The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) is the federation of

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

churches in

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

and one of the largest

denominations in the world, with more than 6 million members, or 13% of the Tanzanian population. It is the second largest Lutheran church in the world and the largest Lutheran church in East Africa. The church is led by a presiding

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

and twenty-five diocesan bishops, representing 26

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

s. The Head Office of the Church is in

Arusha Arusha City is a Tanzanian city and the regional capital of the Arusha Region, with a population of 416,442 plus 323,198 in the surrounding Arusha District Council (2012 census). Located below Mount Meru on the eastern edge of the eastern bran ...

, where it has owned the New Safari Hotel since 1967. The church is affiliated with the

All Africa Conference of Churches All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC, or CETA) is an ecumenical fellowship that represents more than 200 million African Christians in 204 national churches and regional Christian councils in 43 African Countries. AACC's head office is in ...

(AACC), the

Christian Council of Tanzania The Christian Council of Tanzania is a Christian ecumenical organization founded in Tanzania in 1964. It is a member of the World Council of Churches, the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa and the Fellowship of Christian Councils ...

, the Global Confessional and Missional Lutheran Forum, and the

Lutheran World Federation The Lutheran World Federation (LWF; german: Lutherischer Weltbund) is a global communion of national and regional Lutheran denominations headquartered in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. The federation was founded in the Swedish ...

. The ELCT is an organization which reaches out to the people of Tanzania offering

worship Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. It may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, and praying. For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recogniti ...

opportunities, Christian education, and numerous social services, including disaster response, healthcare, and AIDS education and relief.

History

The first Lutheran missionaries arrived in what was then German East Africa in 1887, when the Evangelical Missionary Society for East Africa (EMS), based in Berlin, Germany, established a missionary station at Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam. The second group of missionaries was also from Germany, entering via South Africa and settling in the Southern Highlands region of Tanzania. Similar missions from Germany continued to arrive in the region continuously throughout the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. This mission activity continued in spite of the interruption of the

Hehe Wars Hehe may refer to: * the Hehe people The Hehe ( Swahili collective: Wahehe) are a Bantu ethnolinguistic group based in Iringa Region in south-central Tanzania, speaking the Bantu Hehe language. In 2006, the Hehe population was estimated at ...

in 1891, the

Maji Maji Uprising The Maji Maji Rebellion (german: Maji-Maji-Aufstand, sw, Vita vya Maji Maji), was an armed rebellion of Islamic and animist Africans against German colonial rule in German East Africa (modern-day Tanzania). The war was triggered by German Co ...

of 1905–1907,

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. In 1938, seven Lutheran churches were loosely gathered into the Federation of Lutheran Churches in Tanganyika. The member churches then merged to become the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. In 1964,

Johannes Lilje Johannes (Hanns) Ernst Richard Lilje (20 August 1899, in Hannover – 6 January 1977, in Hannover) was German Lutheran bishop and one of the pioneers of the ecumenical movement. Lilje was general secretary of the German Student Christian Movement ...

, then presiding bishop of the

United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany The United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (German: Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands, VELKD) was founded on July 8, 1948, in Eisenach, Germany. Its total membership is 8.6 million people. The Member Churches of this org ...

, consecrated Stefano Moshi, who had been elected as the first president of the newly formed church body and who had been an advocate for the establishment of episcopacy, as the first presiding bishop of the ELCT.

Organization

The seat of the church is in

. It is financed mainly from collections and donations as well as through project grants from churches in the

Global North Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

. The ELCT is led by a presiding bishop, or “Mkuu", who is elected to serve four year terms, and 24 bishops who preside over their local

dioceses In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

. The presiding bishop is elected for a four-year term from amongst the nishops of the dioceses. The ELCT's current presiding pishop is Fredrick Onael Shoo.

Presiding bishops

Clergy and Church Body

The ELCT employs 1360 ordained

pastors A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and An ...

(28 of them overseas), 3000 lay

evangelists Evangelists may refer to: * Evangelists (Christianity), Christians who specialize in evangelism * Four Evangelists, the authors of the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament * ''The Evangelists ''The Evangelists'' (''Evangheliştii'' in Roma ...

, and 300 community officers to aid the work of the church (2014 figures). Women are not ordained in all ELCT dioceses; however, as of 1990, the national church does ordain women. Ordination of women is a sensitive topic in the ELCT and the church is largely split. Currently, local dioceses make their own decision on whether to ordain women or not. The ELCT is one of the fastest growing churches in the world, with an annual growth in baptized members of around 8%.

Social Services

Social service programming is central to the mission of the ELCT. The social services offered by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania include the following departments: *Education (Secondary and University) *Finance and Administration *Health and Medical Care (21 hospitals and numerous local pharmacies) *Mission and Evangelism *Planning and Development *Social Services and Women's Work *HIV/AIDS Program *Disaster Response

Dioceses

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania consists of the following regional dioceses: * Central Diocese * Dodoma Diocese * East of Lake Victoria Diocese * Eastern & Coastal Diocese * Iringa Diocese * Karagwe Diocese * Konde Diocese * Lake Tanganyika Diocese * Mara Region Diocese * Mbulu Diocese * Meru Diocese * Morogoro Diocese * Mwanga Diocese * Northern Diocese * North-Central Diocese * North-Eastern Diocese * North-Western Diocese * Pare Diocese * Ruvuma Diocese * Southern Diocese * South-Central Diocese * South-East of Lake Victoria Diocese * South-Eastern Diocese * South-Western Diocese * Ulanga Kilombero * West Central Diocese

Beliefs

Lutheranism

Lutheranism is associated with the

theology of Martin Luther The theology of Martin Luther was instrumental in influencing the Protestant Reformation, specifically topics dealing with justification by faith, the relationship between the Law and Gospel (also an instrumental component of Reformed theol ...

, with its official confessional writings found in the

Book of Concord ''The Book of Concord'' (1580) or ''Concordia'' (often referred to as the ''Lutheran Confessions'') is the historic doctrinal standard of the Lutheran Church, consisting of ten credal documents recognized as authoritative in Lutheranism since ...

. Lutheranism generally accepts the unaltered Augsburg Confession (not the variata) as a true witness to the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

. Lutheran clergy tend not to subscribe to a doctrine of

Biblical inerrancy Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible "is without error or fault in all its teaching"; or, at least, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact". Some equate inerrancy with biblical ...

, but see validity in various scholarly methods of analysis to help in understanding the Bible. This is in concord with most moderate Protestant bodies and in contrast to the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod in the United States, which practices the

historical-grammatical method The historical-grammatical method is a modern Christian hermeneutical method that strives to discover the biblical authors' original intended meaning in the text. According to the historical-grammatical method, if based on an analysis of the gram ...

of biblical interpretation. Like other Lutheran church bodies, the ELCT confesses two sacraments: Communion (or the

Eucharist The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...

) and

Holy Baptism Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...

(including

infant baptism Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. Infant baptism is also called christening by some faith traditions. Most Christians belong to denominations that practice infant baptism. Branches of Christianity that ...

). Confession and absolution is often included as a sacrament; however, as it is a return to the forgiveness given in baptism, strictly speaking, there are only two sacraments. With respect to the eucharist or communion, the ELCT holds to the Lutheran doctrine of the

sacramental union Sacramental union (Latin: ''unio sacramentalis''; Martin Luther's German: ''Sacramentliche Einigkeit'';''Weimar Ausgabe'' 26, 442.23; ''Luther's Works'' 37, 299-300. German: ''sakramentalische Vereinigung'') is the Lutheran theological doctrine o ...

, that is, that Christ's body and blood is truly present "in, with and under" the bread and wine. All communicants orally receive not only bread and wine, but also the same body and blood of Christ that was given for them on the cross. Members of other denominations sometimes refer to this as a belief in consubstantiation. Lutherans, however, reject the philosophical explanation of consubstantiation, preferring to consider the presence of the Lord's body and blood as mysterious rather than explainable by human philosophy. The Lutheran belief in the holy mystery character of the consecrated bread and wine is more similar to that of

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

and

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...

belief than to the views of most Protestants. In contrast, most Protestant church bodies doubt or openly deny that the actual body and blood of Christ is eaten in the Lord's Supper.

Relations with other churches

The ELCT decided to establish a relationship with the

North American Lutheran Church The North American Lutheran Church (NALC) is a Lutheran denomination with over 420 congregations in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, counting more than 142,000 baptized members. The NALC believes all doctrines should and must be judged by th ...

, and both churches approved a "Memorandum of Understanding" at a convocation held in August 2013, paving the way for full communion between the two churches.Memorandum of Understanding between The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania and The North American Lutheran Church, NALC Official Website, 8 August 2013
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References

External links

*
Africa Lutheran Communion
{{Authority control Lutheran World Federation members Global Confessional and Missional Lutheran Forum members Protestantism in Tanzania Lutheranism in Africa Members of the World Council of Churches All Africa Conference of Churches Christian organizations established in 1963 1963 establishments in Tanganyika Lutheran denominations