Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, (LCMS) the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States, was founded in Chicago, IL April 26, 1847 as "The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States," at a meeting of 12 pastors representing 15 congregations. It is a confessional Lutheran denomination and a member of the International Lutheran Council.
The first president of the LCMS was C.F.W. Walther, a German immigrant and one of the foremost Lutheran theologians in America.
In 1947, the church body shortened its name to its present name. Today the LCMS, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, counts about 2.6 million baptized members, second among US Lutheran bodies after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) with 5.1 million, and followed by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod with 410,000.
The LCMS is a conservative Lutheran church body, and stands on the conservative side of mainline Protestant church bodies in general. It practices close or closed communion and its worship style is often traditional and liturgical, utilizing a printed order of service and traditional hymns, often centuries old, accompanied by a pipe organ. However, contemporary Evangelical-style worship styles have been making inroads into many LCMS churches in recent years.
The LCMS professes the beliefs found in The Book of Concord. The LCMS's motto includes the words "Scripture Alone". The LCMS and other conservative Lutherans regard the Book of Concord and Lutheran Confessions as expositions of the Holy Scriptures, neither adding nor subtracting from them. The LCMS teaches that Jesus Christ is the focus of the Scriptures and that faith in Him alone is the way to eternal salvation ("I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: no one can get to the Father except through me").
LCMS pastors are generally required to have a four-year bachelor's degree (in any discipline), as well as a four-year Master's of Divinity degree from one of the body's two seminaries: the Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and the Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In seminary, pastors learn doctrine (the basic teachings and beliefs of the church) and the original Biblical languages, as well as one or more areas of specialization such as education or music.
The LCMS operates ten universities known as the Concordia University System.
Maintaining its position as a confessional church emphasizing the importance of agreement in the teachings of the Bible, the LCMS is not associated with ecumenical organizations such as the National Council of Churches, the National Association of Evangelicals, the World Council of Churches or the Lutheran World Federation.
Relationship to other Lutheran bodies
LCMS is a member of the International Lutheran Council, made up of over 30 Lutheran Churches world wide that support the confessional doctrines of the Bible and the Book of Concord.
The LCMS is distinguished from its closest non-LCMS Lutheran US denomination - the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) - by three main theological beliefs:
- 1. The biblical understanding of fellowship - the LCMS believes in a distinction between the altar, pulpit fellowship, and other manifestations of Christian fellowship (i.e. a prayer fellowship). The WELS does not.
- 2. The doctrine of the ministry - the LCMS believes that the Pastoral office is divinely established, but all other offices are human institutions and hence are not divinely established. The WELS does not believe that any office is divinely established.
- 3. The role of women in the church - Both the LCMS and WELS agree that Scriptures reserve the pastoral office for men. However, the WELS also believes that the Scriptures forbid women's suffrage in the congregation.
