The Lutheran Council in the United States of America was an ecumenical organization of American Lutherans that existed from 1967 to 1988. [1] [2] Succeeding the National Lutheran Council, it was founded by four Lutheran church bodies: the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches. [3]
The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. The LCMS was organized in 1847 at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, as the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, a name which partially reflected the geographic locations of the founding congregations.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of 2021, it has approximately 3.04 million baptized members in 8,724 congregations.
The International Lutheran Council (ILC) is a worldwide association of confessional Lutheran denominations. Member bodies of the ILC hold "an unconditional commitment to the Holy Scriptures as the inspired and infallible Word of God and to the Lutheran Confessions contained in the Book of Concord as the true and faithful exposition of the Word of God." The member church bodies are not required to be in church-fellowship with one another, though many of them are.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is Canada's largest Lutheran denomination, with 95,000 baptized members in 519 congregations, with the second largest, the Lutheran Church–Canada, having 53,165 baptized members. Together with the LCC and the Canadian Association of Lutheran Congregations, it is one of only three all-Canadian Lutheran denominations. It is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, the Canadian Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, and the Anglican-Lutheran North American grouping Churches Beyond Borders. According to the 2011 Canadian census, a larger number of 478,185 adherents identify as Lutheran.
Confessional Lutheranism is a name used by Lutherans to designate those who believe in the doctrines taught in the Book of Concord of 1580 in their entirety. Confessional Lutherans maintain that faithfulness to the Book of Concord, which is a summary of the teachings found in Scripture, requires attention to how that faith is actually being preached, taught, and put into practice. Confessional Lutherans believe that this is a vital part of their identity as Lutherans.
The American Lutheran Church (ALC) was a Christian Protestant denomination in the United States and Canada that existed from 1960 to 1987. Its headquarters were in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Upon its formation in 1960, The ALC designated Augsburg Publishing House, also located in Minneapolis, as the church publisher. The Lutheran Standard was the official magazine of The ALC.
The Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) is a Protestant Christian denomination in the United States. The present RCUS is a conservative, Calvinist denomination. It affirms the principles of the Reformation: Sola scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola gratia, Sola fide, and Soli Deo gloria. The RCUS has membership concentrated in the Midwest and California.
The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, often known simply as the Synodical Conference, was an association of Lutheran synods that professed a complete adherence to the Lutheran Confessions and doctrinal unity with each other. Founded in 1872, its membership fluctuated as various synods joined and left it. Due to doctrinal disagreements with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) left the conference in 1963. It was dissolved in 1967 and the other remaining member, the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, merged into the LCMS in 1971.
The United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) was established in 1918 in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation after negotiations among several American Lutheran national synods resulted in the merger of three German-language synods: the General Synod, the General Council (1867), and the United Synod of the South (1863). The Slovak Zion Synod (1919) joined the ULCA in 1920. The Icelandic Synod (1885) also joined the United Lutheran Church in America in 1942. It was the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States for most of the first half of the 20th century.
Lutheranism is present on all inhabited continents with an estimated 81 million adherents, out of which 74.2 million are affiliated with the Lutheran World Federation. A major movement that first began the Reformation, it constitutes one of the largest Protestant branches, claiming about 80 million of 920 million Protestants, The Lutheran World Federation brings together the vast majority of Lutherans, the second largest grouping being the International Lutheran Council with 7.15 million in 46 countries. Apart from it, there are also other organisations such as the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, as well as multiple independent Lutheran denominations.
Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) was constituted in the year 1927 in Andhra Pradesh, India. It is the Indian successor to the United Lutheran Church in America which was started as a self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating church among Telugu Christians.
The Hauge Synod was the name of a Norwegian Lutheran church body in the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The Pennsylvania Ministerium was the first Lutheran church body in North America. With the encouragement of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787), the Ministerium was founded at a Church Conference of Lutheran clergy on August 26, 1748. The group was known as the "German Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of North America" until 1792, when it adopted the name "German Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States".
The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America, or, in brief, the General Council was a conservative Lutheran church body, formed as a reaction against the new "Americanized Lutheranism" of Samuel Simon Schmucker and the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America.
The Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of America, commonly known as the General Synod, was a historical Lutheran denomination in the United States. Established in 1820, it was the first national Lutheran body to be formed in the U.S. and by 1918 had become the third largest Lutheran group in the nation. In 1918, the General Synod merged with other Lutheran denominations to create the United Lutheran Church in America. Both the General Synod and the United Lutheran Church are predecessor bodies to the contemporary Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The United Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South, or simply United Synod of the South, was a historical Lutheran denomination in the southeastern United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Protestantism is the largest grouping of Christians in the United States, with its combined denominations collectively comprising about 43% of the country's population in 2019. Other estimates suggest that 48.5% of the U.S. population is Protestant. Simultaneously, this corresponds to around 20% of the world's total Protestant population. The U.S. contains the largest Protestant population of any country in the world. Baptists comprise about one-third of American Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest single Protestant denomination in the U.S., comprising one-tenth of American Protestants. Twelve of the original Thirteen Colonies were Protestant, with only Maryland having a sizable Catholic population due to Lord Baltimore's religious tolerance.
The National Lutheran Council (NLC) was a cooperative agency of most of the Lutheran church bodies in the United States. It was established in 1918 and was replaced in 1966 by the Lutheran Council in the United States of America.
The Common Service Book (CSB) is a worship book and hymnal originally issued jointly by the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of America, the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America, and the United Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South in 1917, and, after the merger of those bodies into the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) in 1918, by that body.
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