Family of God Lutheran Church     ELCA

Greetings to everyone at Family of God —

We are wrapping up an adult education course on the Augsburg Confession. If you weren’t able to attend, fear not! I can share with you some key takeaways and fun facts about this document.

The Augsburg Confession (or Confessio Augustana) is a statement of faith. That’s what the word “confession” means here. It’s not an admission of guilt! The word “confession” here is more along the lines of “every tongue will confess Jesus Christ is Lord” from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. The people who wrote and presented this document were known as the Reformers. They had complaints about the Roman Catholic Church and wanted changes made. When they were unable to reach a resolution, the Reformers either left the Catholic Church or were excommunicated. And Protestantism was born. This was all during the sixteenth century throughout Europe.

The Augsburg Confession was created at the request of the emperor in Martin Luther’s time. Charles V ruled over the Holy Roman Empire (which is mostly known as Germany now), Spain, and some colonial areas in the so-called New World. Charles V was occupied not just by his own lands, but also by war with France and the approaching Ottoman Turks, who were threatening invasion. He was not terribly pleased about religious turmoil within his own territories, and so he called a meeting (a “Diet”) at Augsburg to address the empire’s many challenges. It was here in 1530 that Luther’s associates shared their perspective on faith and the church. For the Reformers, this wasn’t just a matter of life and death. It was a matter of the soul and the divine, and it could not wait.

By this time, Martin Luther was a wanted man who would have been killed on sight by authorities for his beliefs, so he did not attend this meeting. The document was written by his friend and colleague Phillip Melanchthon. Melanchthon’s great strength was in communication. He was able to share ideas popularized by Martin Luther and develop a systematized theology out of them that others could break down and absorb. Melanchthon, like Luther, was incredibly intelligent and well-educated. He was also a bit more… polite than Martin Luther, who had no filter whatsoever when it came to speaking and writing. The document was finally presented at Augsburg in Latin and German by a man named Christian Beyer. The emperor and representatives from the church were not eager to give Beyer’s group a bigger platform than was necessary, so they had him present it in a small and private space. However, Beyer was determined to share these ideas with as many people as possible, and he spoke so loudly the crowds outside could hear him with ease. He shouted for nearly two hours.

It took a war and several more decades, but as you can probably surmise, Protestants did eventually gain religious toleration in the Holy Roman Empire. From there, Lutheran beliefs only spread. As you can read in the Augsburg Confession, the most important of these beliefs is trust in God’s grace. The Letter to the Ephesians puts it like this: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Our Lutheran tradition seeks to shine a light on God’s love, which we cannot earn but is freely given to us anyway. God cares for us and forgives us, though we often don’t deserve it. Now, we are free to show that same spirit to others. Writings like the Augsburg Confession can help guide us in that.

I hope you have had a meaningful Lenten season. Blessings to you and your loved ones!

Pr. Erin Koster