The Lutheran Difference

Many folks simply don’t know what Lutherans believe or practice. Some people think Lutherans are Roman Catholics without a pope. Others think Lutherans are just another Protestant church made up mainly of people with German backgrounds.

By Rev. Prof. Lawrence R. Rast, Jr.

Different is Good—or so said the restaurant chain, Arby’s, a few years back. But is different always good? While all of us are unique people, it can be painful to be too different. People who are different don’t quite fit in with the in crowd. In many cases, they’re made fun of or left out. To be different can be very difficult.

I was a Lutheran pastor in Tennessee for five years where Lutherans make up less than one percent of the population. Talk about being different!

Lutherans are few and far between in Tennessee. Many folks simply don’t know what Lutherans believe or practice. Some people think Lutherans are Roman Catholics without a pope. Others think Lutherans are just another Protestant church made up mainly of people with German backgrounds.

As a pastor, I wondered how we, as Lutherans, could make ourselves better known? More importantly, how could we get the good news of Christ out to people in need?

Some Lutheran congregations decided the most effective way to do this was to be like other Christian denominations. There is an old saying that goes, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” These churches adapted that saying to, “When in Tennessee, do as the Tennesseans do.” Pastors preached and congregations worshipped like the churches of other denominations. Since Nashville is the Contemporary Christian Music capital of the world, that form of music was often used in services.

The result was that people were confused about what Lutheranism teaches and does. Are Lutherans the same as the Baptists, Methodists, or Pentecostals? Or are Lutherans different somehow? Over and over again people asked me these questions.

How did I answer? When I was in high school, I invited a Roman Catholic buddy to come to church with me. He was amazed at how familiar the service was. Another time a friend in the Foursquare Gospel church came to the divine service at my invitation. He couldn’t believe God’s word was the focus of the service.

Both commented,“We’re so much the same!”

“Only different,” I answered.

When it comes to sameness, what Lutherans believe is the same thing that the church has confessed throughout history. In this sense, we Lutherans are catholic. Catholic means whole, or that which is a part of the whole church, both historically and contemporarily. I’m not saying we’re Roman Catholic—after all, by calling themselves Roman, they limit the whole. The adjective Roman becomes more important than the noun catholic!

On the other hand, we Lutherans are different from Protestants, who think that the most important thing about the Protestant Reformation was its protest against Roman Catholicism. That is largely a negative activity. Lutherans, however, see God at work in history. Lutherans believe it is more important to know what the Reformers (like Martin Luther) kept rather than what they got rid of. Why? Because that’s the stuff of catholicity. And what is at the heart of all this? The biblical, historic faith that God sent His son Jesus Christ into the world to bear human sin, suffer, die, and rise again. Christ is true God and true man who came into the world to pay for our sins, that is, to win salvation for us. Salvation is given to us through the Word and Sacraments.

Lutherans also carefully distinguish between the Law and the Gospel. Anything that says humans must do something to gain God’s favor—for example, making a choice or decision to give your heart to Jesus—confuses the Law of God and makes His salvation dependent on something you do. In contrast, we Lutherans are truly protestant; that is, we testify to the primacy of the Gospel.

So how are Lutherans different? We hold to the Christian faith as revealed in God’s inerrant (free from errors) Word, confess that faith with the historic church, and seek to practice that faith in the present time. In all of this our Lord Jesus Christ is at the center. He is the one who entered the world to carry your sin and mine to the cross and to pay for it once and for all. Now our gracious Lord continues to come to us in the waters of Holy Baptism, in His preached word, in the Absolution, in the Sacrament of the Altar, and in the historic liturgy of the church.

So Lutherans are the same, only different, just as Jesus was the same as other men, only different. I guess Arby’s got it right. Different is good. We Lutherans don’t need to be ashamed of our uniqueness, instead we can be thankful for that Lutheran difference.

The Rev. Prof. Lawrence R. Rast, Jr., is assistant professor of church history at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.