Lutheranism

The name Lutheran originated as a derogatory term used against Luther by German Scholastic theologian Johann Maier von Eck during the Leipzig Debate in July 1519.

At an open meeting in Copenhagen attended by King Christian III in 1536, the people shouted; "We will stand by the holy Gospel, and do not want such bishops anymore".

The pope's refusal to allow the replacement of an archbishop who had supported the invading forces opposing Gustav Vasa during the Stockholm Bloodbath led to the severing of any official connection between Sweden and the papacy in 1523.

Soon, Holy Roman Imperial forces joined the battle and conquered the members of the Schmalkaldic League, oppressing and exiling many German Lutherans as they enforced the terms of the Augsburg Interim.

Near the end of the Thirty Years' War, the compromising spirit seen in Philip Melanchthon rose up again in the Helmstedt School and especially in theology of Georgius Calixtus, causing the syncretistic controversy.

[28] As a result of the impact of a local form of rationalism, termed Neology, by the latter half of the 18th century, genuine piety was found almost solely in small Pietist conventicles.

[25] However, some of the laity preserved Lutheran orthodoxy from both Pietism and rationalism by reusing old catechisms, hymnbooks, postils, and devotional writings, including those written by Johann Gerhard, Heinrich Müller and Christian Scriver.

[30] In 1806, Napoleon's invasion of Germany promoted Rationalism and angered German Lutherans, stirring up a desire among the people to preserve Luther's theology from the Rationalist threat.

[34] In Norway, Hans Nielsen Hauge, a lay street preacher, emphasized spiritual discipline and sparked the Haugean movement,[35] which was followed by the Johnsonian Awakening within the state-church as spearheaded by its namesake, dogmatician and Pietist Gisle Johnson.

Neo-Lutheran Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe and Old Lutheran free church leader Friedrich August Brünn[38] both sent young men overseas to serve as pastors to German Americans, while the Inner Mission focused on renewing the situation home.

[42][better source needed] As editor of the periodical Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, he developed it into a major support of Neo-Lutheran revival and used it to attack all forms of theological liberalism and rationalism.

[41] There, professor Adolf von Harless, though previously an adherent of rationalism and German idealism, made Erlangen a magnet for revival oriented theologians.

The Neo-Lutheran call to renewal failed to achieve widespread popular acceptance because it both began and continued with a lofty, idealistic Romanticism that did not connect with an increasingly industrialized and secularized Europe.

Besides the three Ecumenical Creeds, which date to Roman times, the Book of Concord contains seven credal documents articulating Lutheran theology in the Reformation era.

[85] To this end, "God sent his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, into the world to redeem and deliver us from the power of the devil, and to bring us to Himself, and to govern us as a King of righteousness, life, and salvation against sin, death, and an evil conscience", as Luther's Large Catechism explains.

[86] Because of this, Lutherans teach that salvation is possible only because of the grace of God made manifest in the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and continuing presence by the power of the Holy Spirit, of Jesus Christ.

[103] The Augsburg Confession explains:[104] [T]he Son of God, did assume the human nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, so that there are two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably enjoined in one Person, one Christ, true God and true man, who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, that He might reconcile the Father unto us, and be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.

[127] It is faith alone that receives these divine gifts, so Lutherans confess that baptism "works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare".

[128] Lutherans hold fast to the Scripture cited in 1 Peter 3:21, "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

"[139] Lutherans adhere to divine monergism, the teaching that salvation is by God's act alone, and therefore reject the idea that humans in their fallen state have a free will concerning spiritual matters.

Unlike some Calvinists, Lutherans do not believe in a predestination to damnation,[145] usually referencing "God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"[146] as contrary evidence to such a claim.

In the U.S., some congregations and synods historically taught in German, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, or Swedish, but retention of immigrant languages has been in significant decline since the early and middle 20th century.

[227] Complete agreement finally came about in 1577, after the death of both Melanchthon and Flacius, when a new generation of theologians resolved the doctrinal controversies on the basis of Scripture in the Formula of Concord of 1577.

[231] In the 19th century, Samuel Simon Schmucker attempted to lead the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States toward unification with other American Protestants.

To the north in Scandinavia, the population was more insulated from the influence and politics of the Reformation and thus the Church of Sweden (which at the time included Finland) retained the Apostolic succession,[242] although they did not consider it essential for valid sacraments as the Donatists did in the fourth and fifth centuries and the Roman Catholics do today.

[247] In terms of polity, over the 17th and 18th centuries the carefully negotiated and highly prescriptive church orders of the Reformation era gave way to a joint cooperation between state control and a Reformed-style blend of consistorial and presbyterian type synodical governance.

During the formation of the modern German state, ideas about the nature of authority and the best design for governments and organizations came from the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, further modifying the polity.

As a result, the smaller synods gained unprecedented flexibility to join, leave, merge, or stay separate, all without the hand of the state as had been the case in Europe.

These new church bodies also employed synodical governance, but tended to exclude Hegelianism in their constitutions, due to its incompatibility with the doctrine of the lesser magistrates.

[258] Although some convents and monasteries voluntarily closed during the Reformation, and many of the remaining damenstift were shuttered by communist authorities following World War II, the Lüne abbeys are still open.