What We Believe
Statement of Faith
As Jesus Christ's followers, we are called to be set apart from this world and therefore are unapologetically counter-cultural. We believe, teach, and confess and to these things, we will be held to account for.
The Lutheran Confessions
All Lutheran doctrine (teaching) is taken from Holy Scripture. Our Lutheran Confessions are very explicit on this point. ". . . the Word of God shall establish articles of faith and no one else, not even an angel." (S.A. Part II, The Mass, 15, Tappert page 295.) "We receive and embrace with our whole heart the Prophetic and Apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the pure, clear fountain of Israel, which is the only true standard by which teachers and doctrines are to be judged." (F.C., Th. D., sum., 3, Triglot, p. 851) Holy Scripture is the only source and the absolute norm of our faith.
The Lutheran Confessions, or Symbols are seen as secondary norms, or as true declarations of the doctrines of Holy Scripture, which all who would call themselves Lutheran must confess and teach. For this reason the confessional Lutheran Church demands of all its public teachers and ministers a bona-fide subscription to all its Confessions as the pure and unadulterated declarations of God's Word. (We call this a "quia" subscription – that is we subscribe to the Confessions "because" they are truly scriptural.) To put it another way. Holy Scripture is the deciding norm, it is absolutely necessary. The Bible decides what is true or false doctrine. The Confessions are the distinguishing norm, they are only relatively necessary. They determine whether or not a person has correctly understood the true doctrines of Scripture.
This is what our Vancouver Lutheran Church Family believes to the core.
The Lutheran Confessions make us Lutherans! They are:
- The Three Ecumenical Creeds (Aposltes, Nicene, Athanasian)
- The Small and Large Catechisms (by Dr. Martin Luther)
- The Smalcald Articles (by Dr. Martin Luther)
- The Augsburg Confession and its Apology (a defense written by Dr. Philip Melanchthon)
- The Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (by Melanchthon)
- The Formula of Concord (primary authors: Jacob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nicolaus Selnecker, David Chytraeus, Christoph Koerner, and Andreas Musculus)