On utilizing "Bishop" and "Archbishop"as titles in the Lutheran Church

For the 2026 LCC National Convention, Overture 2.02 proposes renaming LCC's Regional Pastors as "Bishops" and the Synod President as "Archbishop." Therefore, it deserves very careful attention, because this overture raises genuinely important questions about Biblical language, Confessional integrity, and what our church offices actually are and mean.

OVERTURE 2.02: Terminology — “Bishop” and “Archbishop”

Strengths of the Proposal

•        “Bishop” is Genuinely Scriptural and Confessional – Episkopos (επίσκοπος) is the New Testament term for an overseer of the church. The Augsburg Confession and its Apology use “bishop” as the standard term for ecclesiastical overseers. Luther himself retained it. They state they wished to retain bishops if only the bishops would allow the Gospel to be preached.

•        Practical Honesty – The overture makes a fair observational point: LCC already functions with a structure of regional oversight that resembles episcopal governance. Using “Regional Pastor” while actually exercising episcopal functions may represent a kind of terminological inconsistency.

Analysis

Language shapes theology. This is not just the change of a title — but it points to reshaping perception, importing assumptions, and signaling formal structure.

1.     “Bishop” for Regional Pastors — The proposal to adopt “Bishop” for Regional Pastors has a genuine Scriptural and Confessional basis. However, the historical reasons LCC and her predecessor bodies avoided this terminology deserve serious consideration: the term “bishop” in the Western church carries centuries of association with hierarchy that implies a different ontological status for bishops. Bishops and Ministers hold identical offices and duties; any distinction arose from human custom (e.g., one bishop ordaining for multiple churches in proximity.) Adopting episcopal terminology without theological precision tends to import episcopal ecclesiology by increments. If LCC adopts “Bishop” for Regional Pastors, it must accompany this with explicit Confessional definition clarifying that this term denotes a functional oversight role within the one office of public ministry, not a higher order.

2.     “Archbishop” has no Scriptural or Confessional basis – While episkopos is Scriptural, “archbishop” is not. There is no “chief bishop” office in the New Testament or the Lutheran Confessions. The Confessions explicitly and repeatedly reject the Roman/medieval hierarchical structure of metropolitans and chief overseers precisely because it has no divine mandate. Introducing “Archbishop” creates a formal ecclesiastical hierarchical nomenclature above the episcopal level.

3.     Other church bodies practice is not a theological argument – While Latvia, Nigeria, and Kenya use such terms, so do progressive church bodies such as ELCA and the Episcopal Church. Lutheranism has never treated majority church practice as the normative.

4.     “Archbishop” should not be adopted – The term “Archbishop” (αρχιεπίσκοπος) does not appear in the New Testament. It is a post-apostolic ecclesiastical creation designating a bishop who has authority over other bishops. Any claim that one overseer possesses authority over other overseers by hierarchical title — not grounded in Scripture — must be questioned. “Archbishop” can even be considered a secular-ecclesiastical term, since it is used by the Vatican, a state-church structure with which we have significant structural disagreements.

5.     Titles tend to shape ecclesiology over generations: first you use the hierarchical names, then you act like them.

Recommendation on Overture 2.02

Adopting “Bishop” for Regional Pastors is defensible if accompanied by explicit Confessional definition of the term and the definition of the function as the Regional Pastor is defined today. However, adopting “Archbishop” for the Synod President must be rejected. It introduces a hierarchical distinction among ministers that has no Biblical and Confessional warrant.