How the Church Got Here ยท Chapter 11
Where do Lutherans live today, and what can we learn from them?
If you picture a Lutheran, you might picture someone from Germany or Minnesota. But some of the largest Lutheran churches in the world are in Africa. Today you'll meet the worldwide Lutheran family, and a German pastor who stood up to evil.
Start this chapterAround the world
Lutherans live on every continent where people live. Two of the largest Lutheran churches in the world are in Ethiopia and Tanzania, and each is bigger than the ELCA. There are large Lutheran churches in Madagascar, Indonesia, India, and Namibia too.
Much of that growth came through missionaries, who were sometimes mixed up with colonial power in harmful ways. Even more came through local believers who shared the faith with their neighbors. Today those churches are led by their own people. They send pastors and teachers to other countries, including the United States.
In the 1930s, many churches in Germany went along with the Nazis. A Lutheran pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke out. He led a seminary that the Nazis shut down, then kept training pastors in secret. He joined the resistance. On April 9, 1945, weeks before the war in Europe ended, the Nazis executed him. Many churches remember him every April 9.
Bonhoeffer wrote that grace is free, but it is not cheap. It costs God everything, and it calls us to follow Jesus. Lutherans around the world still learn from his courage, and from each other.
Read it in your Bible
- Revelation 7:9. John sees a crowd too big to count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before God's throne and the Lamb, dressed in white and holding palm branches.
Words to know
- Ethiopia. An African country that is home to one of the largest Lutheran churches in the world. Christianity in Ethiopia goes back more than 1,600 years. The Lutheran church there grew in the 1900s, much of it through Ethiopian evangelists.
- Tanzania. An East African country with one of the largest Lutheran churches in the world. Its church is bigger than the ELCA.
- Missionary. Someone sent to share the good news in another place. Missionaries did good and sometimes harm. Today mission goes in every direction.
- Bonhoeffer. The German Lutheran pastor who resisted the Nazis and was killed in 1945. He showed that following Jesus can take courage.
- Grace. Bonhoeffer said it's free, but it isn't cheap. Grace is God's free gift. It cost God his Son, and it calls us to follow Jesus.