International Lutheran Council

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The International Lutheran Council (English: International Lutheran Council - ILC) is a federal confessional Lutheran churches in the world. It represents approximately 7.15 million Lutherans in 54 member churches (since 2018) and is the second largest Lutheran union after the Lutheran World Federation (LWF - approximately 70 million Lutherans).

history

The origins of the International Lutheran Council go back to a meeting of denominational Lutheran churches in Uelzen in 1952. Another conference in 1959 in Oakland, California, USA, dealt with the topic of "Church fellowship between our churches". For these still informal gatherings, these Lutheran churches named themselves in 1963 the “International Lutheran Theological Conference”. During the three decades that followed, there were 11 more informal meetings of Lutheran bishops and praesides. The International Lutheran Council in its current official form was founded in 1993 in Antigua, Guatemala, where these Lutheran churches also adopted a constitution.

Denominational basis

The International Lutheran Council is a worldwide fellowship of denominational Lutheran churches that believe, teach, confess and live the gospel of Jesus Christ on the basis of Scripture, understood as the inspired and infallible Word of God, and the Lutheran Confessions they serve as See a true and credible interpretation of God's Word. More detailed explanations of differences compared to other theological directions within Lutheranism can be found e.g. B. here .

tasks and goals

The ILC has set itself the task of representing and spreading denominational Lutheran theology in teaching and life. This is supposed to be done through

  1. joint theological studies
  2. mutual support of member churches
  3. Supporting Lutheran Mission
  4. Joint theological training by theological professors, universities, Lutheran mission societies and diaconal help
  5. Promoting communication between denominational Lutheran churches in the world and a. through publications such as B. ILC News.
  6. Publication of denominational Lutheran literature

Organizational structure

The official duties of the ILC are carried out by the chairman, the vice chairman and the general secretary. There is also an executive committee consisting of the chairman, vice chairman, the general secretary and additional representatives from the continents of Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America and Australia. This committee has the task of taking on the goals (see tasks and goals) and implementing them.

The general secretary is responsible for providing administrative and technical support to the member churches. The current (2010) general secretary is the former senior minister of the Lutheran Church of Canada, Ralph Mayan. The Lutheran member churches are required to share in the costs of the tasks of the ILC according to the number of their baptized members. A conference of member churches takes place every two years. Currently (2007) the ILC has 34 member churches. In addition to full membership, there is the possibility of associate membership, observation status and membership for church organizations that are not church bodies. The ILC is not a church body and does not assume any church functions.

Chairperson

Bishop Hans-Jörg Voigt
  1. 1998–2007 President Ralph Mayen, Lutheran Church - Canada
  2. 2007–2010 President Gerald B. Kieschnick, Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
  3. since 2010 Hans-Jörg Voigt , Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church, initially as interim chair and since September 20, 2012 as regular chair

Conference locations and main topics

  • Berlin (Germany) 2005
  • Accra (Ghana) 2007 - Topic: Living as Reconciled Children of God
  • Pretoria (South Africa) 2007
  • Korea (South Korea) 2009
  • Toronto (Canada) 2012
  • Buenos Aires (Argentina) 2015 (25th World Conference)
  • Antwerp (Belgium) 2018 (26th World Conference)

Member churches

Africa
Asia and Australia
  • Australia: Lutheran Church of Australia (Associate Member)
  • Hong Kong: Lutheran Church - Hong Kong Synod
  • India: Indian Evangelical Lutheran Church
  • Indonesia: Indonesian Lutheran Christian Church (Observation Status)
  • Japan: Japanese Lutheran Church
  • Korea: Lutheran Church in Korea
  • Myanmar: Myanmar Lutheran Church
  • Papua New Guinea: Gutnius Lutheran Church
  • Philippines: Lutheran Church in the Philippines
  • Sri Lanka
    • Lanka Lutheran Church
    • Evangelical Lutheran Church Ceylon
  • Taiwan
    • Chinese Evangelical Lutheran Church ( Republic of China / Taiwan )
    • Lutheran Church of the Republic of China (Observation Status)
Europe
  • Belgium: Evangelical Lutheran Church in Belgium
  • Denmark: Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Denmark (associate member)
  • Germany: Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church
  • England: Evangelical Lutheran Church of England
  • Finland: Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland
  • France: Evangelical Lutheran Church - Synod of France
  • Norway:
    • Lutheran Church in Norway (LKN)
    • Evangelical Lutheran Diocese in Norway
  • Portugal: Portuguese Evangelical Lutheran Church
  • Russia:
  • Sweden: Mission Province in Sweden
South America
  • Argentina: Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina (IELA, 1986 independent mission district of the Missouri Synod)
  • Bolivia: Christian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bolivia (associate member)
  • Brazil: Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil
  • Chile: Confessing Lutheran Church of Chile (until 2007: Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Republic of Chile, IELCHI)
  • Paraguay: Evangelical Lutheran Church of Paraguay
  • Peru: Evangelical Lutheran Church - Peru (associate member)
  • Uruguay: Lutheran Church of Uruguay
  • Venezuela: Lutheran Church of Venezuela
Central America
  • Guatemala: Lutheran Church of Guatemala
  • Haiti: Evangelical Lutheran Church of Haiti
  • Mexico: Lutheran Synod of Mexico
  • Nicaragua: Lutheran Church - Synod of Nicaragua (ILSN)
North America

Contact discussions ILC - LWF

In addition to the ILC, there is the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), which has a larger number of members, as an association of Lutheran churches. The ILC and the LWF have recently had contact discussions with a final communique entitled “What unites us - what divides us”.

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mathew Block: ILC welcomes 17 new member churches representing 4.15 million Lutherans worldwide. Announcement of September 26, 2018 on the Council website, accessed November 2019.
  2. ↑ The "Confessing Lutheran Church of Chile" ( Iglesia Luterana Confesional de Chile ), which from 1991 to 2007 called itself the "Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Republic of Chile" ( Iglesia Evangélica Luterana de la República de Chile , IELCHI), was founded in 1955 as a missionary organization the Missouri Synod (LCMS), which sent missionaries to Chile through its Argentine district. When the district became independent, the Chilean branch existed since 1986 as a mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina (ILEA) and became independent in the early 1990s. IELCHI, which has recently been abbreviated to ILC-Chile, should not be confused with the two indigenous Lutheran churches of Chile, the "Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile" ( Iglesia Evangélica Luterana en Chile , IELCH) and the "Lutheran Church, which split off from this in 1975" in Chile ”( Iglesia Luterana en Chile , ILCH), both of which have belonged to the Lutheran World Federation (since 1957 and 1991 respectively). See ILC News , XX. Vol., No. 2 (May 1, 2009), Spanish edition (PDF; 152 kB), p. 8 f .; Sergio Adrián Fritzler, Cristián E. Rautenberg: Resumen de la historia del ILC-Chile (PDF; 27.2 MB), March 2014 / May 2016; Daniel Lenski: La historia de la Iglesia Luterana en Chile on the ILCH website; all accessed in November 2019 (all in Spanish).