Holy Trinity's full name is Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. Its parent body is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Yet both the ELCA's and Holy Trinity's confession of faith and religious practices may strike the careful thinker as not overly "evangelical" as we in America understand the term.
How do we make sense of this?
For the next several Tidings I'll be doing a series on what the term "evangelical" means. These little articles are meant to serve as setups for a series of adult forums on this topic. The forums are scheduled for September 26, October 17, November 15.
I begin the Tiding series with a brief historical overview of the origin of the term in the 16th century (which you're now reading). Over the course of three more short Tidings articles, we'll jump about four centuries forward to sketch what the label "evangelical" generally means in today's America.
The Greek "Evangelion" and the German "Evangelisch"
The word "evangelical" comes from the Greek evangelion, which means "good news" or "gospel." It is in this sense—being gospel-centered—that Luther and his co-religionists called and still call themselves evangelisch (in German) or "evangelical" in English. The Lutheran church in Germany is still called Die evangelische Kirche in Deutschland.
Consider that Luther's dispute with Rome was often fought out over questions of authority. Was Scripture the sole authority or did it need to be interpreted and, if necessary, elaborated by the authority of the Pope?
For Luther it was scripture alone as the only authority, sola scriptura in Latin. In this famous confrontation at Worms in 1521 Luther clearly stated the principle, that in matters of faith Scripture was the sole authority. “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God,” he said when he declined to recant his teachings.
But for Luther, "Scripture alone" meant something different than we'll see in later American evangelicals insistence on the sole authority of the Bible. The authority of Scripture rested for Luther on its gospel content, not on its being divinely inspired Scripture. That is, Luther distinguished between the Word of God and the Holy Scriptures. The one was contained in the other. For Luther, Scripture and the Word are not identical and, as a result, he felt free to criticize parts of Scripture that did not “promote Christ.” In this Luther differed from later evangelical claims that the "whole bible" is inerrant and authoritative for Christian belief and practice. We'll look at this crucial distinction more closely when we look at how contemporary evangelicals tend to understand and interpret the Bible.
"Lutheran"
Nowadays we call ourselves "Lutheran" or "Lutheran Christians" or just "Christians." Luther himself did not want his evangelical followers called "Lutheran" but only Christian. As he insisted in his 1521 A sincere admonition by Martin Luther to all Christians to guard themselves against insurrection and rebellion,
I ask that people not mention my name and not call themselves Lutheran but only Christian. Who is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine. Nor was I crucified for anyone! ...How does it happen to me, a poor sinking sack of maggots, that the children of Christ should be named with my wretched name? Not so, dear friends, let us abolish all party names and be called Christians, whose teaching we follow!
But with time the name "Lutheran" stuck, especially as 16th century "evangelicals" increasingly splintered into different groupings including Reformed and Anabaptists. This is often true of names that are meant to belittle or undermine but come to adopted as a badge of pride by those so stigmatized!
With time the gospel-center "evangelicals" called Lutherans and the gospel-centered "evangelicals" called Reformed (or sometimes Calvinist) came to be called, and sometimes called themselves, "Protestants." Why? Because their representative governments "protested" a 1529 decision by the Holy Roman Emperor that took away their freedom of religious choice.
"Lutherans" then are named after a man; "Protestants" are named after an obscure 1529 political-religious protest of a group of princes and city states!
In the next Tidings we will jump four centuries forward to explore what modern American "evangelicals" may mean when they claim this label, and we'll sketch the history of their development into the present.
Some discussion questions
- Are we Lutherans truly “gospel-centered”? In what ways?
- Why do we also call ourselves “Lutheran”?
- Can we think of other examples of names that we give to others that are meant to belittle or criticize them? Can we think of examples where people have adopted the stigmatizing term and made it a badge of pride?