We are Evangelical and Catholic
Rooted in the Apostolic Faith
A complete confession of our faith can be found in The Book of Concord.
The Book of Concord...is the title
of the Lutheran corpus doctrinae, i.e., of the
symbols recognized and published under that
name by the Lutheran Church. The word necessitates a confession of Christian doctrine.
The Church, accordingly, has from the beginning defined and regarded its symbols as
a rule of faith or a rule of truth. Says
Augustine: “Symbolum est regula fidei brevis et grandis: brevis numero verborum,
grandis pondere sententiarum. A symbol is
a rule of faith, both brief and grand: brief,
as to the number of words; grand, as to the
weight of its thoughts.”
Cyprian was the first who applied the term
symbol to the baptismal confession, because,
he said, it distinguished the Christians from
non-Christians. Already at the beginning of
the fourth century the Apostles' Creed was
universally called symbol; and in the Middle
Ages this name was applied also to the Nicene
and the Athanasian Creeds. In the Introduction to the Book of Concord the Lutheran
confessors designate the Augsburg Confession
as the “symbol of our faith,” and in the Epitome of the Formula of Concord, as “our symbol of this time.”
Bente, Historical Introduction to the Book of Concord