Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
denomination of Lutheran Christianity in the United States
The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), also referred to simply as the Wisconsin Synod, is an American Confessional Lutheran denomination of Christianity. Characterized as theologically conservative, it was founded in 1850 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
As of 2022, it had a baptized membership of 340,511 in 1,250 congregations (churches) located in 47 US states and 4 provinces of Canada. The WELS also does gospel outreach in 40 countries around the world through missions. It is the third, or fourth, largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. The WELS school system is the fourth largest private school system in the United States.
The WELS is in fellowship with the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) and is a member of the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference (CELC), a worldwide organization of Lutheran church bodies of the same beliefs.
Belief and practice
Doctrinal standards
The WELS subscribes to the Lutheran Reformation teaching of Sola scriptura—"by Scripture alone". It holds that the Bible is the final authority by which church teachings can be judged. The WELS holds to a quia subscription to the 16th century Lutheran Confessions; that is, they teach that the confessions are valid because they are faithful to the Bible.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1379931. VIAF identifies the subject as 151981910. The Library of Congress control number is n50057095. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1850 and 2022.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.