What are Lutherans, anyway? Are they a denomination of Christianity? Are they a tradition? Are they a movement? All of those ways of talking about Lutherans would probably be correct in one way or another, but we think that the best way to think about Lutherans is to think of them as a movement within the worldwide Christian Church.
Lutherans as a Denomination
The term “denomination” when applied to a group of Christians normally means a specifically named subset of Christianity. Denominations are normally groups that have differing beliefs within an overall agreed system of belief. For example, all Christians believe in the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit being uniquely three persons yet one God), but may not believe the same things about how a local church should be organized. In this sense, Lutherans are a denomination because they have a specific set of beliefs within Christianity. In fact, in this sense, there are various Lutheran denominations because not all Lutherans share the same specific beliefs about things (i.e. some Lutheran churches have bishops, and others do not).
Lutherans as a Tradition
Sometimes people will speak of “the Lutheran tradition”. A tradition is something that is handed down (tradition literally comes from a Latin phrase meaning to “hand-off”). Lutherans can be seen as a tradition because there are things that have been handed down from generation to generation for 500 years. The things handed down include our theology, but also include other cultural things like our music. Usually it is the cultural things that get labeled “traditional” – things like worshiping using organ music or what the pastor wears on Sunday morning. While these all have connections with who we are, they don’t describe all Lutherans very well, especially when you look at Lutherans as being a group of people who are scattered throughout the globe who come from differing cultures. That’s why we think “movement” fits best.
Lutherans as Movement
From the very beginning, Lutherans wanted to be a reform movement in the world wide Church. The Reformation was not about creating new denominations, or even handing down traditions – rather, it was about making the Church better by going back to the source of Christianity. In the way that history played out, Lutherans ended up with their own churches and cultures – and so it does makes sense to talk about Lutherans as a denomination or tradition. Still, those churches at their core are actively working in the lives of people and groups around us to point to the sources of Christianity: Jesus Christ, Scripture, Faith, and Grace.