I am often asked the question of why I am a Lutheran. And without much hesitation I am asked the question of what a Lutheran is.
We aren’t really a "what," but more of a "who."
To begin the abridged history of Lutherans, we need to jump back about 500 years to the German town of Wittenberg. The year is 1517 and a Catholic monk by the name of Martin Luther has just nailed his 95 reasons or “theses” as to why he felt the Catholic Church was wrong in its theology. He was mostly critical of the sale of indulgences by the church.
An indulgence was a way for one to “pay down” the amount of suffering they or their family members had to endure in the afterworld of purgatory. In purgatory, you were punished for the wrongs committed while living on earth. After the punishment, this purification, you were then free to go to heaven. So by buying these indulgences, you were able to buy your way out of longer punishment, meaning you could go straight to heaven after death if you were wealthy enough, regardless of how terrible of a human being you actually were.
And for Luther, as well as many in the Church at the time, they felt that this was not sound practice; this was not sound theology. And so Luther took his 95 reasons and nailed them to the door of the Catholic Church in Wittenberg. This can be considered the start of the Protestant reformation; the protesting of the way the catholic church was run.
Well, Luther, if you can’t buy your way into heaven, then how does one get there?
Luther’s answer would be grace.
He understood the power behind the theology of grace. Grace from God, to flawed humans, gifting us, rather than making us buy our way into heaven.
So why am I Lutheran?
Well, the short answer would be because I was raised Lutheran.
Not only does that answer require another article, but this answer does not satisfy the question of what it means to be a Lutheran.
Like I said, Lutherans love the idea of grace and the greater grace of God, almost as much as they love old German hymns and a cold beer. This means that God is always taking the initiative in our lives. God is the driving force in our spirituality and in our faith. Lutherans understand that this was not a “me” decision. We did not go out and choose God, and ask God to forgive us, and welcome God into our lives - God was already there. The Lutheran understanding of God’s grace is that it was there from the beginning and will continue through the end, regardless of whether we say we chose it, regardless of whether we asked for it.
To be a Lutheran is to understand that the gift of grace is what we need to share with one another. If it is not our age, our race, or what country we belong to, or how well off we are in society that earns us God’s grace, then it most certainly should not matter to humans. So with this, Lutherans believe that in God’s grace there is freedom to do good works, to do good deeds not to God, but rather to one another.
We understand that through grace alone we, and anyone else for that matter, has the favor of God; not one person is more deserving than the next. And for that reason, that is why I am a Lutheran.
