Lutheran

Lutheranism began with Martin Luther, a German monk and theology professor who in 1517 publicly challenged Catholic teaching on indulgences and salvation. Luther's conviction that people are justified by faith alone, apart from earning merit through works, spread rapidly through the Holy Roman Empire aided by the printing press. Luther also translated the Bible into German, expanding lay access to scripture. Though Luther did not intend to found a new church, his followers organized into distinct territorial churches after his death, formalized doctrinally in the 1580 Book of Concord.

Key figures: Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Katharina von Bora, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Lutherans hold justification by faith alone as the central article of Christian teaching, the belief that a person is declared righteous before God through faith in Christ's death and resurrection, not through good works, which are understood instead as the natural fruit of faith rather than its cause. Scripture is affirmed as the sole authoritative source of Christian doctrine, interpreted through Luther's own catechisms and the Book of Concord, the collection of confessional documents that define Lutheran teaching. Lutherans affirm the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds and historic Trinitarian, Christological orthodoxy shared with Catholic and Orthodox Christians.

Lutherans retain a sacramental theology closer to Catholicism than many other Protestant traditions, teaching that Christ is truly present in, with, and under the bread and wine of communion, a view called sacramental union, distinct from the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Baptism, including infant baptism, is considered a genuine means through which God works faith and forgiveness, not merely a symbolic act. Law and Gospel, the distinction between God's moral demand and God's free promise of grace, structures much of Lutheran preaching and theology.

• Justification by faith alone as the central doctrine
• Real presence of Christ in communion without transubstantiation
• Infant baptism as a means of grace
• The Book of Concord as confessional standard
• Law and Gospel distinction in preaching
• Strong liturgical and musical tradition

Lutheran worship typically follows a structured liturgy inherited from the pre-Reformation Western church, including scripture readings, a sermon, and communion, often celebrated weekly. Congregational hymn singing holds special importance, a legacy of Luther's own hymn writing and the tradition's association with composers like Johann Sebastian Bach. Services can range from formal, chanted liturgy to more contemporary styles, depending on the congregation and country.

Lutheran governance varies by country and denomination, ranging from national churches with bishops, as in Germany and the Scandinavian countries, to synodical structures common among American Lutheran bodies such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which elect leadership through representative assemblies rather than maintaining a strict episcopal hierarchy.

Lutheranism differs from Reformed and Presbyterian traditions chiefly on communion, teaching Christ's real bodily presence rather than a purely symbolic or spiritual view, and it retains a more liturgical, sacramentally-oriented worship style closer to its Catholic roots. Compared to Baptist and other traditions emphasizing believer's baptism, Lutherans baptize infants as a genuine means of grace. Lutheranism shares justification by faith alone with the wider Protestant family but places distinctive weight on the Book of Concord as the standard for interpreting scripture faithfully.

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Lutherans number roughly 75 to 90 million worldwide, with the largest populations in Germany and the Nordic countries, along with substantial churches in the United States, Africa, and Asia.