Helpful guide to the three largest American Lutheran denominations
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA)
- Ordains queer & female pastors
- has "Reconciling in Christ" congregations that focus on outreach to communities historically marginalized by the church (especially racial minorities, queer people, and people with disabilities)
- Any baptized Christian is welcome to worship and even take communion at ELCA churches
- ELCA is my top pick for American Lutheran churches as they're the only one I know of that does not suck
- simply do not go to an American Lutheran Church if it is not ELCA
Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS)
- does not ordain female ministers; although women are allowed certain leadership roles in the church (e.g. Deaconesses)
- what if we took Catholicism but made it more boring with a larger emphasis on othering
- the source of my special interest in Christian denominations is a sermon from an LCMS pastor who said "only good Missouri Synod Lutherans go to heaven, not other Christians, and especially not those fake ELCA Lutherans"
- while anyone may attend a service, only confirmed Missouri Synod Lutherans may take communion at a Missouri Synod church
Wisconsin Lutheran Synod (WELS)
To be honest I don't know a ton about these guys, but Missouri Synod folks talk about them the way ELCA folks talk about the Missouri Synod and therefore I am scared of them
John Eidsmoe, associated with Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, has history with public defenses of Confederacy
Jason Wilson at The Guardian:
A Presbyterian pastor linked to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) via various aligned or affiliated organizations also has a history of associations with the neo-Confederate movement, including speaking dates for prominent neo-Confederate groups, and public defenses of the Confederacy and Confederate monuments.
One group whose conference Colonel John Eidsmoe addressed, the Council for Concerned Citizens (CCC), was credited by racist mass murderer Dylann Roof for contributing to the radicalization of his views on race, which culminated in his deadly attack on Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015.
The LCMS is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The Pew Research Center’s most recent religious landscape study estimates that about 1% of the US population, or about 2.6 million people identify with the Synod, putting the denomination at approximately half the size of the ELCA.
The revelations about Eidsmoe, whose links to neo-Confederate organizations have previously ignited scandal for high profile Republican politicians, are just the most recent in a series of connections between LCMS and far-right and white supremacist individuals which have roiled the congregation since 2023.
In a telephone call, Eidsmoe confirmed that he was an ordained Lutheran minister currently serving a Presbyterian congregation in Alabama. Asked if he was a neo-Confederate, Eidsmoe said “no, I would not,” however: “I believe that there are some good values in southern culture, and I believe that the South had a constitutional right to secede.”
Eidsmoe also denied any direct links to LCMS, saying: “I wouldn’t say there’s really any relationship with the Missouri Synod. I did speak once for Lutheran Classical College but only as a guest speaker and I’m on the board of Lutherans for Life, which is not a Missouri Synod organization it’s pan-Lutheran.”
When the Guardian pointed out that Lutherans for Life is a Registered Service Organization of LCMS, he said: “Well yes, but I mean a lot of organizations that are not Missouri Synod are nevertheless licensed in that way.”
In response to an email requesting comment, the Rev Roy S Askins, LCMS managing director of editorial and theological content, wrote: “Col. John Eidsmoe is not an LCMS pastor nor a member of any LCMS congregation.”
[...]
Eidsmoe’s LCMS connections
Eidsmoe, a retired colonel of both the USAF and the Mississippi state guard according to his online biographies, is an ordained pastor who currently serves a Presbyterian church in Notasulga, Alabama.
But Eidsmoe is or has been affiliated with several organizations which are directly affiliated with the LCMS, or who have sought affiliation from the organization.
According to the website of anti-abortion group Lutherans for Life, which is a Recognized Service Organization (RSO) of LCMS, Eidsmoe is a board member. The earliest Internet Archive snapshot of his biography page is from 2020, indicating that he has been on the board for at least five years.
According to the LCMS website, RSOs are “not-for-profit organizations that are independent” of LCMS, but “operate ministry programs that foster the mission and ministry of the church”. RSO affiliation is subject to LCMS approval.
[...]
Neo-Confederate connections
Along with LCMS links, Eidsmoe also has long-standing links to the neo-Confederate movement, which describes a variety of organizations and activists who at best offer revisionist accounts of the south’s efforts to preserve slavery by seceding from the US, and at worst argue for the restoration or secession of a segregated, white supremacist Confederacy.
These connections have drawn national coverage in the past due to Eidsmoe’s connections to high-profile Republican politicians including Roy Moore and Michele Bachmann.
According to the organization’s website, Eidsmoe still serves as senior counsel at the Foundation for Moral Law, founded by failed senate candidate Roy Moore.
[...]
Historically, the LCMS has maintained a doctrinally and scripturally more conservative position than the mainline ELCA, but in contrast to some other evangelical groups they have largely steered clear of involvement in partisan politics or religiously-inflected culture wars.
In recent years, however, LCMS has been repeatedly roiled by controversies driven by members of the denomination with connections to far-right groups.
John Eidsmoe, a far-right pastor linked to LCMS-affiliated group Lutherans For Life, has neo-confederate ties.
#DailyDevotion Jesus Is The Foundation Of The Church & Blessed Are Her Gates
#DailyDevotion Jesus Is The Foundation Of The Church & Blessed Are Her Gates
Psalm 87 His foundation is on holy mountains. 2The LORD loves Zion's gates more than all of Jacob's dwellings. 3Wonderful things are told about you, O city of God!
The psalmist is praising the city of Jerusalem. Upon these holy mountains the LORD had met with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There, where Abraham was willing to sacrifice the child of promise the LORD has built His temple. There on those mountains the Father sacrifices His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ for the sin of the world providing salvation for every human being and redeeming all creation.
But the city in which the LORD performed all these things is only a shadow, a model of the Jerusalem which is above, God's holy Church. Her foundations are not just rocks but the Rock, our LORD Jesus Christ. The gates of this city are loved more than all the places where Jacob dwells because this is where He gathers His people. It is the city He has built and won by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Wonderful things are told of this city, the New Jerusalem as we see in the last chapters of Revelation. No light of the sun or moon is needed because God is her light. The gates are always open because there are no threats to her. A stream runs through it which waters the tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations and it bears fruit every month. There we meet our God.
4“I will count Egypt and Babylon among those who acknowledge Me. There is Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia — each one claims that he was born there.”
Egypt or Rahab and Babylon and all the nations acknowledge the LORD. The He that is born there is not the nations, but the Promised One, our LORD Jesus Christ. There on the hills outside of Jerusalem is Bethlehem where Christ was born. There in Jerusalem where Christ was crucified was Jesus made the first-born of the dead. Isaiah would prophesy that the nations would stream to her, i.e. the Church and indeed they have. The Church is the city they all acknowledge as the dwelling place of the LORD.
5But it will be said of Zion, “Every nation is born in her, and the Most High Himself will make her secure.” 6The LORD will write down in His record of the nations: "This one was born there.” 7There will be singing and dancing, for all will find their home in you.
Several translations translate verse five this way, The DRB and a few others translate it more literally, “Shall not Sion say: This man and that man is born in her? and the Highest himself hath founded her.” The literal translation is better I think. Some think the psalmist is thinking of various men of valor born there. But if we are looking at the Church as Zion, are we all not born in her through the waters of baptism. So we are written down in the Lamb's book of life, or at least we know we have been written in the Lamb's book of life when we are baptized into Christ. In all the nations of the world, the LORD is making children for Himself and a nation for Himself in Zion, the city of our God, the Church.
Here in the Church there will be singing and dancing on the Day of the LORD as we are all born out of our graves and ushered into the New Jerusalem, the City of our God. As it is written, like calves springing from the stall shall we be coming out of our graves with rejoicing.
Heavenly Father, continual to give new birth in Your Holy City, Jerusalem, Your Church, through the waters of baptism that we might praise You even as we Your people are being praised by You. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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It Is Finished!
Yep, today is Good Friday. It is, for human beings, the best thing that could have ever happened, but for Jesus, the Christ… It was sheer torture. One of my favorite Gerhart hymns, “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth,” verse 3, gets to the point quite well.
“… / O wondrous Love, what have You done! / The Father offers up His Son, / Desiring our salvation. / O Love, how strong You are…
