Confessional Lutheranism is a name used by Lutherans to designate those who believe in the doctrines taught in the Book of Concord of 1580 (the Lutheran confessional documents) in their entirety. Confessional Lutherans maintain that faithfulness to the Book of Concord, which is a summary of the teachings found in Scripture, requires attention to how that faith is actually being preached, taught, and put into practice. Confessional Lutherans believe that this is a vital part of their identity as Lutherans.
The term Confessional Lutheran is generally used among the more conservative churches found in groupings such as the International Lutheran Council (ILC), the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference (CELC), and the Global Confessional and Missional Lutheran Forum. Churches of the larger Lutheran World Federation subscribe to the Book of Concord as an exposition of faith in so far as (quatenus) it agrees with their interpretation of the Bible.
History
Two main confessional movements arose during the 19th century: the Old Lutherans and the Neo-Lutherans. The Old Lutherans originated from the Schism of the Old Lutherans, while Neo-Lutheranism arose in Germany in the 1830s from the Pietist driven Erweckung, or Awakening. Neo-Lutheranism itself contained differing camps. It gave rise later to those calling themselves confessional Lutherans.
Neo-Lutheranism developed in reaction to Pietism on the one side and Rationalism on the other, both of which had arisen in the previous century. German clergymen such as Martin Stephan, C. F. W. Walther, F. C. D. Wyneken, and Wilhelm Loehe became a part of the movement as they studied the works of Martin Luther and the Book of Concord.
The Old Lutheran and Neo-Lutheran movements spread to the United States with the Neo-Lutheran Loehe and the Old Lutheran free church leader Friedrich August Brünn, both sending missionaries to newly arrived German immigrants in the Midwest, and with the immigration of groups including the Saxons who settled in Missouri under Martin Stephan and C. F. W. Walther, the Germans who settled in Indiana under F. C .D. Wyneken, and the Prussians under J. A. A. Grabau in Western New York and southeastern Wisconsin (the Buffalo Synod).
In Scandinavia, where High Church Lutheranism and Pietist Lutheranism has been highly influential, the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, Mission Province of the Church of Sweden, and the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of Norway entered into schism with their national churches due to "the secularization of the national/state churches in their respective countries involving matters of both Christian doctrine and ethics"; these are members of the International Lutheran Council with their bishops having secured their lines of apostolic succession from other traditional Lutheran Churches, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya.
Church bodies using the title "confessional" Contemporary Lutheran church bodies that identify themselves as confessional tend to be either members of the International Lutheran Council, the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, the Global Confessional and Missional Lutheran Forum, or certain other independent Lutheran bodies. Among the members of the ILC are the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, the Lutheran Church–Canada, the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Germany, and the Lutheran Church of Australia. Among the CELC are the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Other confessional Lutherans include the Church of the Lutheran Confession, the American Association of Lutheran Churches, the Concordia Lutheran Conference, the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America, member congregations of the Protes'tant Conference, and member congregations of the Orthodox Lutheran Confessional Conference of Independent Congregations, the United Lutheran Mission Association, and the Evangelical Lutheran Conference & Ministerium of North America (all of North America).