Week 21 · AD 2001–2026
Confessing Christ in a Divided Age
Four Lutheran bodies, councils, and the wider church to October 5, 2026
This week
How the churches confess Christ
- The ELCA, LCMS, WELS, and ELS each speak only for themselves
- Controversy: a prayer at Yankee Stadium and online Communion
- Councils: Crete in 2016 and Nicaea in 2025, with their classifications
- Major people and wider world events, 2001 to 2026
- Lutheran developments, then the confessional judgments that close the unit
Christ on the Cross
Lucas Cranach the Younger, about 1555. The crucified Christ, with the risen Christ over death and the devil.
Church life
How four Lutheran bodies state their own confession
Church life
Four bodies in their own words
- LCMS: Accepts every Book of Concord writing (1580 Lutheran confessions) “because” it agrees with Scripture
- LCMS: Scripture is the Synod’s only rule for teaching
- ELCA: Confesses Jesus Christ as “Lord and Savior”
- ELCA: Accepts the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as “a true witness to the Gospel”
- WELS: Scripture is the final authority, “without error” in what it teaches
- WELS: Subscribes “wholeheartedly” to the Lutheran Confessions in the 1580 Book of Concord
- ELS: Accepts the Book of Concord “not in so far as but because” it agrees with Scripture
- ELS: Says the Supper is for Christians who know and hold the teachings of God’s Word
Christ and the sacraments
Christ and the Lord’s Supper
- LCMS: God gives Christ’s forgiveness through the Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper
- WELS: Teaches the “real and substantial presence of Christ’s body and blood” in the Supper
- ELS: Christ’s body and blood are truly present for the forgiveness of sins
- ELCA: Confesses Jesus Christ as “the Word of God incarnate” (section 2.02)
Controversy
Where confession and practice were tested
Controversy
A prayer at Yankee Stadium
- 23 September 2001: David Benke, president of the LCMS Atlantic District, prays at Yankee Stadium
- Pastors and congregations charge him with “unionism” and “syncretism”
- A Synod vice-president suspends him on 25 June 2002
- On 11 April 2003 a three-person panel dismisses the charges, citing a 2001 convention resolution
- Synod President Kieschnick says the prayer needed “a stronger articulation of the truth of Holy Scripture”
“clearly and unequivocally reject and condemn the practice of virtual (online) Communion”
LCMS Resolution 5-08A, “To Affirm In-Person Communion,” 1 August 2023
Councils and events
Councils, joint statements, and church meetings
Holy and Great Council, 2016
Crete: the Orthodox council
- June 2016: Orthodox churches hold the Holy and Great Council at Kolymbari, Crete
- The Encyclical (a letter to all churches) calls it “an authentic witness to faith in Christ”
- Four patriarchates (Antioch, Moscow, Bulgaria, Georgia) stayed away at the last moment
- In 2026 the Ecumenical Patriarch asks the four to study the texts and adopt them
- Lutheran classification: Not classified. Crete settled no new doctrine about Christ
Council of Nicaea, AD 325
Nicaea: the Son is true God
- 28–29 November 2025: Pope Leo XIV and Bartholomew I mark Nicaea’s 1,700th anniversary
- Their joint declaration calls Nicaea’s faith “the saving faith in the person of the Son of God”
- The Son is true God from true God, in the Greek word homoousios, “of one substance”
- Lutheran classification: Received. Augsburg Confession I calls the Nicene decree “true and to be believed without any doubting”
Major people
Leaders of the four bodies and the wider church
Major people
Church leaders since 2001
- Mark Hanson led the ELCA as presiding bishop (its top leader), 2001 to 2013
- Gerald Kieschnick led the LCMS from 2001 to 2010
- Matthew Harrison won the LCMS presidency in 2010 and a sixth term, announced 24 June 2026
- Elizabeth Eaton became the first woman ELCA presiding bishop in 2013, serving 12 years
- Yehiel Curry, the first Black ELCA presiding bishop, is elected on 30 July 2025
- Popes: Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, Francis died in 2025, Leo XIV is the first U.S. pope
Wider world
Events beyond the church that shaped its setting
Wider world
Events, 2001 to 2026
- 11 September 2001: al-Qaeda-linked hijackers seize four airliners and kill 2,977 people
- 19 March 2003: President Bush announces that operations in Iraq have begun
- 15 September 2008: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history
- 26 June 2015: The Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 that states must license same-sex marriages
- 11 March 2020: The WHO calls COVID-19 a pandemic, and churches move services online
- 2 March 2022: The UN General Assembly votes 141 to 5 that Russia stop and withdraw from Ukraine
Lutheran developments
New bodies, full communion, and talks between churches
Lutheran developments
Bodies and fellowship
- The ELCA and the Episcopal Church enter full communion on 1 January 2001
- Full communion means each church recognizes the other’s members, ministries, and sacraments
- People who disagreed with the 2009 vote form the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) in 2010
- WELS suspended fellowship with the LCMS in 1961
- Since 2012 the LCMS, WELS, and ELS meet each December for informal talks
- Harrison calls the three “fellow heirs of the Lutheran Confessions,” but they lack altar and pulpit fellowship
Confessional Lutheran connection
The curriculum’s judgments, grounded in the Book of Concord
Christ and the sacraments
Baptism
- Baptism offers God’s grace and salvation (Small Catechism, second and third questions)
- Ask: how do the catechisms explain forgiveness, rescue from death and the devil, and faith?
- Melanchthon pours water on an infant at a stone font in Wittenberg, 1547–1548
Confessional Lutheran connection
Forgiveness comes from Christ’s work
- Christ’s saving work is the ground of forgiveness and justification (God’s declaration that a sinner is righteous)
- The Lord’s Supper gives Christ’s true body and blood for forgiveness, on His words and promise
- Subscription: the Formula names Scripture as “the only true standard” for judging doctrine
- Curriculum judgment: the 2009 ELCA ministry policy departs from the Large Catechism’s teaching on marriage
For discussion
Does “true witness” bind a pastor to the Confessions as firmly as “because” does?