Lutheranism: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

Law and gospel, rightly divided.

The first Protestant church: Luther's own line — justification by faith as the article on which the church stands or falls, and Christ truly present in the sacrament.

DeitiesOne God in three persons

Founded1517 CE · Germany and Scandinavia

FounderMartin Luther

AfterlifeResurrection and judgment

TextsBible · Book of Concord

The map

Lutheranism’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

c. 1000 BCE Judaism 30 CE Christianity 1517 CE Protestantism 1517 CE Lutheranism

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

Law and gospel must not be confused. The law diagnoses; the gospel saves. Mixing them ruins both. Go deeper — context →

Christ is truly present in the sacrament. In, with, and under the bread and wine — no mere symbol. Go deeper — context →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

Word and sacrament. Preaching and the Supper in one service — Christ truly present in, with, and under the bread and wine. When weeklyWho the congregation Go deeper — context →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

Christianity — 4 shared ideas, a different faith Sikhism — 3 shared ideas, a different faith Catholicism — 3 shared ideas, a different faith The Armenian Apostolic Church — 3 shared ideas, a different faith Branch Lutheranism — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what Lutheranism shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been