When children grow up they like to ask their mother about the day they were born. What time did the birth take place? What was it like that day? Were there unusual circumstances? Can she still remember all the details of that important day?

As members of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod we should be asking that question this month. We should at least know when and where the Lutheran Church was “born.”

The date was not October 31, 1517, the day when Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. Nobody else had joined him yet. The true birth date of the Lutheran Church is June 25, 1530.

What happened on June 25, 1530? The public reading of the “Augsburg Confession.” This day was a “moment of truth” for the young Lutheran Church. Emperor Charles V had the authority to use torture and executions, if necessary, to punish those who dissented from the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The emperor had summoned Luther’s followers to Augsburg (in southern Germany) and commanded them to defend what their churches were teaching.

On June 25 they did just that: they did not compromise the Scriptural teachings brought to light by Martin Luther. Instead, they boldly confessed them.

The enemies of the Gospel tried mightily to keep this from happening. Under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church officials, the emperor (1) threatened to take away the German princes’ lands and titles, (2) stipulated that the Lutherans present their confession of faith only in writing, and (3) demanded that it be read only in Latin. The emperor also demanded that the reading of the confession not be done in the large courtroom, but in the smaller chapter room of the bishop’s palace, where fewer people could assemble.

However, the Lutherans persistently asked that they be allowed to read their confession orally and the emperor finally yielded. Then Elector John of Saxony asked that they be allowed to read the German edition, because they were on German soil; again the emperor conceded. Finally, because it was a warm summer day, the windows had to be opened. So not only the two-hundred people in the smaller room, but also the hundreds gathered outside, were able to hear the Lutheran confession.

At three o’clock in the afternoon of June 25, a layman, Saxon chancellor Christian Beyer, stepped forward. For the next two hours he read the confession of faith in such a loud, clear voice that even the crowd gathered outside could hear every word. When he finished, he took the Latin and German copies of the Augusburg Confession and handed them over to the most powerful man in the European world.

If Emperor Charles V had looked at the end of the document, he would have seen eight names written there. The men who signed the Augsburg Confession were not pastors or professors, but laymen—not just any laymen, but the most important rulers in his German territories.

What happened on June 25, 1530? The Lutheran princes placed themselves, their lands, and the people alongside Martin Luther as people who believed and confessed the truth of Scripture and who rejected every false teaching that would harm people’s souls.

The immediate effect of the reading of the Augsburg Confession was unclear. Some Roman Catholic bystanders made statements that showed they were impressed with the way the Augsburg Confession clearly based its teaching on the Bible. But there were dangerous days ahead, for the emperor ordered a Roman Catholic rebuttal to be written, and the brave Lutheran confessors received many threats on their own lives and on the lives of their subjects.

However, the more important question concerns the Augsburg Confession’s long-range effect. We were not present on June 25, 1530. Our names are not signed on the documents, but as “confessional Lutherans” we also need to make our stand with them. When we were confirmed, we too “signed on.” There are dangerous days ahead for Christ’s church, and for us. We can do nothing better than to make their faith our faith, because the Augsburg Confession is a true and genuine exposition of the Bible. We are very blessed to belong to a “church of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.”

We should continue to “sign on” to it. The best way to celebrate this birthday of the Lutheran Church is again to read the Augsburg Confession (it is in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary), to reaffirm that its truths are the faith of the Bible, and to hold to it and do as these early princely confessors did: confess this faith with our mouths and our lives.

Jerry Gernander is pastor of Richland Lutheran Church in Thornton, Iowa.