State power reforming the church

I was away from our home church yesterday, but I am pretty sure that our confessional Lutheran pastor would never do such a thing! That is one of the many reason I love our church. He sticks to delivering law and gospel, to making sure we are well-taught, knowing that well-catechized parishioners are better equipped to be involved citizens.

We did attend the Festival of St. Michael and All Angels at Bethany Lutheran College yesterday, as part of the annual Fall Festival. The service followed the Office of Matins. I really miss use of singing psalms! It reminds me of my ALC days in the 70′s. Don Moldstad gave a good sermon on the corresponding scripture of the day. Nothing about candidates, but an excellent message about the goal of the devil (to destory your soul forever) and of angels (to protect your soul to heaven). Beautiful choir music, directed by Dennis Marzolf, and wonderful band pieces directed by Adrian Lo. I enjoyed singing two ELH hymns I’d never sung before, to my knowledge: I Walk With Angels All The Way (252) and The Canticle Hymn (45).

Why mention all those details? To reinforce my opinion that church is NOT the place to hear one man give his opinion of such a temporal matter as who to vote for. I agree with the IRS on this matter.

Lutheran preaching is to properly distinguish between Law and Gospel. Does this mean that the Law is simply not mentioned? If Lutheran pastors preach the Law from the pulpit, should they then distinguish some of the Law from other Law that is not politically correct?

If a Lutheran pastor preaches that it is against God’s Law to murder (or even desire someone to be murdered), then should he not mention that voting for a pro-abortionist is also against God’s Law?

I think people are getting confused here about what Churches can and can’t preach. Churches can be pro/con certain issues. For example, churches regularaly preach against abortion. They cannot preach for or against a particular candidate, which is what these pastors were doing, thereby breaking the law.

I don’t want my pastor to advocate a candidate from the pulpit, as it would be too close to suggesting that God’s will was this candidate. However, I don’t want the IRS deciding what is and is not acceptable, either. Haven’t we learned from the Constantinian experiment by now?

God may from time to time use the state to reform His people, but reality is that He tends to exercise His judgment on those states after a while as well.

Dr. Vieth rightly notes the hypocrisy of IRS behavior regarding churches based upon the political preferences of said churches.

However the way the two kingdoms impacts this is not as Dr. Vieth supposes (or so it seems to me). The federal government is forbidden to enact laws regarding the State establishments of churches and is also forbidden to infringe upon the free exercise of religion and the churches. Taxation was known to the framers as “the power to control, or destroy” Therefore the “tax exemption” of the churches is NOT a subsidy to the churches, but a proper recognition that the churches are of a different kingdom of the same King.

It is part of the harmful influence of pietism upon the Lutheran synods that results in the idea that the churches have nothing to say to daily life apart from morals. Or that the churches do not have the role of preaching to the civil government about what their mutual King requires.

The proper role of the civil government regards the churches is not upon their doctrine nor their structures, but rather upon the citizens of the country that the churches are in, regarding those aspects of their moral behaviors that God has given to the civil government to enforce. The God-given example of this is to be found in the Law given to Moses. Thus fraud (but not where that is a theological judgment by officers of the civil government) sexual sins, murder and so forth are areas where the civil government must enforce God’s laws, even upon members and officers of the kingdom of the right. But most specifically the civil government does NOT have preaching authority over the churches, which is what regulating the speech of the churches amounts to. In this matter, and to this extent, Dr. Vieth and the pietists have things exactly backwards.

Peter (@10), you really think all the pastors preaching that plan to vote for a third party candidate?

Would that all denominations knew and practiced the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms! What I wonder is, how many of those 33 that thought it their duty to preach about “Saving the nation” preached about the Savior of all people?!

… yet maintain that the idea that pastors have no free speech rights, or that Caesar has a right to punish congregations and the churches because their pastors exercised unalienable rights.

Pastors are subject to law, as we all are. While they may speak their minds on any religious or social issue from the pulpit, they are by law not allowed to endorse political candidates from the pulpit unless they are willing to give up the churche’s tax-exempt status. Their right to free speech is not absolute; Justice Oliver Wendell Homes remarked that one doesn’t have the right to falsely cry out “fire” in a theater, another example of limitation of speech.

Most pastors wisely do not endorse political candidates from the pulpit and well understand the reason why the law demands this. Of course, any pastor or citizen may in th epublic square say what they wish including the endorsement of political candidates and the repeal of laws concerning tax-exempt church status.

“that Caesar has a right to punish congregations and the churches because their pastors exercised unalienable rights, to be dangerously, harmfully, incorrect.”

This is a statement that reflects a complete misunderstanding of what happens to a church that violates the prohibition on endorsing a candidate. The church is not punished, instead a privilege that that the church currently enjoys is ended. A church has no right to demand a tax exemption.

Entitlement attitudes are wrong regardless of who holds them.

Joe and Peter;

A little Constitutional and Biblical law for you:

You show a fundamental misunderstanding. The churches do not enjoy a benefit from the kingdom of the left in not being taxed, instead, as the founders and framers knew and firm up in the 1st Amendment, the churches are of the kingdom of the right, and while there is but one King with one Law, nonetheless, the kingdom of the left does not have authority over the kingdom of the right, and taxation is the power to control, or to destroy. Hence no laws regarding religious establishments and free exercise thereof.

Even we citizens aren’t born into this world belonging to Caesar, nor is our income granted benificently to us from Caesar, rather we, as the civil government, elect delegates to represent us, and we pay taxes which should not be tribute money to a sovereign.

The kingdom of the right is independent and separate from the kingdom of the left. Both papocaesarism and caesaropapism are rejected by the two kingdoms doctrine.

For the kingdom of the left to tax the kingdom of the right would be to claim sovereignty over the kingdom of the right, which belongs only to God, and therefore would be claiming to be a god, which of course must be resisted even unto death. God does not pay tribute to Caesar, for that would be idolatry.

I guess I fall somewhere between Peter and Joe, on the one hand, and Anon on the other hand, on this issue. I don’t think the exemption from taxation of churches to be a “privilege”. It is a well established right of churches in our country to be exempt from taxes, for a lot of the reasons Anon espouses. Moreover, corporate tax rates, to which churches would be subject if not exempt, are punitive, running anywhere from 25 to 50 %, from the first dollar of income, particularly when federal and state income taxes are combined. Removal of the exemption would also likely subject churches to real property taxes, personal property taxes, local business taxes, etc., so that the effect would be that the government could be confiscating more than half of the “profits” received in the offering basket. Additionally, those contributing to the church would be unable to deduct their gifts as charitable contributions, thus likely sharply reducing the size of those gifts. In short, the power to tax is indeed the power to destroy, as no church can operate nearly as effectively without its tax exemption.

This is not to say that I don’t think this right can be revoked should a church recklessly overstep their function, but there needs to be a very high threshold before the state steps in and makes a determination concerning the “proper” function of a church, and what a church can and can’t do. In my opinion, what the protesting pastors did last Sunday, in a one-time protest circumstance, is not sufficient to trigger such a determination. Pastors should have wide leeway to preach in the manner in which they feel led of the Lord, and only those who exhibit a pernicious and persistent pattern of abuse of their function as a church should be considered for investigation.

Carl brings up another point: Taxing the tithe is claiming sovereignty over -God-. That is sheer blasphemy, and acceding to it is blatant idolatry.

As to those who think that two kingdoms is only Lutheran, they show their lack of familiarity with Augustine, Calvin, Archbishop of York de Bohun in 1215, Thomas a Becket, Aquinas, de Bracton, du Plessey de Mornay, John Knox, the Rev. Samuel Rutherford whose work _Lex, Rex_ so heavily influenced not only the founders and framers but the very words of the Declaration of Independence, as well as a whole host of other Christian political thinkers during the past 2,000 years including recent popes. As Luther repeatedly pointed out, he was merely teaching true Catholic doctrine that the Roman See had strayed from.

Scylding,
With you being a Canadian, perhaps your ignorance can be excused.

None of the founders were Deists at the time of the War and the Framing. Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were the most extreme, and they would be considered liberal Christians, not Deists. Both believed very much that God ruled in the affairs of men and nations, not the clockmaker god of the Deists. Both gave money for the propagation of the Gospel, and Jefferson used federal money to have the Bible translated for the Native Americans, and had the Bible and Isaac Watts hymnal be the reading textbooks in the first public school, which he helped get going. All of the rest were what you would call Fundamentalists. You can verify this by reading their writings. I believe that one of the Adams, either John or John Quincy (who wasn’t involved at the time of independence) later in life moved towards Unitarianism, but that is not relevant to the Founding.

If I were to smoke, I would favor Longbottom Leaf or Old Toby and not revisionist bovine end product. I understand that you, being a foreigner, would not know the difference. I don’t fault you for that.

I would encourage you to look up the people I’ve mentioned, and read their works, and those of the founders and framers, including their letters and diaries. Take especial note of _Lex, Rex_ of 1644, and compare its language with that of the Declaration of Independence and see how Jefferson plagiarized it.

Scylding, I do not believe in having nationalism in the Church. I don’t even think that national flags should be in the sanctuary, let alone flanking the high altar!

I do believe that the church is of a different kingdom than the civil government, and is thus not under the sovereignty of that civil government. The civil governors may not impose restrictions or orders upon the ministry of the Word and Sacrament, and that is what we are talking about. Nor ought the civil governors restrict the unalienable rights of citizens who happen to be of a given religion, or who are minsters of a given religion.

I encourage you to read the texts I’ve referenced to you, in their original contexts. Since both politics and the Faith interest you, you should find them interesting. I’m not talking about hagiographical texts, I’m talking about the letters, diaries and other writings of the actual individuals themselves, which in historiography, we call “primary sources.”

I never said that I thought that America was God’s chosen people. How is it that you read that into what I wrote? It is true that early Americans and a number of the founders – including Ben Franklin -did- believe that America was a sort of chosen people of God. He wanted the Great Seal to be the pillar of cloud and fire leading the Children of Israel through the reed sea on dry land. One of the popular songs of that period referred to America as “Abraham’s daughter”. I don’t agree with that (though I do agree with Franklin and Jefferson that God interferes in the affairs of men, and that nations cannot rise without His aid), but it is nonetheless true that -they- believed that.

I know that the early Americans believed that they were making covenants with God. I do not know if God considered Himself party to them. Likewise the Boers had covenantal theology, being Dutch Reformed, after all, so it isn’t surprising that they used such terminology. One of my good friends grew up in Kwa-Zulu Natal on a mission station (later his youth group was gunned down in church by !Xhosa/ANC thugs) Many of his friends from the University of Pochtestraum(sp?) were involved in trying to create an anti-apartheid Christian political party.

Is the Union of South Africa better off now with !Xhosa tribal rule, the imperialistic invasion of Lesotho and Swaziland, and the beginning genocide of Boers? Who have lived there longer than Canadians and Americans have lived on this continent? Remember, it was the Brits who introduced apartheid, not the Afrikaaners.

The church shooting I am talking about is a different one, that took place on a mission station in Kwa-Zulu Natal, as I noted, a good friend of mine had previously led that youth group before he came to this country to go to seminary, and his parents are still there. The !Xhosa have killed -lots- of Zulu and other blacks who didn’t agree with their tribal will-to-power.

Anon. Mandela was not in the building at the time. The fringe group in the specific shooting was the PAC. The ANC do not have clean hands. But neither has Inkatha, the old National party and a plethora of other groups.

There has been many shootings/killings in South Africa. It has crime statistics that is extreme – murders only topped by Columbia, and first in the world with armed robbery, assault, rape etc etc. No one, at least not me, denies that. But the tone of your replies here indicate that you have imbibed some right wing conspiricay theory type propaganda pieces, some of which I’m used to be very familiar with.

Hint: Do not believe everything you read, neither from the left, or the right, or the centre of the political spectrum.

That said, I’m not certain that South Africa will not end up a failed state. I hope and pray not. I hope and pray for a victory against crime, and the averting of racial/tribal/class conflict. All of those are still possible.

I was there. I was in class at University less than 5 miles from the Shell House shootings on the day it took place. I was there when everybody hoarded food in fear of civil war. I stood in the long queues during the ’94 election (the first time I ever voted). I was also there when my parents told our black maid to hide, because the police was rounding up blacks without pass books. I went with my parents into the townships when my father was a teacher. I went to church with black people when it was highly frowned upon. I slept on the floor in my parents’ bedroom with black pastors & missionaries sleeping in my bed – something that was illegal in the apartheid years. And I’m talking about bona fide missionaries here, not political activists. I also knew that my parents had to leave Zambia, where they were missionary-teachers, because their mission school had been taken over by the government, and their posts filled by Eastern European Communist personel (1971). Later years I sang worship songs in evangelical churches in Sotha, Zulu Afrikaans & English. But I also joined the black-dominated labour union while I was working for a multi-national mining company. I am personally acquainted with clergy that had to flee the country during the oppressive Vorster years.

So please. Don’t try and lecture me on things you haven’t a clue about. I said I’ll try and tune the rhetoric down. But inflaming ignorant propaganda cannot be ignored either.

Anon: You tire me out! I never did either of those things. I merely stated which massacre I was thinking of – and if you read my post, you’ll see that I clearly state that SA is an ultra-vioent society. Read both my last 2 entries. What you do not have a clue about are the intricacies of SA politics. BTW, the Union of SA ended in 1961. Since then it has been the Republic of SA.