A "Lutheran FAQ"

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why “Lutheran”? Who was Luther, anyway? 

Martin Luther led the first successful revolt against medieval abuses in the Roman Catholic Church. Luther lived in Germany from 1480–1546. Although he was an Augustinian monk and a Biblical scholar, Luther became fed up with the practices of the church which pushed people away from faith in God’s love and mercy, and put so many conditions on people that they were beaten down by religious legalism and superstition. In 1517 he challenged the local church authorities to debate a number of points, or theses, about the Christian faith, by posting 95Theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg for discussion. The Lutheran Church usually dates the beginning of the Reformation from that date -- October 31, 1517, All Hallows Eve.

Luther was among the first to:

• give primacy to the Gospel (the Good News);
• insist that Christian teachings must be grounded only in the Scriptures, not on the authority of church leaders; 
• allow no intermediary between God and humanity;
• teach that we are reconciled to God by God’s grace alone, not by our own efforts or good deeds (“good works”);
• show that Christ’s merits, in giving up his life on the Cross, were sufficient to redeem us all from sin and damnation.

Luther found his greatest ally in St. Paul’s writings:

For by GRACE you have been saved through FAITH, and this is not your own doing; it is the GIFT OF GOD, not the result of works, so that no one may boast. —Ephesians 2:8-9

Luther gave great weight to the Christian conscience, and when authorities demanded that he “sit down and shut up” by recanting or retracting his public statements and writings which criticized them, he refused and said that it was never right to go against one’s conscience. The more resistance he encountered, the more Luther became a dissenter. Without a doubt, he was abrasive in criticizing those he believed were in the wrong (including the current Pope Leo X), and a trouble-maker.

The church of the Lutheran confession was born from this dissent, but re-established the Christian faith on the grounds of Scripture, faith, the God’s grace and the believer’s conscience. Today we claim this reforming heritage as we continue to press for ongoing reforms of the Christian church. The Gospel does not need to be reformed, but the community of faith always does.