The Augsburg Confession

In June 1530, a small group of German princes stood before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg and read this document aloud. It took two hours. It was meant as an olive branch, a demonstration that the reformers were not heretics, just Christians asking the church to fix specific problems.

Melanchthon wrote it, drawing heavily on Luther's earlier work, in a deliberately conciliatory tone. The first twenty-one articles state what the reformers actually believe: God, sin, Christ, justification, the church, the sacraments. The final seven address specific practices under dispute: clerical marriage, communion in both kinds, monastic vows. We host Article IV directly, checked against a dated edition; the other twenty-seven articles are linked below at the Book of Concord while that same check is still pending for them.

That single line, near the center of Article IV, is the hinge the entire Reformation turns on. Everything else in Lutheran theology is commentary on what that sentence means and what follows from it.

Where to start

Article IV, hosted here, is the theological hinge and takes about fifteen minutes on its own. For the full theological core (Articles I through IV, on God, original sin, Christ, and justification) and the remaining twenty-four articles, read on at the Book of Concord.