Denomination

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Also Known As ELCA

Christianity

Origin from 1988

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was formed in 1988 by the merger of three Lutheran bodies and is the largest Lutheran church in the United States. It ordains women, is in full communion with the Episcopal Church and several other American denominations, and stands well to the ecumenical side of American Lutheranism. Its 2009 decision to permit clergy in same-sex relationships led a minority of congregations to leave and form the North American Lutheran Church.

Facts

Belief

Defining Doctrinal Position

Trinitarian: one God in three persons 2

Its own record ties its standard to the Augsburg Confession, matching Lutheranism, already carried as trinitarian.

Defining Doctrinal Position

Chalcedonian: two natures in the one person of Christ (Chalcedon, 451) 2

Its own record ties its standard to the Augsburg Confession, matching Lutheranism, already carried as chalcedonian.

Confessional Standard

The remaining writings of the Book of Concord, held as further valid interpretations of the faith 1

Confessional Standard

The Small Catechism of Luther 2

Confessional Standard

The Unaltered Augsburg Confession of 1530 2

Position on Justification

Faith Alone 2

Position on the Eucharist

Sacramental Union 3

Position on Predestination

Single Predestination 3

Position on Sexuality

Same-sex marriage is performed and LGBT clergy are ordained on equal terms with heterosexual clergy 4

Sexuality Position Detail

Since the 2009 Churchwide Assembly vote of 21 August 2009 (559 to 451), the ELCA ordains and rosters clergy living in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships on equal terms with other clergy, ordaining its first such clergy in 2010. The Churchwide Assembly has never taken a separate, churchwide vote defining or authorizing same-sex marriage as such; instead it grants individual ministers and congregations the freedom to recognize, support and solemnize such relationships, which is why same-sex marriages are performed at many, though not all, ELCA congregations. Before 2009, clergy in a same-gender relationship were required to remain celibate to serve. 4

Accountability

Response Policy Adopted

The church's Definitions and Guidelines for Discipline, dated December 2014, names the sexual abuse of another and the misuse of the pastoral relationship for sexual activity as conduct incompatible with the character of the ministerial office, grounds for formal discipline of a rostered minister that can include removal from the roster. 9

Disputed

Standing of Holy Orders

Historic Episcopate Received Not Required 1

Called to Common Mission, adopted in 1999 and in force from 2001, requires bishops in the historic succession at the installation of this church's bishops. A minority read that as importing a requirement the confessions deny and organised against it; others read it as an adiaphoron freely adopted. Both readings are still in the church.

Attributions

Church Family

Lutheran 1

Origins

Origin Period

from 1988 1

Its own record states it "was formed in 1988 by the merger of three Lutheran bodies", a punctual founding act.

Origin Period

to 1988 1

Place of Origin

United States, formed by a 1988 merger of three Lutheran bodies. 2

Founder

No single founder. Formed in 1988 by the merger of three Lutheran bodies. 2

A modern merger rather than a body founded by one person, dated in its own record.

Practice

Liturgical Language

The vernacular 1

The largest Lutheran church in the United States, matching Lutheranism, already carried as vernacular.

Principle of Worship

Normative 3

Sacraments Recognised

Two 2

Finances

Institutional Wealth or Financesthe subject's own account

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's own philanthropic arm, the ELCA Foundation, reported in its 2025 Annual Report that it held over 1.2 billion dollars in assets under stewardship, gifts and endowments managed on behalf of ELCA congregations, synods and churchwide ministries, having crossed the 1 billion dollar mark as of 31 December 2020. In 2024 the Foundation reported generating about 94.9 million dollars in total gifts and investments, including about 28.7 million dollars in new investments in its Ministry Growth Fund. This is the Foundation's own managed assets rather than a balance sheet for the ELCA's congregations, synods or churchwide organization, which report their finances separately. 7

Basis of the Wealth Figurethe subject's own account

The Body's Own Published Statistics 7

Financial Disclosure Regimethe subject's own account

This figure is the ELCA Foundation's own published total from its 2025 Annual Report, relayed here via a 2 April 2025 Grand Canyon Synod newsletter summary rather than the full annual report document itself, which this pass could not open directly. No independent audit of this specific stewardship-assets figure was located, and no precise as-of date beyond '2025 Annual Report' was given, so no wealth-as-of-date property is recorded. 7

Wealth Figure As Of Year

2024 7

the subject's own accountThe ELCA Foundation's most recently reported total-gifts-and-investments figure (94.9 million dollars) is for calendar year 2024, per its 2025 Annual Report; this covers the Foundation's own managed assets, not the ELCA's congregations, synods or churchwide organization.

History

Separation or Divergence

Formed by a three way merger in 1988; a minority left after the 2009 decision on partnered gay clergy 1

Organisation

Governance

Synodal: governed by synods of clergy and lay delegates 1

Three interdependent expressions, congregation, synod and churchwide, with bishops elected for fixed terms rather than consecrated for life.

Ordination

Open to women and men 1 5

Women are ordained, and clergy in same-sex relationships have been permitted since the churchwide decision of 2009.

Relation to the State

No Establishment 1

Status

Status Today

Living tradition, practised today 6

Giving

Standing Giving Expectation

The ELCA's own official stewardship resources frame member giving as a voluntary response to grace, "Sharing God's Abundance," rather than a codified due: its stewardship page distinguishes individual giving explicitly from Mission Support, the offerings ELCA congregations, not individual members, share with synods and the churchwide organization to fund shared ministry, itself an institutional rather than a personal mechanism. No adopted percentage, tithe standard or formal churchwide assembly resolution comparable to the Episcopal Church's 1982 General Convention vote or the Church of England's repeated Synod resolutions, both already recorded here, was located. This is the genuine no-Kirchensteuer contrast case for American Lutheranism: unlike the German Catholic and Evangelical church bodies and the Nordic state churches already recorded here, giving among American Lutherans carries no tax mechanism, no adopted numeric standard and no institutional voice urging a specific rate; it is a personal spiritual practice left to individual conscience and custom. 8

How the Expectation Is Enforced

Customary Norm 8

Trajectory

Membership Over Timethe subject's own account

As of 2024, the ELCA's own reporting gives 2,677,239 baptized members across 8,386 congregations, a decline of just over half from the 1988 founding total. 10

Membership Over Time

In its first full year after the January 1988 merger that created it, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America reported 5,288,471 baptized members at the end of 1988, according to its own Summary of Congregational Statistics. 11

Membership Figure As Of

1988-12-31 11

Membership Figure As Ofthe subject's own account

2024-12-31 10

Basis of the Membership Figurethe subject's own account

Church-Reported Rolls 10

Learn More

Three Churches Into One

American Lutheranism arrived in national fragments, organised by the country and the synod its immigrants came from, and the twentieth century was largely spent consolidating them. The merger of 1988 was the culmination. The American Lutheran Church, with roots in Norwegian, Danish and German immigration and its strength in the upper Midwest, and the Lutheran Church in America, with Swedish, Finnish and Pennsylvania German roots and its strength on the east coast, were the two large partners.

The third partner was small and its presence changed the character of the result. The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches was formed in 1976 by congregations and faculty that had left the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod after a conflict over biblical scholarship, in which most of the faculty of the Missouri Synod seminary in St Louis walked out and continued teaching in exile. Bringing that group in signalled where the new church would stand on the questions that had produced the split.

The resulting body is organised into synods, each with a bishop, under a churchwide assembly and a presiding bishop, and it holds the Book of Concord as its confessional standard. It ordains women, which it inherited from both large predecessors. It is the largest Lutheran church in the United States and, like most historic American Protestant denominations, has been losing membership for the whole of its existence.

Full Communion, and the Arguments It Cost

The church has pursued ecumenical agreement more actively than most, and each agreement has been contested inside it. A Formula of Agreement in 1997 established full communion with three Reformed churches, resolving the sixteenth century dispute over the presence of Christ in the supper by declaring the remaining difference not church-dividing. In 1999 the church entered full communion with the Episcopal Church under Called to Common Mission.

That second agreement was the hard one. It required the church to adopt the historic episcopate, meaning that future bishops would be installed with Episcopal bishops taking part, so that the succession would be shared. Opponents inside the church argued that this made an order of ministry a condition of unity, which the Augsburg Confession does not, and the agreement passed the churchwide assembly narrowly after an earlier version had failed. A provision allowing exceptions for ordinations by a pastor was added in response.

Also in 1999 the Lutheran World Federation, to which the church belongs, signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification with the Roman Catholic Church, stating a common understanding of the doctrine at the centre of the Reformation. A decade later the 2009 churchwide assembly voted to allow congregations to call pastors in same-gender relationships, and a number of congregations left in the years that followed to form the North American Lutheran Church.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

9 entries

Origin Period Start Year

Solitary or Communal

Category of Practice

Who Performs It

Practice Status

Scholarly Standing

Cadence

Obligation

In Group

Connections

Associated With

A Davey and Goliath Timeline (Living Lutheran)

This source names ELCA directly: "Church in America's own magazine; ELCA is the 1988 merger successor to the Lutheran Church in America, which produced the series, so this is treated as the direct successor denomination's own..."

Source A Davey and Goliath Timeline (Living Lutheran)

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "The Wikipedia entry for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose infobox states 2,677,239 baptized members across 8,386 congregations as of 2024, attributed to the denomination's own..."

Source Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Fifty Years On: A Half Century of Ordaining Lutheran Women (St. Olaf College)

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "on the 1970 decisions of two of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's predecessor bodies to admit women to the pastoral office: the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America..."

Source Fifty Years On: A Half Century of Ordaining Lutheran Women (St. Olaf College)

Lutheran World Relief

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "relief and development agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, founded in 1945 by the former National Lutheran Council as US Lutherans responded..."

Source Lutheran World Relief (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Lutheran World Relief (Wikipedia)

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "relief and development agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, a member of the Corus International family..."

Source Lutheran World Relief (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Moravian Church (Wikipedia)

This source names Evangelical Lutheran Church in America directly: "are in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, alongside its other twenty first century ecumenical relationships: full communion with the Episcopal Church, voted by the..."

Source Moravian Church (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Belongs To Church Family

Lutheran Churches

Belongs to Tradition

Christianity

Branch Of

Christianity

Lutheranism

The largest Lutheran body in the United States.

Source Encyclopedia of American ReligionsJ. Gordon Melton

Contained In

Mainline Protestantism

Classified as mainline Protestant tradition per Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study.

Source Pew Research Center: 2023-24 Religious Landscape StudyPew Research Center

Critiqued

Celibacy / Monasticism

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Augsburg Confession devotes two articles to this, one against compulsory clerical celibacy and one against monastic vows, and the monasteries of the Lutheran territories were dissolved.

Indulgence

The dispute that began this tradition was about indulgences. Luther's ninety-five theses of 1517 argue that the pope can remit only what he or the canons have imposed, that true contrition seeks the punishment rather than release from it, and that the treasury of merits is not the church's to spend.

Source Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences (the Ninety-Five Theses)Martin Luther

Pilgrimage

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Pilgrimage stands in the Augsburg Confession among the human traditions urged as though they merited grace, and is refused on that ground rather than as a custom.

Regulative Principle of Worship

Lutherans hold the normative principle. The Augsburg Confession says rites instituted by men are not necessary for salvation but may be kept for good order, and the Formula of Concord treats such ceremonies as adiaphora, free in themselves though not free under persecution. Vestments, images and set liturgy were kept for that reason, the direct opposite of the Reformed rule.

Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others

Seven Sacraments

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Lutherans count the sacraments by the presence of a command of Christ and a promise attached to an outward sign, which yields two, or three when absolution is counted.

Veneration of saints and Mary

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Augsburg Confession permits the remembrance of the saints as examples of faith and forbids their invocation, since Christ alone is the mediator.

Rejected Here

Papal primacy and infallibility

The Augsburg Confession's article on the power of bishops confines that power to the word and the sacraments, denies bishops any authority over civil government and denies them any right to bind consciences beyond scripture, which leaves no ground for a universal jurisdiction or for infallible teaching.

Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon

Purgatory

No Lutheran confession makes a place for a purifying state after death, and the Augsburg Confession's treatment of the mass rejects the practice of applying its merit for the dead that the doctrine supported.

Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon

Excluded from Canon

1 Esdras

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not include 1 Esdras in its Bible. Like other Lutheran bodies it holds to the Reformation's narrower Old Testament canon, the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and 1 Esdras, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy, falls outside that list along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.

Source The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and AuthorityLee Martin McDonald

3 Maccabees

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not include 3 Maccabees in its Bible. Its Old Testament follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and 3 Maccabees, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy, falls outside that narrower canon along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.

Source The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and AuthorityLee Martin McDonald

Psalm 151

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not include Psalm 151 in its Bible. Its Old Testament follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and Psalm 151, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy and found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, falls outside that narrower canon along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.

Source The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and AuthorityLee Martin McDonald

Held Differently

Additions to Daniel

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.