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Wednesday, August 20, 2003

•••Lutheran Theology, Church and State It was very much the question of Luther's age, thanks to Monasticism in the Roman church on the one hand and fanaticism of trying to construct a "Christian society" on the other, whether a Christian could even rightly participate in secular government or not. The Lutheran confessors said, surely God allows us to use the same government as the 'heathen' even as He lets us eat the same foods and breathe the same air and live in this same world with them. The notion that Christians could only be really holy and righteous and uncorrupted by the world by withdrawing from it entirely (monasticism) was yet another misguided attempt to impress God and man with the personal holiness of good works. So also the notion is excluded that it was the Christian mission on earth to establish a political kingdom or government in this world ruled by the Bible. I think people outside the Lutheran church struggle to discern any difference between the thinking of Roman Catholic organizations (who still engage in liberation theology's kingdom building in Central America and elsewhere), and the social gospel embraced by most churches in the Calvinist and Zwinglian traditions -- which has the agenda to transform society in an outward, social way by instituting "Christian principles" as the rule for life -- and these Lutherans. Fact is, people inside the Lutheran Church, more influenced by televangelists and the 'transformational' tripe published by so many Christian bookstores than they are by any genuine Lutheran theology, also struggle to discern the difference. Article XVI: Of Political Order. The Sixteenth Article the adversaries receive without any exception, in which we have confessed that it is lawful for the Christian to bear civil office, sit in judgment, determine matters by the imperial laws, and other laws in present force, appoint just punishments, engage in just wars, act as a soldier, make legal contracts, hold property, take an oath, when magistrates require it, contract marriage; finally, that legitimate civil ordinances are good creatures of God and divine ordinances, which a Christian can use with safety. This entire topic concerning the destruction between the kingdom of Christ and a political kingdom has been explained to advantage [to the remarkably great consolation of many consciences] in the literature of our writers, [namely] that the kingdom of Christ is spiritual [inasmuch as Christ governs by the Word and by preaching], to wit, beginning in the heart the knowledge of God, the fear of God and faith, eternal righteousness, and eternal life; meanwhile it permits us outwardly to use legitimate political ordinances of every nation in which we live, just as it permits us to use medicine or the art of building, or food, drink, air. Neither does the Gospel bring new laws concerning the civil state, but commands that we obey present laws, whether they have been framed by heathen or by others, and that in this obedience we should exercise love. For Carlstadt was insane in imposing upon us the judicial laws of Moses. Or here's a nice little bite-sized snippet from Francis Pieper's Christian Dogmatics, Vol. III, p.418: Rome and all the Romanizing Protestants also appeal to the "duty of love" in defense of their twofold demand: (1) that the State must be ruled according to the Word of God, or according to "Christian principles," and (2) that the State must regard itself as the organ of the Church and place also its means of coercion in the service of the church. Which, then, are the proper bounds? They will be recognized by observing two principles: (1) that the State cannot and should not be ruled with the Word of God, but should be organized and ruled according to natural reason (common sense); and (2) that the Church cannot and should not be built with force and coercion, but only with the Word of God, and that all external coercion in matters of faith blocks the growth of the Church... I kind of half-heartedly worry that if this Sunday I made a little quiz with the Roman/Protestant position set in one column and the Lutheran position in the other, perhaps not even half the people sitting in my pews would recognize the latter as the Lutheran one. I think they'd call such theology by it's Baptipresbymethipispocostal name: "unChrischun." Ahh well, I reckon there's enough Lutheran theology to study, learn and teach to keep me busy the rest of my life.   11:41:01 PM   googleit 185

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