{ "$schema": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary.json", "name": "Glossary of Lutheran and Scriptural Terms", "description": "Plain-language definitions of Lutheran theological, liturgical, and biblical vocabulary. Where Lutherans differ from other traditions, the entry says so.", "source": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary", "license": "CC0-1.0", "licenseUrl": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "attribution": "Not required. If you want to credit it: Digital Lutheran Church, digitallutheranchurch.com", "generated": "2026-10-01", "count": 187, "categories": [ { "id": "doctrine", "label": "Doctrine", "blurb": "What Lutherans teach, and where it differs from neighbouring traditions." }, { "id": "sacraments", "label": "Sacraments", "blurb": "Baptism, the Lord's Supper, confession, and the language around them." }, { "id": "worship", "label": "Worship", "blurb": "The liturgy, the daily office, and the furniture of a service." }, { "id": "churchyear", "label": "Church year", "blurb": "Seasons, festivals, and the calendar that orders them." }, { "id": "scripture", "label": "Scripture", "blurb": "The canon, translation, and how Lutherans read the Bible." }, { "id": "confessions", "label": "The Confessions", "blurb": "The documents collected in the Book of Concord." }, { "id": "history", "label": "History", "blurb": "The Reformation, and the people who carried it." }, { "id": "church", "label": "Church and ministry", "blurb": "Polity, offices, and the ELCA's relationships." } ], "terms": [ { "term": "Aaronic Blessing", "slug": "aaronic-blessing", "category": "worship", "definition": "“The Lord bless you and keep you” — Numbers 6:24-26, the oldest blessing in continuous liturgical use. Given to Aaron to speak over Israel and still spoken at the end of Lutheran worship.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/aaronic-blessing" }, { "term": "Absolution", "slug": "absolution", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The formal pronouncement of forgiveness of sins. Lutherans treat absolution as a genuine means of grace, closely tied to confession (see Confession, below).", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/absolution" }, { "term": "Adiaphora", "slug": "adiaphora", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Greek for “indifferent things”: practices neither commanded nor forbidden by Scripture, left to Christian freedom and local custom: candles, vestment colors, the exact order of a service. Lutherans have historically fought hardest over insisting that adiaphora stay adiaphora.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/adiaphora" }, { "term": "Advent", "slug": "advent", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The four-week season before Christmas, marked by the color blue or violet, focused on waiting: for Christ's first coming at Christmas, and for his promised return.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/advent" }, { "term": "Agnus Dei", "slug": "agnus-dei", "category": "worship", "definition": "“Lamb of God.” Sung as the bread is broken before communion.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/agnus-dei" }, { "term": "Alien Righteousness", "slug": "alien-righteousness", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "From iustitia aliena, righteousness from outside. The righteousness by which a Christian stands before God is not their own and never becomes their own property; it belongs to Christ and is reckoned to them. This is what Lutherans mean when they call justification forensic: a verdict declared over you, not a quality detected in you.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/alien-righteousness" }, { "term": "All Creation Sings", "slug": "all-creation-sings", "category": "worship", "definition": "A 2020 supplement to Evangelical Lutheran Worship, adding liturgies and around two hundred hymns, with particular attention to creation, lament, and global song.", "aliases": [ "ACS" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/all-creation-sings" }, { "term": "All Saints", "slug": "all-saints", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "November 1, or the Sunday following, remembering the dead and the whole company of the baptized. In many congregations the names of those who died that year are read.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/all-saints" }, { "term": "Anamnesis", "slug": "anamnesis", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "Greek for “remembrance.” The part of the eucharistic prayer recalling Christ's death and resurrection. Not merely mental recollection: the biblical sense is closer to making a past event present.", "lang": "el", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/anamnesis" }, { "term": "Anfechtung", "slug": "anfechtung", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Luther's word for the experience of being spiritually assaulted: terror of conscience, the sense that God has turned against you, the middle of the night when faith gives no comfort at all. English has no equivalent; “temptation” and “trial” are both too mild. Luther insisted this was not a failure of faith but the normal condition of a Christian under the Law, and said that Anfechtung, together with prayer and Scripture, was what made a theologian. If this is where you are, you are in the oldest company the church has.", "lang": "de", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/anfechtung" }, { "term": "Antinomianism", "slug": "antinomianism", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The claim that because Christians are saved by grace, the Law has no further business with them. Luther fought this in the 1530s against Johann Agricola, who had been his own student. The Lutheran answer is that the Law still accuses, still restrains, and still instructs. That is what the Third Use of the Law is arguing about.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/antinomianism" }, { "term": "Antiphon", "slug": "antiphon", "category": "worship", "definition": "A short verse sung before and after a psalm, framing how it is heard that day. The same psalm can carry a different weight depending on the antiphon around it.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/antiphon" }, { "term": "Apocrypha", "slug": "apocrypha", "category": "scripture", "definition": "Books including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and the Maccabees, present in the Greek Old Testament but not the Hebrew. Luther translated them and bound them between the Testaments, calling them “not held equal to Holy Scripture, and yet useful and good to read.”", "aliases": [ "Deuterocanon", "Deuterocanonical Books" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/apocrypha" }, { "term": "Apology of the Augsburg Confession", "slug": "apology-of-the-augsburg-confession", "category": "confessions", "definition": "Melanchthon's 1531 defence of the Augsburg Confession against Roman Catholic rebuttal. Longer than the Confession itself and, on justification, more detailed.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/apology-of-the-augsburg-confession" }, { "term": "Apostles' Creed", "slug": "apostles-creed", "category": "confessions", "definition": "The baptismal creed of the Western church, in three articles on Father, Son, and Spirit. Luther's Small Catechism explains it line by line.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/apostles-creed" }, { "term": "Ascension", "slug": "ascension", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The fortieth day of Easter, commemorating Christ's ascension. Falls on a Thursday and is often transferred to the following Sunday.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/ascension" }, { "term": "Ash Wednesday", "slug": "ash-wednesday", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The first day of Lent, marked by the imposition of ashes and the words “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/ash-wednesday" }, { "term": "Athanasian Creed", "slug": "athanasian-creed", "category": "confessions", "definition": "A long Latin creed setting out the Trinity and the two natures of Christ in precise terms. Included in the Book of Concord, rarely used in worship, and traditionally read on Trinity Sunday.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/athanasian-creed" }, { "term": "Atonement", "slug": "atonement", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "What Christ's death accomplishes. Lutherans have used several images without making any one of them official doctrine: substitution, victory over the powers, and reconciliation among them.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/atonement" }, { "term": "Augsburg Confession", "slug": "augsburg-confession", "category": "confessions", "definition": "The founding 1530 document of Lutheran identity, presented to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Its twenty-one articles on faith and its seven articles on disputed practices remain the primary short statement of what Lutherans believe.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/augsburg-confession" }, { "term": "Baptism", "slug": "baptism", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "Washing with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Lutherans teach that God acts in baptism rather than the person being baptized, which is why infants are baptized and why the assurance it gives does not depend on remembering it or feeling anything.", "aliases": [ "Holy Baptism" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/baptism" }, { "term": "Baptism of Our Lord", "slug": "baptism-of-our-lord", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The first Sunday after Epiphany, commemorating Christ's baptism in the Jordan. A traditional occasion for remembering one's own baptism.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/baptism-of-our-lord" }, { "term": "Benediction", "slug": "benediction", "category": "worship", "definition": "The blessing that ends worship, most often the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6. Spoken over the people, not prayed by them.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/benediction" }, { "term": "Benedictus", "slug": "benedictus", "category": "worship", "definition": "The song of Zechariah, Luke 1:68-79, sung at morning prayer. Named for its first word in Latin, “blessed.”", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/benedictus" }, { "term": "Bishop", "slug": "bishop", "category": "church", "definition": "In the ELCA, a pastor elected to oversee a synod or the whole church for a fixed term. Lutherans understand the office as pastoral rather than as a separate order of ministry.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/bishop" }, { "term": "Bondage of the Will", "slug": "bondage-of-the-will", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Luther's term (from his 1525 treatise of the same name, answering Erasmus) for the claim that, in matters of salvation, the human will is not free to choose God; a person contributes nothing to their own justification, which is entirely God's work.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/bondage-of-the-will" }, { "term": "Book of Concord", "slug": "book-of-concord", "category": "confessions", "definition": "The 1580 collection of Lutheran confessional documents (including the Augsburg Confession, both catechisms, and the Formula of Concord) that Lutherans historically confess as a faithful summary of biblical teaching.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/book-of-concord" }, { "term": "Call", "slug": "call", "category": "church", "definition": "Both the inward sense of vocation and the formal, documented invitation from a congregation or synod to serve. Lutherans have generally trusted the second more than the first.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/call" }, { "term": "Canon", "slug": "canon", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The list of books the church receives as Scripture. Lutherans receive the sixty-six books of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, and treat the Apocrypha as useful and good to read but not the basis of doctrine.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/canon" }, { "term": "Canticle", "slug": "canticle", "category": "worship", "definition": "A song from Scripture other than a psalm, used liturgically. The Benedictus, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis are the three most familiar in Lutheran worship.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/canticle" }, { "term": "Chancel", "slug": "chancel", "category": "worship", "definition": "The area around the altar, usually raised. Where the presiding and assisting ministers serve.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/chancel" }, { "term": "Cheap Grace", "slug": "cheap-grace", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Bonhoeffer's term for grace preached as forgiveness without repentance, communion without confession, discipleship without the cross. His charge against a church that had made the gospel comfortable.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/cheap-grace" }, { "term": "Christ the King", "slug": "christ-the-king", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The last Sunday of the church year, before Advent begins again.", "aliases": [ "Reign of Christ" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/christ-the-king" }, { "term": "Christian Freedom", "slug": "christian-freedom", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Liberty in matters Scripture neither commands nor forbids. Closely tied to adiaphora, and the reason Lutheran congregations can differ in practice without dividing over it.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/christian-freedom" }, { "term": "Christmas", "slug": "christmas", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The twelve-day season beginning December 25 and running to Epiphany, celebrating the incarnation. Colour: white.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/christmas" }, { "term": "Christology", "slug": "christology", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The doctrine of who Christ is. Lutheran Christology is distinctive in how closely it joins the two natures, which is what makes the Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper possible.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/christology" }, { "term": "Church Year", "slug": "church-year", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The annual cycle of seasons (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and the Time after Pentecost) through which the church tells the story of Christ's life, death, and resurrection each year, marked by changing liturgical colors.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/church-year" }, { "term": "Collect", "slug": "collect", "category": "worship", "definition": "A short, tightly structured prayer that gathers the prayers of the assembly. Usually one sentence: address, description of God, petition, purpose, and ending through Christ. The prayer of the day is a collect.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/collect" }, { "term": "Communicatio Idiomatum", "slug": "communicatio-idiomatum", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "“The communication of attributes.” Because Christ is one person in two natures, what belongs to the divine nature can be said of the man Jesus and what belongs to the human nature can be said of the Son of God: God was born, God suffered, God died. Lutherans press this further than most traditions, and it is why they can say Christ's body is genuinely present in the Supper.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/communicatio-idiomatum" }, { "term": "Compline", "slug": "compline", "category": "worship", "definition": "Night prayer, the last office of the day. Psalm 91, a short reading, and the Nunc Dimittis, the song of Simeon. Written to be prayed in the dark, and it shows.", "aliases": [ "Night Prayer" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/compline" }, { "term": "Confession", "slug": "confession", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "Naming one's sins, either privately to a pastor or corporately in worship, followed by absolution. Private confession is a normal, if underused, part of Lutheran practice; a layperson can make confession to another Christian even without a pastor present, though only a called minister pronounces the full declarative absolution.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/confession" }, { "term": "Confirmation", "slug": "confirmation", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "A public affirmation of baptismal promises, usually after a period of instruction in the catechism. Lutherans do not count it as a sacrament, since Christ did not command it, but most congregations keep it as a rite of teaching and commitment.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/confirmation" }, { "term": "Congregation", "slug": "congregation", "category": "church", "definition": "A local assembly of believers where the gospel is preached and the sacraments administered. By the Augsburg Confession's definition, that is what makes a church a church.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/congregation" }, { "term": "Conscience", "slug": "conscience", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The inner court where the law accuses. Luther's concern at Worms was that a conscience captive to the word of God cannot safely act against it. Central to Lutheran pastoral care.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/conscience" }, { "term": "Consubstantiation", "slug": "consubstantiation", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "A term often used to describe the Lutheran view of Communion, but one Lutherans have historically declined as their own label. Lutherans affirm the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the bread and wine without offering a philosophical explanation of how. “Consubstantiation” implies a specific scholastic mechanism that Lutheran confessional writings don't actually teach.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/consubstantiation" }, { "term": "Daily Office", "slug": "daily-office", "category": "worship", "definition": "The pattern of prayer at fixed hours that the church has kept for over a thousand years: chiefly morning, evening, and night. Requires no priest, no altar, and no congregation, which is why it survives wherever Christians do.", "aliases": [ "Divine Office", "Liturgy of the Hours" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/daily-office" }, { "term": "Deus absconditus / Deus revelatus", "slug": "deus-absconditus-deus-revelatus", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The hidden God and the revealed God. Luther held that God as God is in himself, in majesty and in the raw workings of history and nature, is hidden, terrifying, and not to be searched out. God as God chooses to be known is revealed in Christ crucified, and there God is entirely for you. The pastoral point is practical: when speculation about why this is happening becomes unbearable, Lutherans are taught to stop looking at the hidden God and look at the manger and the cross instead.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/deus-absconditus-deus-revelatus" }, { "term": "Diet of Worms", "slug": "diet-of-worms", "category": "history", "definition": "The 1521 imperial assembly where Luther refused to recant. The words most associated with it — “Here I stand, I can do no other” — may be a later addition; the refusal itself is documented.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/diet-of-worms" }, { "term": "Dietrich Bonhoeffer", "slug": "dietrich-bonhoeffer", "category": "history", "definition": "German Lutheran pastor and theologian, executed by the Nazis in 1945 for his part in the resistance. Best known for The Cost of Discipleship and his prison letters, and for the phrase “cheap grace.”", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/dietrich-bonhoeffer" }, { "term": "Doxology", "slug": "doxology", "category": "worship", "definition": "From the Greek for “word of glory.” A short formula of praise to the Trinity, often ending a psalm or hymn.", "lang": "el", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/doxology" }, { "term": "Easter", "slug": "easter", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The celebration of Christ's resurrection, and the fifty-day season that follows it. The date moves: the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. Colour: white.", "aliases": [ "Resurrection of Our Lord" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/easter" }, { "term": "Easter Vigil", "slug": "easter-vigil", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The service on the night before Easter Day: new fire, the Exsultet, a series of Old Testament readings, baptisms, and the first Eucharist of Easter. The oldest and fullest service of the Christian year.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/easter-vigil" }, { "term": "ELCA", "slug": "elca", "category": "church", "definition": "The largest Lutheran denomination in the United States, formed in 1988 by merger. Ordains women and LGBTQ+ people, holds full communion agreements with six other denominations, and belongs to the Lutheran World Federation.", "aliases": [ "Evangelical Lutheran Church in America" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/elca" }, { "term": "Emergency Baptism", "slug": "emergency-baptism", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "Baptism performed by any Christian, not only a pastor, when death is near and no pastor can come. Water and the Trinitarian words are all that is required. The church has always held such a baptism to be fully valid and never to be repeated.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/emergency-baptism" }, { "term": "Enthusiasm", "slug": "enthusiasm", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Luther's category (Schwärmerei) for the claim to have the Holy Spirit apart from the external Word and sacraments: direct revelation, inner light, a voice in the heart. He regarded it as the oldest error there is, and insisted God comes to us from outside ourselves, through preaching, water, bread, and wine, precisely so that we are not left to authenticate our own religious experience.", "lang": "de", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/enthusiasm" }, { "term": "Epiclesis", "slug": "epiclesis", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "Greek for “calling upon.” The prayer asking the Holy Spirit to come upon the gifts of bread and wine and upon the people gathered. Present in Lutheran eucharistic prayers, though Lutherans locate the sacrament's power in Christ's words rather than in this prayer.", "lang": "el", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/epiclesis" }, { "term": "Epiphany", "slug": "epiphany", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "January 6, marking the revealing of Christ to the nations, and the season following it. Colour: white for the festival, green for the season.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/epiphany" }, { "term": "Eschatology", "slug": "eschatology", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The doctrine of last things: death, resurrection, judgement, and the life of the world to come. Lutherans have generally resisted detailed timelines.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/eschatology" }, { "term": "Evangelical Lutheran Worship", "slug": "evangelical-lutheran-worship", "category": "worship", "definition": "The primary worship book of the ELCA, published in 2006. Contains the liturgies, the psalter, and more than six hundred hymns. Commonly cited simply as ELW.", "aliases": [ "ELW" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/evangelical-lutheran-worship" }, { "term": "Ex Opere Operato", "slug": "ex-opere-operato", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "Latin for “by the work performed.” The teaching that a sacrament is effective by virtue of being properly performed. Lutherans accept that the sacrament does not depend on the worthiness of the minister, but reject any sense that it works apart from faith receiving the promise.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/ex-opere-operato" }, { "term": "Exegesis", "slug": "exegesis", "category": "scripture", "definition": "Careful reading that draws meaning out of a text, attending to its language, form, and historical setting. Contrasted with eisegesis, reading one's own meaning into it.", "lang": "el", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/exegesis" }, { "term": "Extra Calvinisticum", "slug": "extra-calvinisticum", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The Reformed teaching that the divine Word remains also outside the human nature of Christ. Named by Lutherans, who rejected it because it seemed to them to divide Christ. The technical heart of the disagreement over the Lord's Supper.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/extra-calvinisticum" }, { "term": "Faith", "slug": "faith", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Trust in God's promise, not agreement with a list of propositions. Lutherans distinguish knowing about Christ from trusting him; only the second is faith in the sense that justifies.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/faith" }, { "term": "Finitum capax infiniti", "slug": "finitum-capax-infiniti", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "“The finite is capable of the infinite.” The conviction that created, physical things (a man's body, bread, water, a spoken word) can genuinely bear God without being destroyed or emptied. The Reformed tradition denies this (finitum non capax infiniti), and that single disagreement is the root of most Lutheran–Reformed differences over the Supper, Christology, and the sacraments generally.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/finitum-capax-infiniti" }, { "term": "Formula of Concord", "slug": "formula-of-concord", "category": "confessions", "definition": "A 1577 document written to settle a series of sharp theological disputes among Lutherans after Luther's death, later included in the Book of Concord.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/formula-of-concord" }, { "term": "Freedom of a Christian", "slug": "freedom-of-a-christian", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Luther's 1520 treatise and its paradox: a Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none, and a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone. Free from the need to earn salvation, and therefore free for the neighbour.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/freedom-of-a-christian" }, { "term": "Full Communion", "slug": "full-communion", "category": "church", "definition": "A formal relationship in which two denominations recognize each other's sacraments and exchange clergy without merging. The ELCA holds such agreements with the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Moravian Church, and the United Methodist Church.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/full-communion" }, { "term": "Gloria in Excelsis", "slug": "gloria-in-excelsis", "category": "worship", "definition": "“Glory to God in the highest.” The ancient hymn of praise that begins with the angels' words at Christ's birth (Luke 2:14) and expands them into a full song of adoration. Omitted in Advent and Lent, which is part of how those seasons feel different.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/gloria-in-excelsis" }, { "term": "Good Friday", "slug": "good-friday", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The day of Christ's crucifixion. Stripped of ornament, often observed with the passion according to John and the bidding prayer. No communion is celebrated in most Lutheran practice.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/good-friday" }, { "term": "Good Works", "slug": "good-works", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Acts of love toward the neighbour. Lutherans teach that good works are necessary in the Christian life but contribute nothing to justification. As Luther put it, God does not need your good works; your neighbour does.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/good-works" }, { "term": "Grace", "slug": "grace", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "God's favour given freely, not earned and not deserved. In Lutheran usage grace is not a substance infused into a person but God's own disposition toward them for Christ's sake.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/grace" }, { "term": "Hermeneutics", "slug": "hermeneutics", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The principles by which a text is interpreted. Lutheran hermeneutics centre on distinguishing law from gospel and on reading all of Scripture in light of Christ.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/hermeneutics" }, { "term": "Hidden God", "slug": "hidden-god", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "God as encountered outside the promise: in suffering, in silence, in what cannot be explained. Luther's counsel was to flee the hidden God and take refuge in the revealed God, in Christ, in the word and sacraments.", "aliases": [ "Deus absconditus" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/hidden-god" }, { "term": "Historical-Critical Method", "slug": "historical-critical-method", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The study of biblical texts in their original historical, literary, and linguistic settings, asking who wrote them, when, and to whom. Standard in ELCA seminaries and not regarded as a threat to Scripture's authority.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/historical-critical-method" }, { "term": "Holy Week", "slug": "holy-week", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The week from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday, following Christ's last days. The most densely observed week of the Christian year.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/holy-week" }, { "term": "Homebound Communion", "slug": "homebound-communion", "category": "church", "definition": "Communion brought from the congregation's table to someone who cannot be present. Ordinarily carried by a pastor or a trained assisting minister, and available for the asking in most congregations.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/homebound-communion" }, { "term": "Imputation", "slug": "imputation", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "God reckoning Christ's righteousness to the sinner's account. Lutherans insist the righteousness remains Christ's, credited rather than infused, which is why they speak of alien righteousness.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/imputation" }, { "term": "Inerrancy", "slug": "inerrancy", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The teaching that Scripture, as originally given, contains no errors in any matter it addresses — historical, scientific, or theological. Several Lutheran bodies (including the Missouri Synod) hold this; the ELCA does not adopt it as a formal doctrine, affirming instead that Scripture is inspired and authoritative for faith and life without requiring that every historical or scientific claim be inerrant. The difference is significant in how each body approaches biblical interpretation.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/inerrancy" }, { "term": "Incarnation", "slug": "incarnation", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "God becoming human in Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human, without either nature cancelling the other.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/incarnation" }, { "term": "Indulgence", "slug": "indulgence", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "A remission of temporal punishment for sin, in Luther's day sold to fund building projects. The immediate occasion of the Ninety-Five Theses, though not their deepest concern.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/indulgence" }, { "term": "Invocation", "slug": "invocation", "category": "worship", "definition": "The naming of the Trinity at the start of worship: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. A reminder of baptism, not a request for God to arrive.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/invocation" }, { "term": "Invocation of Saints", "slug": "invocation-of-saints", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Praying to saints for intercession. Lutherans honour the saints as examples and give thanks for them, but do not pray to them, holding that Christ is the one mediator.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/invocation-of-saints" }, { "term": "Johann Sebastian Bach", "slug": "johann-sebastian-bach", "category": "history", "definition": "Lutheran cantor at Leipzig from 1723 to 1750, who wrote cantatas keyed to the lectionary readings for nearly every Sunday of the church year. The most consequential musician the tradition produced.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/johann-sebastian-bach" }, { "term": "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification", "slug": "joint-declaration-on-the-doctrine-of-justification", "category": "church", "definition": "The 1999 agreement between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church stating a shared understanding of justification by grace through faith, and declaring that the mutual condemnations of the sixteenth century no longer apply to the teaching it describes.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/joint-declaration-on-the-doctrine-of-justification" }, { "term": "Justification", "slug": "justification", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Being declared righteous before God, not because of anything the person has done, but on account of Christ, received through faith alone. The central Lutheran doctrine: Luther called it the article on which the church stands or falls.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/justification" }, { "term": "Justification by Faith", "slug": "justification-by-faith", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The teaching that a person is declared righteous before God through faith in Christ, apart from works of the law. The article on which, in Lutheran teaching, the church stands or falls.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/justification-by-faith" }, { "term": "Katharina von Bora", "slug": "katharina-von-bora", "category": "history", "definition": "A former nun who left her convent, married Luther in 1525, and ran the household, farm, and brewery that supported them. Her marriage to Luther helped establish the parsonage as a Protestant institution.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/katharina-von-bora" }, { "term": "Kyrie", "slug": "kyrie", "category": "worship", "definition": "“Lord, have mercy.” One of the oldest parts of the liturgy and one of the few retained in Greek. A petition, not a confession of sin.", "lang": "el", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/kyrie" }, { "term": "Large Catechism", "slug": "large-catechism", "category": "confessions", "definition": "Luther's 1529 companion to the Small Catechism, covering the same material at greater length and aimed at pastors and educated adults rather than children.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/large-catechism" }, { "term": "Law and Gospel", "slug": "law-and-gospel", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The distinction between two things Scripture says: the Law, which shows what a right life looks like and shows that no one lives it; and the Gospel, which announces what God has done about that in Christ. Learning to tell them apart is, in Lutheran teaching, most of the skill of reading the Bible well.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/law-and-gospel" }, { "term": "Lectern", "slug": "lectern", "category": "worship", "definition": "The stand from which Scripture is read. Distinguished from the pulpit, from which it is preached.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/lectern" }, { "term": "Lectionary", "slug": "lectionary", "category": "worship", "definition": "A fixed schedule of Bible readings assigned to each Sunday and festival, so that congregations following it hear a broad selection of Scripture over a repeating cycle rather than whatever a preacher happens to choose that week. This site uses the Revised Common Lectionary.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/lectionary" }, { "term": "Lent", "slug": "lent", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The forty days before Easter, not counting Sundays. In Lutheran framing, less a season of self-improvement than a return to baptism. Colour: purple.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/lent" }, { "term": "Liturgical Colours", "slug": "liturgical-colours", "category": "worship", "definition": "The colours of the church year: purple or blue for Advent, white for Christmas and Easter, green for Epiphany and the time after Pentecost, purple for Lent, red for Pentecost and martyrs' days.", "aliases": [ "Liturgical Colors" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/liturgical-colours" }, { "term": "Liturgy", "slug": "liturgy", "category": "worship", "definition": "From the Greek for “the work of the people.” The ordered pattern of public worship: gathering, word, meal, sending. Lutherans kept the shape of the Western mass at the Reformation, reforming its content rather than discarding its form.", "lang": "el", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/liturgy" }, { "term": "Lord's Supper", "slug": "lords-supper", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The meal of bread and wine in which Lutherans confess that Christ's body and blood are truly present and given for the forgiveness of sins. Also called Holy Communion, the Eucharist, or the Sacrament of the Altar.", "aliases": [ "Holy Communion", "Eucharist", "Sacrament of the Altar" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/lords-supper" }, { "term": "Lutheran World Federation", "slug": "lutheran-world-federation", "category": "church", "definition": "A global communion of Lutheran churches founded in 1947, representing some seventy-seven million Christians across nearly a hundred countries.", "aliases": [ "LWF" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/lutheran-world-federation" }, { "term": "Magnificat", "slug": "magnificat", "category": "worship", "definition": "The song of Mary, Luke 1:46-55, sung at evening prayer. Named for its first word in Latin. A hymn about the powerful being brought down and the hungry being filled, sung nightly by the church for centuries.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/magnificat" }, { "term": "Marburg Colloquy", "slug": "marburg-colloquy", "category": "history", "definition": "The 1529 meeting between Luther and Zwingli that agreed on fourteen articles and failed on the fifteenth, the Lord's Supper. The point at which the Reformation divided into Lutheran and Reformed.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/marburg-colloquy" }, { "term": "Marks of the Church", "slug": "marks-of-the-church", "category": "church", "definition": "How you can tell where the true church is, given that it is not identified with any institution. The Augsburg Confession names two: the gospel purely preached and the sacraments rightly administered. The late Luther, in On the Councils and the Church, lists seven, adding baptism, the Supper, the keys, the ministry, public prayer, and being under the cross. Notably, none of them is a building.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/marks-of-the-church" }, { "term": "Matins", "slug": "matins", "category": "worship", "definition": "Morning prayer. Psalm, reading, and the Benedictus, the song of Zechariah from Luke 1. The office that sets the day before the day sets itself.", "aliases": [ "Morning Prayer" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/matins" }, { "term": "Maundy Thursday", "slug": "maundy-thursday", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The Thursday of Holy Week, commemorating the last supper and the washing of feet. “Maundy” comes from the Latin mandatum, from the antiphon sung at the footwashing: “A new commandment I give to you” (John 13:34) — the command to love as Christ has loved.", "aliases": [ "Holy Thursday" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/maundy-thursday" }, { "term": "Means of Grace", "slug": "means-of-grace", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The specific, physical ways God delivers grace to people: the preached and written Word, Holy Baptism, and Holy Communion. Lutherans hold that God chooses to work through these ordinary, tangible things rather than only through private inner experience.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/means-of-grace" }, { "term": "Minister of Word and Sacrament", "slug": "minister-of-word-and-sacrament", "category": "church", "definition": "An ordained pastor in the ELCA, called to preach, teach, and preside at the sacraments.", "aliases": [ "Pastor" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/minister-of-word-and-sacrament" }, { "term": "Minister of Word and Service", "slug": "minister-of-word-and-service", "category": "church", "definition": "A rostered minister in the ELCA called to service ministries linking the congregation with the world — teaching, health care, advocacy, music, administration.", "aliases": [ "Deacon" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/minister-of-word-and-service" }, { "term": "Missouri Synod", "slug": "missouri-synod", "category": "church", "definition": "The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. More conservative than the ELCA: does not ordain women, practices close communion, and holds to biblical inerrancy. The two are not in full communion.", "aliases": [ "LCMS" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/missouri-synod" }, { "term": "Monergism", "slug": "monergism", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The teaching that God alone acts in conversion. The Lutheran position, held without the Reformed conclusion that God therefore also predestines some to damnation.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/monergism" }, { "term": "Narthex", "slug": "narthex", "category": "worship", "definition": "The entryway of a church building, between the door and the nave. Historically where those not yet baptized would stand.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/narthex" }, { "term": "Nave", "slug": "nave", "category": "worship", "definition": "The main body of a church where the congregation sits. From the Latin for ship.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/nave" }, { "term": "Nicene Creed", "slug": "nicene-creed", "category": "confessions", "definition": "The creed of the councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), confessed in Lutheran worship on festival days and most Sundays with communion.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/nicene-creed" }, { "term": "Ninety-Five Theses", "slug": "ninety-five-theses", "category": "history", "definition": "Luther's 1517 propositions against the sale of indulgences, posted or sent in Wittenberg on October 31. Written in Latin for academic debate and not intended to start a schism.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/ninety-five-theses" }, { "term": "NRSVue", "slug": "nrsvue", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, released in 2021. The ELCA's standard translation for worship and study.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/nrsvue" }, { "term": "Nunc Dimittis", "slug": "nunc-dimittis", "category": "worship", "definition": "The song of Simeon, Luke 2:29-32, sung at night prayer and at funerals. “Now you dismiss your servant in peace.” The prayer of a man ready to die because he has seen what he was waiting for.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/nunc-dimittis" }, { "term": "Office of the Keys", "slug": "office-of-the-keys", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The authority Christ gave the church to forgive the sins of the repentant and to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant. It appears in the Small Catechism as one of its parts, and it is why a Lutheran pastor's absolution is spoken as a declaration rather than a wish: not “I hope God forgives you” but “I forgive you all your sins.”", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/office-of-the-keys" }, { "term": "Open Communion", "slug": "open-communion", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The practice of inviting all baptized Christians to the Lord's Supper regardless of denomination. Common in ELCA congregations. Other Lutheran bodies practice close or closed communion, restricting the table to members of their own fellowship.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/open-communion" }, { "term": "Order of Salvation", "slug": "order-of-salvation", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "A scheme setting out the stages by which a person is saved — calling, illumination, conversion, justification, sanctification. Lutheran theology uses the vocabulary but resists treating it as a sequence a person can track in themselves.", "lang": "la", "aliases": [ "Ordo Salutis" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/order-of-salvation" }, { "term": "Ordinary", "slug": "ordinary", "category": "worship", "definition": "The parts of the liturgy that stay the same every week: Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus, Agnus Dei. Paired with the propers, which change.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/ordinary" }, { "term": "Ordinary Time", "slug": "ordinary-time", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The weeks outside the festival seasons, numbered rather than named. Lutherans more often say “time after Epiphany” and “time after Pentecost.” Colour: green.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/ordinary-time" }, { "term": "Original Sin", "slug": "original-sin", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The Lutheran teaching that every person is born already turned away from God and unable to fix that condition through their own effort or will, not merely inclined to occasional wrongdoing, but fundamentally unable to save themselves.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/original-sin" }, { "term": "Palm Sunday", "slug": "palm-sunday", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The Sunday before Easter, beginning with the procession into Jerusalem and turning, in most Lutheran observance, to the reading of the passion.", "aliases": [ "Passion Sunday" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/palm-sunday" }, { "term": "Paraments", "slug": "paraments", "category": "worship", "definition": "The seasonal cloth hangings on the altar, pulpit, and lectern, coloured according to the church year.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/paraments" }, { "term": "Paul Gerhardt", "slug": "paul-gerhardt", "category": "history", "definition": "Seventeenth-century Lutheran pastor and hymnwriter, author of some of the tradition's most enduring texts, including “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.”", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/paul-gerhardt" }, { "term": "Pauline Epistles", "slug": "pauline-epistles", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The letters attributed to Paul. Romans and Galatians are the two the Reformation leaned on hardest, since both argue that a person is justified by faith rather than by works of the law.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/pauline-epistles" }, { "term": "Peace of Augsburg", "slug": "peace-of-augsburg", "category": "history", "definition": "The 1555 settlement allowing each territorial ruler in the Holy Roman Empire to determine whether their territory would be Lutheran or Catholic. Ended one round of religious war and set up the next.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/peace-of-augsburg" }, { "term": "Pentateuch", "slug": "pentateuch", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Called the Torah in Jewish tradition.", "aliases": [ "Torah" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/pentateuch" }, { "term": "Pentecost", "slug": "pentecost", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The fiftieth day of Easter, celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit. Colour: red. The season that follows is the longest of the year.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/pentecost" }, { "term": "Pericope", "slug": "pericope", "category": "scripture", "definition": "A self-contained passage of Scripture appointed to be read. The lectionary is a list of pericopes.", "lang": "el", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/pericope" }, { "term": "Perspicuity of Scripture", "slug": "perspicuity-of-scripture", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The teaching that Scripture is clear enough in what matters for salvation that an ordinary reader can understand it. Luther's argument for translating the Bible into German and against reserving interpretation to the clergy.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/perspicuity-of-scripture" }, { "term": "Philip Melanchthon", "slug": "philip-melanchthon", "category": "history", "definition": "Luther's younger colleague at Wittenberg and the author of the Augsburg Confession and its Apology. The systematiser of the Reformation, temperamentally more conciliatory than Luther.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/philip-melanchthon" }, { "term": "Pneumatology", "slug": "pneumatology", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Lutherans hold that the Spirit works through means — word and sacrament — rather than directly and unpredictably, which is the point at issue in the entry on Enthusiasm.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/pneumatology" }, { "term": "Prayer of the Day", "slug": "prayer-of-the-day", "category": "worship", "definition": "The collect appointed for a particular Sunday or festival, spoken after the gathering and before the readings.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/prayer-of-the-day" }, { "term": "Predestination", "slug": "predestination", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "God's eternal choice to save those who believe. Lutheran teaching affirms single predestination (God predestines people to salvation) and explicitly rejects the idea that God predestines anyone to damnation; responsibility for unbelief rests with the person, not with a hidden decree of God.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/predestination" }, { "term": "Priesthood of All Believers", "slug": "priesthood-of-all-believers", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The teaching that every baptized Christian has direct access to God and a calling to serve others, without needing a priest as an intermediary. It does not eliminate the pastoral office, but it removes any claim that clergy have privileged spiritual access that laypeople lack.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/priesthood-of-all-believers" }, { "term": "Proper", "slug": "proper", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "A numbered set of appointed readings for a Sunday in the time after Pentecost, keyed to the calendar date rather than to a season. Proper 20, for instance, is the Sunday falling between September 18 and 24.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/proper" }, { "term": "Propers", "slug": "propers", "category": "worship", "definition": "The parts of the liturgy that change with the day: the appointed readings, the psalm, the prayer of the day, and the seasonal colour. Set by the lectionary rather than chosen weekly.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/propers" }, { "term": "Psalmody", "slug": "psalmody", "category": "worship", "definition": "The singing or saying of psalms as a regular part of prayer. The psalms were the church's first hymnal and remain the backbone of the daily office.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/psalmody" }, { "term": "Purgatory", "slug": "purgatory", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "In Roman Catholic teaching, a state of purification after death. Lutherans reject it, holding that the dead rest in Christ and that nothing remains to be paid.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/purgatory" }, { "term": "Real Presence", "slug": "real-presence", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The Lutheran teaching that Christ's body and blood are truly and substantially present in, with, and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion, not merely symbolized or remembered.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/real-presence" }, { "term": "Reformation Sunday", "slug": "reformation-sunday", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The Sunday on or before October 31, commemorating the Reformation. Colour: red. Observed in Lutheran congregations, though increasingly with ecumenical care rather than triumph.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/reformation-sunday" }, { "term": "Repentance", "slug": "repentance", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Turning back. In Lutheran teaching it has two parts: contrition, which the law produces, and faith, which the gospel produces. Not primarily a feeling of remorse.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/repentance" }, { "term": "Revised Common Lectionary", "slug": "revised-common-lectionary", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The three-year cycle of Sunday readings published in 1992 by the Consultation on Common Texts and used across many denominations, the ELCA among them. Years A, B, and C follow Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with John distributed through all three.", "aliases": [ "RCL" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/revised-common-lectionary" }, { "term": "Rostered Minister", "slug": "rostered-minister", "category": "church", "definition": "A person authorized for public ministry in the ELCA and listed on its official roster, either as a Minister of Word and Sacrament or a Minister of Word and Service.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/rostered-minister" }, { "term": "Rubric", "slug": "rubric", "category": "worship", "definition": "An instruction in a liturgical text describing what is done rather than what is said. Named for the red ink they were traditionally printed in.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/rubric" }, { "term": "Sacerdotalism", "slug": "sacerdotalism", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The view that priests mediate between God and the people and that grace flows through their office. Rejected by the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sacerdotalism" }, { "term": "Sacrament", "slug": "sacrament", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "A rite commanded by Christ that joins a physical element to God's promise of forgiveness. Lutherans count two: Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The definition matters, because it is why Lutherans have two where Roman Catholics have seven.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sacrament" }, { "term": "Sacramental Union", "slug": "sacramental-union", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The Lutheran account of how Christ's body and blood are present in the Supper: truly present in, with, and under the bread and wine, which remain bread and wine. Not transubstantiation, which says the elements cease to be bread and wine; and not consubstantiation, a scholastic term Lutherans have consistently declined. Lutherans confess that the presence is real and decline to explain the mechanism.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sacramental-union" }, { "term": "Sanctification", "slug": "sanctification", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The Holy Spirit's work of making a justified sinner actually holy over time. Lutherans insist it is never the ground of salvation and never optional either: good works are necessary, but not necessary for justification. The distinction sounds like hair-splitting until you are the one wondering whether you have done enough, at which point it turns out to be the whole question.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sanctification" }, { "term": "Sanctoral Cycle", "slug": "sanctoral-cycle", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The calendar of commemorations tied to fixed dates — apostles, martyrs, teachers, renewers of the church. Distinguished from the temporal cycle, which follows Christ's life and moves with Easter.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sanctoral-cycle" }, { "term": "Sanctus", "slug": "sanctus", "category": "worship", "definition": "“Holy, holy, holy.” Sung before the eucharistic prayer, joining Isaiah's vision of God enthroned in glory (Isaiah 6:3) to the people's welcome of Christ at Jerusalem (Psalm 118:26; Matthew 21:9).", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sanctus" }, { "term": "Septuagint", "slug": "septuagint", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures made before the Christian era. The version most New Testament writers quote, and the reason the Apocrypha travelled with the Old Testament.", "aliases": [ "LXX" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/septuagint" }, { "term": "Simul Justus et Peccator", "slug": "simul-justus-et-peccator", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Latin for “simultaneously righteous and sinner.” The Lutheran teaching that a believer is, at the same time, fully a sinner and fully justified before God, not a mixture or an average of the two, but both completely, at once.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/simul-justus-et-peccator" }, { "term": "Smalcald Articles", "slug": "smalcald-articles", "category": "confessions", "definition": "Luther's 1537 statement of the articles he considered non-negotiable, written when a general council seemed likely. Blunter than the Augsburg Confession, and deliberately so.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/smalcald-articles" }, { "term": "Small Catechism", "slug": "small-catechism", "category": "confessions", "definition": "Luther's 1529 handbook on the essentials of the faith (the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Baptism, Confession, and Communion), written in plain words for anyone just starting out. It has always worked equally well read alone or read with someone else. Still the standard entry point into Lutheran teaching.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/small-catechism" }, { "term": "Sola Fide", "slug": "sola-fide", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "“Faith alone.” A person is justified through faith alone, not through faith plus good works or religious observance.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sola-fide" }, { "term": "Sola Gratia", "slug": "sola-gratia", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "“Grace alone.” Salvation is entirely God's gift, not something earned or deserved. Together with faith alone, Christ alone, and Scripture alone, grace alone forms the solas — the Reformation's declaration that salvation comes entirely from God, not from human effort or institutional authority.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sola-gratia" }, { "term": "Sola Scriptura", "slug": "sola-scriptura", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "“Scripture alone.” The teaching that Scripture is the final authority for Christian doctrine, above church tradition, councils, or any human teacher.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/sola-scriptura" }, { "term": "Solus Christus", "slug": "solus-christus", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "“Christ alone.” Christ is the sole mediator between God and humanity; salvation comes through him alone, not through saints, priests, or any other intermediary.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/solus-christus" }, { "term": "Supersessionism", "slug": "supersessionism", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The claim that the church has replaced Israel in God's covenant. The ELCA rejects it, repudiated Luther's anti-Jewish writings in its 1994 Declaration to the Jewish Community, and teaches that God's covenant with the Jewish people endures.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/supersessionism" }, { "term": "Synergism", "slug": "synergism", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The teaching that a person cooperates with God in their own conversion. Rejected by the Formula of Concord, which holds that the will is bound until God frees it.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/synergism" }, { "term": "Synod", "slug": "synod", "category": "church", "definition": "A regional body of congregations. The ELCA has sixty-five, each led by a bishop elected by its assembly.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/synod" }, { "term": "Synoptic Gospels", "slug": "synoptic-gospels", "category": "scripture", "definition": "Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which share much material and can be set side by side and compared. From the Greek for “seen together.” John stands apart.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/synoptic-gospels" }, { "term": "Temporal Cycle", "slug": "temporal-cycle", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The part of the church year that follows the life of Christ, from Advent through Christ the King. Most of it moves with the date of Easter.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/temporal-cycle" }, { "term": "Tetragrammaton", "slug": "tetragrammaton", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The four Hebrew letters of God's personal name, YHWH. Most English translations render it “the LORD” in small capitals, following the Jewish practice of not pronouncing it.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/tetragrammaton" }, { "term": "The Happy Exchange", "slug": "the-happy-exchange", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Luther's image (fröhlicher Wechsel) for what happens in faith, taken from marriage law: Christ takes the sinner's sin, death, and damnation, and the sinner receives Christ's righteousness, life, and blessedness. Everything each party owns becomes the other's. It is the engine of The Freedom of a Christian and of the hymn “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice.”", "lang": "de", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/the-happy-exchange" }, { "term": "Theodicy", "slug": "theodicy", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The attempt to reconcile God's goodness with the existence of suffering. Lutheran theology of the cross is notably unwilling to resolve this tidily, preferring to locate God in the suffering rather than to explain it.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/theodicy" }, { "term": "Theology of Glory", "slug": "theology-of-glory", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The approach Luther contrasted with the theology of the cross: expecting to find and know God primarily through visible strength, success, and religious achievement, rather than through Christ's suffering.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/theology-of-glory" }, { "term": "Theology of the Cross", "slug": "theology-of-the-cross", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Luther's term (from the 1518 Heidelberg Disputation) for finding God specifically in suffering, weakness, and the cross, rather than in power and success. Its opposite is the “theology of glory,” which looks for God only in strength and triumph.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/theology-of-the-cross" }, { "term": "Third Use of the Law", "slug": "third-use-of-the-law", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The Formula of Concord's teaching that God's law serves a third purpose beyond restraining evil in society and revealing sin: guiding the Christian life, showing believers what a life of gratitude to God looks like.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/third-use-of-the-law" }, { "term": "Time after Pentecost", "slug": "time-after-pentecost", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The longest season of the church year, running from the Day of Pentecost until Advent, marked by the color green. Sometimes called “Ordinary Time.” It has no major festival of its own; its theme is the ordinary, ongoing life of discipleship.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/time-after-pentecost" }, { "term": "Transfiguration", "slug": "transfiguration", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The last Sunday after Epiphany, when Christ appears in glory on the mountain before turning toward Jerusalem. The hinge between Epiphany and Lent.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/transfiguration" }, { "term": "Transubstantiation", "slug": "transubstantiation", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The Roman Catholic teaching that the substance of bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ while the appearances remain. Lutherans reject the explanation while affirming the reality it tries to protect: that Christ is truly present.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/transubstantiation" }, { "term": "Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope", "slug": "treatise-on-the-power-and-primacy-of-the-pope", "category": "confessions", "definition": "Melanchthon's 1537 appendix to the Smalcald Articles, arguing that the papacy's claims are not founded in Scripture.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/treatise-on-the-power-and-primacy-of-the-pope" }, { "term": "Triduum", "slug": "triduum", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "Latin for “three days.” The single liturgy spanning Maundy Thursday evening through the Easter Vigil, understood as one service in three parts rather than three separate ones.", "lang": "la", "aliases": [ "Three Days" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/triduum" }, { "term": "Trinity", "slug": "trinity", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "One God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Confessed in the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, all three of which the Book of Concord includes.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/trinity" }, { "term": "Trinity Sunday", "slug": "trinity-sunday", "category": "churchyear", "definition": "The Sunday after Pentecost, the only major festival of the Western church devoted to a doctrine rather than an event.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/trinity-sunday" }, { "term": "Two Kingdoms", "slug": "two-kingdoms", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "Luther's distinction between God's rule through the Gospel and the church (the “kingdom of the right hand”) and God's rule through civil law and government, for the sake of order among believers and unbelievers alike (the “kingdom of the left hand”).", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/two-kingdoms" }, { "term": "Typology", "slug": "typology", "category": "scripture", "definition": "Reading a person or event in the Old Testament as prefiguring something in the New. Useful but easily misused: it can slide into treating the Hebrew Scriptures as valuable only for what they point to, which the ELCA has explicitly rejected.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/typology" }, { "term": "Ubiquity", "slug": "ubiquity", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The teaching that Christ's human nature shares in the divine attribute of being everywhere present. Lutherans use it to explain how Christ's body can be truly present in the Supper. Reformed theologians reject it.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/ubiquity" }, { "term": "Verbal Inspiration", "slug": "verbal-inspiration", "category": "scripture", "definition": "The teaching that the words of Scripture, not only its message, were given by God. Held in stricter forms by some Lutheran bodies than by the ELCA, which speaks of Scripture as the inspired word of God without adopting inerrancy as a doctrine.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/verbal-inspiration" }, { "term": "Versicle", "slug": "versicle", "category": "worship", "definition": "A short line and response opening an office, most often “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me” — the ancient versicle drawn from Psalm 70:1, in its liturgical form, sung at the start of every canonical hour for over a thousand years.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/versicle" }, { "term": "Vespers", "slug": "vespers", "category": "worship", "definition": "Evening prayer. Psalm, reading, and the Magnificat, the song of Mary from Luke 1. Traditionally prayed as the lamps are lit.", "aliases": [ "Evening Prayer" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/vespers" }, { "term": "Viaticum", "slug": "viaticum", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "Latin for “provision for the journey.” Communion given to a person who is dying. One of the oldest pastoral practices in the church, and a reason to call a pastor early rather than late.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/viaticum" }, { "term": "Vocation", "slug": "vocation", "category": "doctrine", "definition": "The Lutheran teaching that God works through a person's ordinary daily roles and work (parent, neighbor, tradesperson, caregiver), not only through formal religious activity. Holiness is not a separate career track.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/vocation" }, { "term": "Vulgate", "slug": "vulgate", "category": "scripture", "definition": "Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible, completed around 405 and the standard text of the Western church for a thousand years. The text Luther knew before he learned Greek and Hebrew.", "lang": "la", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/vulgate" }, { "term": "Was Christum treibet", "slug": "was-christum-treibet", "category": "scripture", "definition": "German for “what drives Christ home.” Luther's test for weighing Scripture: the books that most clearly proclaim Christ carry the most weight. The reason he ranked John and Romans above James.", "lang": "de", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/was-christum-treibet" }, { "term": "Words of Institution", "slug": "words-of-institution", "category": "sacraments", "definition": "The words of Christ spoken over the bread and wine, recorded in the Gospels and in 1 Corinthians 11. Lutherans treat them as the promise that makes the sacrament what it is, not as a formula that works by being pronounced correctly.", "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/words-of-institution" }, { "term": "World English Bible", "slug": "world-english-bible", "category": "scripture", "definition": "A modern English translation released into the public domain, which is why it can be reproduced in full on a free site without licence or fee.", "aliases": [ "WEB" ], "url": "https://www.digitallutheranchurch.com/learn/glossary/world-english-bible" } ] }