AboutBrad Varvil Expertise I am happy to field questions regarding Lutheran theology and practice, and it's context
within the western catholic tradition. General questions on the Christian faith are also
welcome.
Experience I have served in lay ministry for over ten years, and am currently a pastor in a small, confessional Lutheran communion in the Evangelical Catholic tradition. I have worked with several Lutheran and non-Lutheran communions over the years, and have a particular fondness for catholic ecumenism.
Education/Credentials I have a BA in Religion and Philosophy from a small midwestern Lutheran college, and am completing an M.Div. at a small, independent, Lutheran seminary in the Pacific Northwest.
Question how are you,sorry for i still learning English, can you tell me what the difference between baptist church and lutherans.
thank :)
Lord Jesus Love you
Answer Dear Cheong,
While a long examination is better left for another forum, I'll take a quick stab at the similarities and differances that come immediately to mind.
Baptists and Lutherans both believe in the Trinity (Triune God-- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), that we are saved by His grace through faith in Christ alone (apart from our good works) and we both embrace the scriptures as the inspired Word of God that are the sole sure measure of all faith and doctrine. At least this far, we can say we agree.
Where we differ is largely in how we understand God, and His grace, to come to us. Lutherans confess that God's grace comes to us through means-- the preached Word of the Gospel, and the Sacraments (especially Baptism and the Lord's Supper.) For us, grace is something alien to us, that God gives to us so that we may be forgiven, born into new life, and that our new life in Christ may produce good fruit that glorfies our God and Redeemer. The Word of God preached and the Sacraments administered properly is something that happens within the community of the Church, and so we affirm that the Church is critically important as God's means of salvation to the world (and we define the Church as we see it defined in Scripture, as the elect/redeemed of God, gathered in faith around His Word and Sacraments.)
Baptists, by and large, take a more subjective and individual approach, and while they rely heavily on Scripture, they tend to embrace personal experience rather than the Sacraments (though all Baptists still practice baptism and the Lord's Supper, they understand them differently than we do.)
Lutherans also embrace the history of the Church, because the Church is the people of God from all times and all places, united in Christ by grace through faith. So, we can recognize the workings of the Spirit of God through His people in our history, and we embrace the ancient professions of faith that the Church has handed down over the centuries-- the Apostle's Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed-- all of which take the key parts of Scripture and put them in an easier to remember form. Our most recent confession of the faith is called the Augsburg Confession, which was presented in 1530 at the start of the Reformation, as a declaration of keeping the old, historic faith intact against the medieval errors of Rome. The total collection of Lutheran confessions is found in a book published in 1580 called the Book of Concord-- the book of agreement among the Evangelical theologians of Germany who were eventually called Lutherans.
Baptists, by and large, are not confessional or creedal-- they attempt to hold only the Bible as their creed and confession, and that every individual can interpret it by him or her self with the Spirit's guidance, apart from the history of interpretation in the Church. Unfortunately, that means that without any uniting confession as to what the Scriptures mean, Baptists can be very different from one congregation to the next. While many Baptists would embrace most of the teachings in the ancient creeds, I'm not aware of any Baptists who actually profess them. Thus, there are so many different forms of Baptist theology, it becomes hard to compare them precisely with other Christians who do have well defined theology and confessions.
That's a short few examples to get you started. It's important to remember that Baptists and Lutherans are both Christian groups, though they are divided on several points of theology. They come from different streams of the Reformation, but they still attempt to confess the One Christ, the Savior of the world. If you've never been to a Lutheran congregation, I encourage you to visit, and perhaps chat with their pastor to get more details.
