The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a Mainline Protestant church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of December 31, 2025, it has approximately 2.59 million baptized members in 8,208 congregations.
In 2025, Pew Research estimated that 1.4 percent of the United States adult population, or 3.69 million people, self-identifies with the ELCA; more broadly, 2% of U.S. adults, or 5.2 million people, identified with the ELCA and mainline Lutheranism. It is the seventh-largest Christian denomination by reported membership. As of 2012, churches with more members were the Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention, United Methodist Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church of God in Christ, and the National Baptist Convention, USA. and the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S.. The next two largest Lutheran denominations are the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) (with over 1.7 million baptized members) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) (with approximately 340,000 members). There are also many smaller Lutheran church bodies in the U.S., some formed by dissidents to the major 1988 merger. Its members are largely descendants of Scandinavians and Germans who emigrated from countries where Lutheranism was the state religion.
The ELCA belongs to the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and the Lutheran World Federation. It is in full communion with the Episcopal Church, Moravian Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reformed Church in America, United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church.
History
Various Lutheran church bodies in the United States formed resulting from immigration waves from various countries. For instance, members of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) (centered in New York City, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) were largely descendants of immigrants in the colonial and mid-19th century period. The American Lutheran Church (ALC), with headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was influenced by descendants of the waves of Scandinavian and German immigration to the Midwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In their countries of origin, especially in Scandinavia and northern Germany, the Lutheran churches were the state churches.
As Lutherans emigrated to America, they initially saw themselves as part of these churches, though they lacked the same organization and formal status in the New World. Over time Lutherans formed church organizations in America. The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC), which withdrew from the LCMS in 1975, comprised many congregations throughout the lower Midwest. Over time, church associations' national or ethnic identification lessened as descendants assimilated into general American society. Members across organizations began to have more in common as areas of the country urbanized and more people made their livings in suburbs and cities, rather than in rural farming areas. The ALC and LCA were already the result of earlier mergers among associated congregations once related to ethnic immigrant groups.
In 1970, a survey by Strommen et al. found that 79% of Lutheran Church in America clergy, 62% of American Lutheran Church clergy, and 58% of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod clergy agreed that "a merger of all Lutheran groups in the United States into one organization is desirable".For laity, the figures were 70% LCA, 70% ALC, and 62% LCMS. Including clergy and laity, 4,745 Lutheran adults between the ages of 15 and 65 were surveyed. See Merton P. Strommen et al., A Study of Generations (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing, 1972), p. 283. A group of congregations left the LCMS after 1975 as it became dominated by theological and social conservatives; they formed the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC).
After several years of discussion, the LCA, ALC, and AELC formally agreed in 1982 to unite. Implementing this agreement took longer: the new Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) was effective on January 1, 1988, creating the largest Lutheran church body in the U.S. The ALC and LCA had been formed by previous mergers.Lowell Almen, One Great Cloud of Witnesses, (Minneapolis:Augsburg Fortress, 1997) pp.9-12 for a brief recounting of the formation of the ELCA
American Lutheran Church
In 1960, the American Lutheran Church formed as a merger of the earlier ALC of 1930, largely members of German heritage; the United Evangelical Lutheran Church (UELC), with members of Danish background; and the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELC), made up of members of Norwegian background. The Lutheran Free Church (LFC) joined three years later in 1963.
The ALC brought approximately 2.25 million members into the new ELCA. It was the most theologically conservative of the forming bodies, having a heritage of Old Lutheran theology.Nelson, E. Clifford. The Lutherans in North America . Revised ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1980. p. 509 It had been in fellowship for a decade with the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and officially held to biblical inerrancy in its constitution. It seldom enforced that stance by means of heresy trials or other doctrinal discipline. Its geographic center was in the Upper Midwest, especially Minnesota. Its headquarters and publisher (Augsburg Publishing House) were based on South Fifth Street in Minneapolis and one of its several seminaries was in neighboring St. Paul. Its denominational magazine was The Lutheran Standard, published in Minneapolis. Some ALC congregations chose not to join the 1988 merger and instead formed the American Association of Lutheran Churches.
Lutheran Church in America
The Lutheran Church in America (LCA) was created in 1962 by a merger among the United Lutheran Church in America, created in 1918 by an earlier merger of three German Lutheran synods in the eastern U.S.; Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, of Swedish ethnicity with some dating to the colonial era; the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America; and American Evangelical Lutheran Church, made up of ethnic Danish families.
The LCA was the slightly larger partner and brought approximately 2.85 million members into the ELCA. Its administrative offices were in the Church House, a former townhouse mansion on Madison Avenue in New York City. Its publishing house, Fortress Press, was on Queen Lane in northwest Philadelphia, and produced the church magazine, The Lutheran. Its demographic focus was on the East Coast, centered on Pennsylvania. It also had large numbers in the Midwest and some presence in the South Atlantic States. There are notable exceptions, but LCA churches tend to emphasize liturgical expression more than the ALC-background churches. Its theological orientation ranged from moderately liberal to neo-orthodox, with tendencies toward conservative Pietism in some rural and small-town congregations. Its theology originated in Neo-Lutheranism.
Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches
In 1976, the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) was formed by 250 congregations that had left the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) in a schism precipitated by disputes over biblical inerrancy and ecumenism. These were part of the overall fundamentalist–modernist controversy that had been roiling American Protestant churches for several decades. In 1969 the LCMS had elected more conservative leadership under President J. A. O. Preus II, replacing moderate incumbent Oliver Harms. The new leadership opened an investigation at the synod's Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, about the faculty's commitment to inerrancy in biblical interpretation. It also opposed ecumenism.
As a result, most of the faculty and student body walked out and established a separate institution initially named "Concordia Seminary-in-Exile" (but usually referred to as "Seminex"). The AELC formed in 1976. It brought approximately 100,000 members into the ELCA. Its ethnic heritage was primarily from German immigrants of the mid-19th century, who came to the U.S. after the revolutions in various principalities. Many were abolitionists and Unionists during the American Civil War. By the 1980s, the AELC theology generally resembled the LCA's.
Organization
The ELCA is headed by a presiding bishop, who is elected by the Churchwide Assembly for a six-year term (it was a four-year term until 1995). To date, five people have been elected to the position of presiding bishop of the ELCA. Herbert W. Chilstrom served as the first presiding bishop from 1987 to 1995. He was followed by H. George Anderson (1995–2001), who had previously been the president of Luther College. The third presiding bishop was Mark Hanson, who is the past president of the Lutheran World Federation, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Hanson began his tenure as bishop of the Church in 2001 and was re-elected in August 2007 for a second term. Elizabeth Eaton was elected presiding bishop in August 2013 and took office on November 1, 2013. She was reelected for a second term in 2019. In November 2023, Michael Burk was appointed Presiding Bishop Pro Tempore by the ELCA Church Council following a request by Bishop Eaton to take a 4–6 month leave of absence. Yehiel Curry, bishop of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, was elected presiding bishop in July 2025 and took office on October 1, 2025. He was installed on October 4, 2025 at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.
In addition, the body of the Church Council is composed of representatives elected for a stated number of years from the various synods. These meet regularly with legislative powers in between sessions of the Churchwide Assemblies.
The Conference of Bishops, which meets at least twice a year, is formed of 66 bishops (the 65 elected synodical bishops, together with the presiding bishop), plus the ELCA church secretary. It is consulted by the presiding bishop and the Church Council for advice on matters of doctrine, faith and order, and ecumenical relations. The ELCA website states that "While primarily advisory, the role of the Conference of Bishops is significant within the life of this church."
The ELCA is divided into 65 synods, one of which is non-geographical (the Slovak Zion Synod) and 64 regional synods in the United States and the Caribbean, each headed by a synodical bishop and council; these synods are in turn grouped into nine regions.For further information about the ELCA's structure and organization, see 2005 ELCA Constitution (pdf document, retrieved March 27, 2007) Within the ELCA the term synod refers to the middle judicatory, which is referred to in some other denominations as "presbyteries", "districts", "conferences" or "dioceses" (the most ancient and traditional term in Christianity). In other Christian churches, the term "synod" is used for a meeting or conference of ministers such as priests or bishops of a diocese, province (region) or nation or, in some Protestant churches, as the term for their annual governing convention. Some Evangelical Lutheran denominations overseas continue to use the ancient church title of "diocese".
Outside the United States, ELCA also has congregations in the Caribbean region (Bahamas which is combined with Florida in one synod; Bermuda, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands); and one congregation in the border city of Windsor, Ontario, a member of the Slovak Zion Synod. Before 1986, some of the congregations that form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada were part of the ELCA's predecessor churches.