Today, almost half of Lutherans are living in Europe. Germany accounts for one-third of European Lutherans and one-eighth of the world's Lutheran population. Most of the remaining European Lutherans are confined to the Lutheran-majority Nordic countries and to a lesser extent the Central European countries of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania (notably Transylvania ) Austria and Czechia. United States accounts for one-eighth of the world's Lutheran population, but only around 4 million of them are members in the Lutheran World Federation.[a] It has the most Lutherans in North America. Ethiopia and Tanzania have the largest Lutheran populations in Africa, while Indonesia in Asia, Papua New Guinea in Oceania and Brazil in South America.
Namibia has the highest proportion of Lutherans of any country in Africa, at about 50% of the country's population, and is the only country outside Europe to have a Lutheran majority. Other African countries with significant Lutheran populations include Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Tanzania.
The building of a congregration belonging to the Batak Christian Protestant Church in North Sumatra, Indonesia
The largest national Lutheran community in Asia is found in Indonesia. According to the Lutheran World Federation list of member churches,[8] thirteen Indonesian Lutheran churches or synods (the latest one added in 2014) associated with the LWF claim more than 6 million members. The largest of these is the Batak Christian Protestant Church (Indonesian: Huria Kristen Batak Protestan), which comprises almost 4.2 million members. Lutherans in India number more than 3.5 million, the largest being the 2.5-million-member Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church. Smaller Lutheran communities exist elsewhere, including Hong Kong SAR,[9] Malaysia,[10] Myanmar,[11] and Japan.[12]
Membership and attendance of services in Lutheran churches, as for all of the large, state-affiliated European churches are low and decreasing. Church attendance on Sundays is no longer the norm. Often, people attend religious services only for baptisms, confirmations, weddings, funerals, and possibly at Christmas and Easter. Traditionally, the Lutheran youth would receive preparatory confirmation classes for one to two years around age 14, to introduce them to Christian doctrines. A large confirmation service is held once the series is completed. In some areas confirmation is now delayed until the end of the high school.
Except in Northern Europe (see below), Germany and Austria, very few seminaries are state-supported. The training for students in theology embraces a wide range of theologies including modern and contemporary movements in biblical criticism and theology. Due to agreements like the Leuenberg Agreement (1973), most Lutheran churches in Europe have church fellowship with other churches arising from the Reformation, such as the Reformed and Methodist churches.
The regional Protestant church bodies (traditionally organised mostly along 19th-century state borders, often changed since) accept each other as equals, despite confessional differences. Thus, a Lutheran moving from a parish belonging to a Lutheran regional church body would be accepted by the locally competent congregation within another regional Protestant church body, even if this church body and its local parish are Reformed or of united Protestant confession. This is a concept rather unusual in most other countries. Members of congregations within the regional Protestant church bodies – like those of parishes within Catholic dioceses and those enrolled in Jewish congregations –, are required to pay a church tax, a surcharge on their normal income tax collected by the states of Germany and passed on to the respective religious body.
Modern mobility and increased secularisation have, however, been instrumental in shifting the traditional demographic situation, as did the movements of several million German refugees from either areas lost to Poland and the Soviet Union, or from abroad, after World War II. Since World War II, the Lutheran, Reformed and United Protestant regional churches have been members of the umbrella Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). Approximately 40% of German Protestants are members of regional church bodies forming the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD), a unit of the EKD comprising all Lutheran regional church bodies in Germany, except of Oldenburg and Württemberg, however, which are only associated. The majority of parishioners belonging to administratively united Protestant church bodies in Germany are also members of parishes which are confessionally Lutheran, however, their membership registries do not differentiate between Lutherans and parishioners of Reformed or united Protestant confession.
Besides the regional Protestant church bodies in Germany, there also exists the national Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (SELK), which formed from those opposed to the forced Union with Reformed churches in Prussia and elsewhere. The SELK is a member of the International Lutheran Council (ILC). The SELK is separate from the regional church bodies and has 33,474 baptised members as of 2017.[15] The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church (CELC), primarily located in the lands of the former East Germany, has 1,470 baptised members. The German parishioners of the Moravian Church, which is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, are also confessionally counting as Lutherans.
Lutheranism is the established church in most of the Nordic countries including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. In these countries, where most people are Lutheran, the churches are supported by taxes, either indirectly through the general taxes paid by most citizens or directly in the form of a church tax.
In Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden citizens who are members of organized religious societies contribute this church tax to their respective religious societies. However, in Norway there is no direct church tax of any kind, the state church is supported over through the national budget.[16] As of May 21, 2012, The Church of Norway is no longer a state church. However, The Church of Norway is not a separate legal entity from the government, the church is regulated by a special church law unlike other religions and the Norwegian King is required to be a member of the Church of Norway.
The typical church tax, an income tax of about 1 to 2%, is collected only from the members of the church or other religious society, but the church also gets its share from other taxes such as the municipal corporation tax in some regions. Priests are educated at the Faculties of Theology of the state universities or private colleges.[17]
In 1993, the Lutheran Churches of the Nordic and Baltic states entered into a full communion agreement with the Anglican Churches of Europe and the British Isles, to form the Porvoo Communion. The North American Lutheran and Anglican churches in full communion with each other are also in full communion with the Porvoo Communion. As Anglicans are in full communion with the Old Catholic Churches of the Utrecht Union, that Union began negotiations in 2005 with the Church of Sweden on entering into a full communion agreement with the Lutherans.
Minnesota and North Dakota (shown in orange) are the only states in which a plurality of the population is Lutheran.
New Sweden, a Swedish colony in the Delaware Valley on the Mid-Atlantic coast, produced the first establishment of the Lutheran Church within America. Reorus Torkillus, the first Lutheran clergyman in North America, arrived in New Sweden on April 17, 1640.[20] The roots of organized Lutheranism in North America extend back to the formation of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, the first Lutheran synod in North America, founded in 1742 by Henry Muhlenberg.
The national church bodies serve their member congregations and other entities with colleges and seminaries for their professional church workers and missionaries, resources for starting new missions, ecclesiastical supervision, and liturgical and educational materials produced by their official publishing houses such as Augsburg-Fortress Press (ELCA), Concordia Publishing House (LCMS), and Northwestern Publishing House (WELS).
There are at least 20 smaller Lutheran denominations in North America, with some of them being doctrinal offshoots of larger groups through the years, or groups that never merged.
According to the most recent national census, approximately 0.7% of the Australian population call themselves Lutherans.[21] Most Lutherans in Australia are members of congregations that form the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA). At present the Lutheran Church of Australia has elected only to be an associate member of the two large worldwide Lutheran fellowships, the LWF and ILC.
Most Lutherans in Australia live in rural areas, although this is changing. The very earliest Lutherans came to Australia under August Kavel in 1839, as a result of the Prussian Union. Later immigrants show much more diversity, which resulted in many splits and the formation of many small Lutheran synods throughout Australia. Lutherans are most prominent in South Australia, Queensland and Victoria. After many years of discussion in 1966 the two main synods and therefore most Lutheran congregations joined together to form the Lutheran Church of Australia.
The Lutheran Church has been in New Zealand since the Upper Moutere area, near Nelson, was settled mainly by Lutheran migrants from Germany, from about 1843. Lutheran missionaries accompanied them, sponsored by the North German Mission Society. Pastor Johann Wohlers soon left to work among Māori on Ruapuke Island, near Stewart Island. Pastor Johann Riemenschneider moved to Taranaki and set up the first North Island Lutheran mission. Pastor Johannes Heine remained in Nelson, where 4% of the population was Lutheran in 1861. Lutherans also arrived from Scandinavia in the 1870s and settled in the Manawatu, and in northern Wairarapa and southern Hawke’s Bay. By 1900 New Zealand Lutherans numbered 450. During the First World War membership of the Lutheran Church dropped because use of the German language was banned and many German migrants were interned. St Paul’s Church in Christchurch was confiscated, and in 1918 its bells were melted for scrap metal. St John’s Church in Halcombe, Manawatu, was burned down. Church numbers rose again after the Second World War with an influx of European migrants. In 2018 there were about 3,600 New Zealand Lutherans, 0.08% of the New Zealand population.[22]
Papua New Guinea also has a sizeable Lutheran community. According to recent census information, Lutherans form about 16% of the country's population.
There is a sizeable Lutheran community in Brazil, especially in the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. The community is the second largest in the Americas and the largest in Latin America. Almost 85%[23] of all Lutherans in Latin America and the Caribbean live in Brazil. The religion was brought by German immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries. The population of most cities founded by Germans, such as Novo Hamburgo, São Leopoldo, Joinville and Blumenau, include both Lutherans and Catholics.
In Argentina, Lutheranism is represented by the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian churches, which are located in Buenos Aires, next to the port area, where they were established mainly to serve the needs of the seamen who arrived to the city. A small Danish community, with their own Lutheran church and school, lives in the city of Tres Arroyos, about 400km South from Buenos Aires. The conservative Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina (IELA) was founded primarily among Volga German immigrants in the province of Entre Rios in 1905 and has spread to other parts of the country.[24]
1 2 3 This numbers represents the Lutheran World Federation membership in the United States. According to Pew Research Center, all Lutherans in and outside this organization account for 3.5% of the U.S. population or around 11,690,000.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of December 31, 2023, it has approximately 2.79 million baptized members in 8,498 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 Japan Lutheran Church or NRK is a confessional Lutheran denomination in Japan. It currently has approximately 766 baptized members in 35 congregations nationwide.
The Lutheran World Federation is a global communion of national and regional Lutheran denominations headquartered in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. The federation was founded in the Swedish city of Lund in the aftermath of the Second World War in 1947 to coordinate the activities of the many differing Lutheran churches. Since 1984, the member churches are in pulpit and altar fellowship, with common doctrine as the basis of membership and mission activity.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania is the federation of Lutheran churches in Tanzania and one of the largest Lutheran denominations in the world, with more than 6 million members, or 13% of the Tanzanian population. It is the second largest Lutheran church in the world and the largest Lutheran church in East Africa.
The Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference (CELC) is an international fellowship of 34 Confessional Lutheran church bodies.
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 Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church is a confessional Lutheran church body of Germany. It is a member of the European Lutheran Conference and of the International Lutheran Council (ILC). The SELK has about 33,000 members in 174 congregations. The seat of SELK is in Hanover.
High church Lutheranism is a movement that began in 20th-century Europe and emphasizes worship practices and doctrines that are similar to those found within Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Anglo-Catholicism. In the more general usage of the term, it describes the general high church characteristics of Lutheranism in Nordic and Baltic countries such as Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. The mentioned countries, once a part of the Swedish Empire, have more markedly preserved Catholic traditions.
The Huria Kristen Batak Protestan is an Evangelical Lutheran church among the Batak people, generally the Toba Batak in Indonesia. This church uses an Ecumenical worship style influenced by the Dutch Reformed Church due to the influence of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, as well as the legacy obtained from the Rhenish Missionary Society when the church was founded. With a membership of 4,133,000, it is one of the largest Protestant churches in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Its present leader is Ephorus (bishop) Robinson Butarbutar.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia is a Lutheran Protestant church in Latvia. Latvia's Lutheran heritage dates back to the Reformation. Both the Nazi and communist regimes persecuted the church harshly before religious freedom returned to Latvia in 1988. In contrast to Estonia, where state atheism reduced the once 80% Lutheran majority to barely 10% by 2011, the Latvian Lutheran church saw its membership drop to around 20% but has recovered and now includes approximately 30% of the population. The church reports having 250,000 members according to the Lutheran World Federation.
The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus is a Lutheran denomination in Ethiopia. It is the largest member church of the Lutheran World Federation. It is a Lutheran denomination with some Pentecostal influence and one Presbyterian-leaning synod, with a large Pietistic following.
The Communion of Protestant Churches in Europe is a fellowship of over 100 Protestant churches which have signed the Leuenberg Agreement. Together they strive for realizing church communion, especially by cooperation in witness and service to the world. Prior to 2003 the CPCE was known as the "Leuenberg Church Fellowship".
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that identifies primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Reformation in 1517. Lutheranism subsequently became the state religion of many parts of Northern Europe, starting with Prussia in 1525.
The Evangelical Church of the River Plate is a United, Protestant denomination with congregations in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It is named after the Río de la Plata Basin, where the majority of its congregations are located. The IERP was affiliated with the Evangelical Church in Germany from 1934–1965, when it became independent. The church ordains women as ministers and supported civil unions and same-sex marriage. It has approximately 27,500 members. The denomination is a member of the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation.
The Lutheran Church in Korea or LCK is a confessional Lutheran denomination in the Republic of Korea and the only Lutheran denomination in South Korea. Unusual for a confessional Lutheran church, the LCK is not just a member of the confessional International Lutheran Council but also the mainline Lutheran World Federation.
Lutheranism was first introduced to Mexico in the 1850s, when German-American Lutherans began serving German immigrants in Mexico, though mission work among the non-German population in Mexico did not begin until the 1940s. Today there are five Lutheran church bodies in Mexico—the Mexican Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Synod of Mexico, the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Church—Mexico, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mexico (unaffiliated), and the Lutheran Apostolic Alliance of Mexico (unaffiliated)—and several independent congregations.
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