What is a Lutheran?
"What Lutherans Believe": An Inexhaustive Credo
by Chris Wogaman
This statement comes from a former intern at Trinity and we like it!
- Lutherans believe that Christ is the center and the center will hold.
- Lutherans believe that Christ showed his true colors on the cross, and we showed ours, yet God is above all seen in a rainbow of all colors.
- Lutherans believe that God forgives you first, and then you respond with works of charity and compassion out of thankfulness, rather than trying to buy God's favor through good works, which doesn't work anyway.
- Lutherans believe that faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit and not a work that one Christian is better at than others.
- Lutherans believe that humans are not fully good or fully bad, but fully both.
- Lutherans believe that Jesus, and not Rob Bell, emptied hell of all sinners past, present, and future.
- Lutherans believe that human beings struggle and are not perfect.
- Lutherans believe three solas ("alones"), grace, scripture, and faith, but these are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive.
- Lutherans believe that doubt is an asset, and not a liability, to faith.
- Lutherans believe that Jesus really is present in communion, not just a memory.
- Lutherans believe that God is gracious, even in judgment.
- Lutherans believe that the Holy Spirit works today, and that God was not buried in the Bible.
- Lutherans believe that God is still speaking, even if some Christians never shut up.
