Not everyone outside of the Midwest is going to be familiar with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). And while I am not a member of the ELCA, a LOT of people I know are. Here are some important bullet points.
1) In spite of "Evangelical" being in the name, the ELCA is considered to be a Mainline Protestant religion
Not everyone outside of the Midwest is going to be familiar with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). And while I am not a member of the ELCA, a LOT of people I know are. Here are some important bullet points.
1) In spite of "Evangelical" being in the name, the ELCA is considered to be a Mainline Protestant religion
2) ELCA Lutheran are absolutely nothing like similarly named Lutheran - Wisconsin Synod, and Lutheran -Missouri Synod. The latter two are absolutely batshit crazy fundamentalists, though are much fewer in number than the ELCA.
3) While not as outwardly and universally liberal as United Church of Christ, or the Unitarian Universalist Church, the ELCA membership overall is quite liberal.
4) the Upper Midwesterners o Nordic ancestry make up the bulk of ELCA members, and up until being irreligious became even remotely socially acceptable, saying "I'm Lutheran" was/is a thing secular people say when pressed by other religious people when being a non-believer isn't socially acceptable, so a nontrivial number of self identified ELCA Lutherand are punctually agnostic / non believers.
If I remember my history correctly, Martin Luther was a failed monk. However, he can be credited by helping develop a more standardized German language.
I hadn't known about his period as a monk. He's much better known as a priest. Interesting, though: he swore to become a monk after he survived a lightning strike!
Not everyone outside of the Midwest is going to be familiar with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). And while I am not a member of the ELCA, a LOT of people I know are. Here are some important bullet points.
1) In spite of "Evangelical" being in the name, the ELCA is considered to be a Mainline Protestant religion
2) ELCA Lutheran are absolutely nothing like similarly named Lutheran - Wisconsin Synod, and Lutheran -Missouri Synod. The latter two are absolutely batshit crazy fundamentalists, though are much fewer in number than the ELCA.
3) While not as outwardly and universally liberal as United Church of Christ, or the Unitarian Universalist Church, the ELCA membership overall is quite liberal.
4) the Upper Midwesterners o Nordic ancestry make up the bulk of ELCA members, and up until being irreligious became even remotely socially acceptable, saying "I'm Lutheran" was/is a thing secular people say when pressed by other religious people when being a non-believer isn't socially acceptable, so a nontrivial number of self identified ELCA Lutherand are punctually agnostic / non believers.
In Germany, all Lutheran churches are called Evangelisch. Good post.
If I remember my history correctly, Martin Luther was a failed monk. However, he can be credited by helping develop a more standardized German language.
I hadn't known about his period as a monk. He's much better known as a priest. Interesting, though: he swore to become a monk after he survived a lightning strike!