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Lutheranism: North America
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Although a majority of the world's Lutherans still live in the traditionally Lutheran countries of central and northern Europe, Lutheranism has been growing most rapidly in Africa and Asia. Indeed, the only country outside of Europe where a majority of the population is Lutheran is Namibia in southern Africa. The Lutheran World Federation (LWF), headquartered in Geneva, coordinates the activities of almost all Lutheran churches in the world. It oversees ecumenical relations, theological studies, and world service and is guided by an international executive committee. Most Lutheran churches are ... members of the World Council of Churches.
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Lutheranism's greatest success was in north Germany and in Scandinavia. In England, his reputation was marred by a sharp theological exchange with Henry VIII, to whose Defence of the Seven Sacraments (1521), which had won from the papacy the title ‘Defender of the Faith’ for the king, Luther replied with Against Henry King of England (1522). Many English churchmen thought it wise to distance themselves from Luther and to insist that the English Reformation was autonomous and independent. After Luther's death, the influence of Calvin and Geneva on the English clergy, and certainly on the Scottish, was much greater than that of Lutheranism.
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Apart from Germany, where two thirds of the population had accepted Lutheranism by the end of the sixteenth century, the expansion of Lutheranism through Sweden, Denmark, and Norway left national churches that have endured in strength. From these nations Lutherans migrated to the United States and Canada. The earliest Lutherans in America can be traced back to the seventeenth century. In Delaware, Swedish Lutherans had settled as early as 1638. In Georgia, almost a hundred years later, a group of refugee Lutherans from Salzburg established residence. Colonies of Lutherans ... settled in upper New York and in Pennsylvania by the time of the Revolution.
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Favoured by the civil rulers, Lutheranism spread rapidly in Northern Germany. After the Diet of Speyer (1526) the Elector of Saxony and other princes established Lutheran state Churches. An alliance between these princes was concluded at Torgau in 1526, and again at Smalkald in 1531. The Protestant League was continually increased by the accession of other states, and a religious war broke out in 1546, which resulted in the Peace of Augsburg (1555). This treaty provided that the Lutherans should retain permanently what they then possessed, but that all officials of ecclesiastical estates, who from that time forth should go over to Protestantism would be deposed and replaced by Catholics. This latter provision, known as the "Reservatum Ecclesiasticum", was very unsatisfactory to the Protestants, and its constant violation was one of the causes that lead up to the Thirty Years War (1618-48).
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Lutheranism is ... prominent in Estonia and Latvia. Members of the predominant churches in Germany, whether Lutheran, Reformed, or Catholic are also required by the state to pay a church tax in addition to their normal income tax. Certain parts of Germany are traditionally Lutheran (generally towards the north and east) while others are historically Catholic (especially Bavaria and areas along the Rhine). Modern mobility and a decrease in religiosity have, however, been instrumental in shifting the demographic situation, as did the movements of German refugees from areas lost to Poland and Russia as a result of World War II.
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The roots of organized Lutheranism in North America extend back to the foundation of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, the first North American church body, founded in 1742 by Henry Muhlenberg. The LWF includes the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC). The ELCA has become in full communion with the the Episcopal Church, the Moravian Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ, and has an interim agreement with the United Methodist Church. The ELCIC is in full communion with the Anglican Church of Canada.
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