of 1529 and the Large Catechism and its retention of many pre-Reformation traditions, such as vestments, feast days and the celebration of the Church Year, the sign of the cross, and the usage of a church-wide liturgy, there are many aspects of the typical ELCA church that are very catholic and traditional in nature.

Since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, most major parts of the ELCA's popular liturgies are worded exactly like the English language Mass of 1970 of the Roman Catholic Church.

The ELCA has additionally full communion with the Episcopal Church, in which several congregations are jointly affiliated and hold mixed services.

[53] In 2013, the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus severed ties, including communion and pulpit fellowship, with the ELCA over the issue of practices and teachings connected with homosexuality.

[54] On October 31, 1999, in Augsburg, Germany, the Lutheran World Federation – of which the ELCA is a member – signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification with the Roman Catholic Church.

This was part of a series of "Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogues" have been taking place on an official basis every few years with statements and booklets on various theological topics published since 1966.

Previously, the ALC and LCA in the early 1960s came into being as a result of two mergers of eight smaller ethnically based Lutheran bodies composed of German, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Slovak, Dutch, and others organized over 150 years.

The LCMS was established in 1847 by German immigrants fleeing the forced Prussian Union between Lutherans and Reformed church members in European Germany, who later settled in Perry County, Missouri.

It grew through immigration, offspring, and church mergers while participating in some, but not all of the dialogues, controversies, and compromises which affected the various predecessors of the ELCA during the 19th and 20th Centuries.

In the mid-1970s the Seminex controversy at their Concordia Seminary in St. Louis over use of historical-critical biblical study led to the formation of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, later one of the predecessor bodies of the ELCA.

[3] In 2015, Pew Research estimated that 1.4 percent of the U.S. population, or roughly 4.4 million adherents, identify with the ELCA, which is moderately more than rostered membership suggests.