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Yes, we admit it. We're Lutherans - and all that that entails

© Pastor Jeff Samelson, Christ Lutheran Church, Columbia, MD

The following was written by Pastor Jeff Samelson, Christ Lutheran Church, Columbia, MD. Jeff can be e-mailed.

Have you ever experienced frustration when you told someone that you were a Lutheran, or attended a Lutheran church, and he or she automatically assumed wrong things about what you believe and stand for? Around here, the word "Lutheran" often makes people think of theological, social and political liberalism -- "Lutheran" brings to mind compromise, activism, and the blurring of denominational distinctions. These are hardly the things we in the WELS believe and stand for, but in this area few people know who we are or what we're like, so we get lumped together with churches with whom we share nothing but a name. With Reformation Day coming up at the end of this month, this is, therefore, a good time to consider and celebrate -- and be ready to confess -- what it really means to be Lutherans.

So we declare:

Yes, we're Lutherans. As Luther came to understand, and as he so boldly proclaimed, we believe and teach that all people are sinners damned to hell, and the only way to be saved is by God's grace, through faith in Christ Jesus.

So yes, we are a Lutheran church. We don't accept any other way to God or to eternal life in heaven except through the true Christian faith -- that is, through faith in Jesus Christ as one's Savior from sin.

Sure, we're Lutherans. As Luther saw the Bible as the only authority in matters of faith and doctrine, we too take our stand on the Holy Scriptures. We hold firmly and faithfully to the written Word of God, because only there can we learn of our Lord -- only there can we come into contact with the good news that Jesus Christ, God's Son, suffered, died, and rose from the dead, so that all who believe in him will be freed of their sins and will have everlasting life.

So yes, we are a Lutheran church. We believe and teach that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, that it is a unified whole, that it contains no errors, that it contains and clearly teaches all that we need to know for salvation, and that no other authority -- whether human reason, science, scholarship, tradition, or the declarations of leaders within the church on earth - may stand in judgment over, or in opposition to Scripture.