A New Book On Applying The Three Estates

Lutheran theology has three doctrines about culture that can help Christians navigate our cultural problems: the Two Kingdoms; Vocation; and the Three Estates. Of these, Luther’s doctrine of the Estates is probably least known, but it is especially helpful in addressing the specific issues we face today.

Pastor Paul R. Williams of the Lutheran Church of Canada has written a book entitled Church, Family, and State in Contemporary Canada. Not only does he thoroughly explore Luther’s teaching about the estates and its Biblical foundation, he applies them in an illuminating way to the improper incursions of the state on the family and the church, which lies behind many of the cultural and legal conflicts that Christians are facing today, especially in Canada but also in the United States and the rest of the world.

In light of those conflicts, Pastor Williams also includes an extensive discussion of Lutheran resistance to tyrannical governments. That might come as a surprise to many of us, since Lutherans have a reputation for passivity in the face of secular authority, but there is, in fact, a strong tradition, going back to the Reformation, of “obeying God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

Exactly when and how to do that is defined in the Magdeburg Confession (1550), which Rev. Williams discusses. (A new translation by Rev. Dr. Christian Preus of this important and inspiring document has just been published by Concordia Publishing House. More on that later!)

The book has been published by Ad Crucem Press, which has generously posted the whole text online for free! You can read it here. (I encourage you, though, to buy the book if you can, if only to support the author and the publishers.)

I wrote the foreword to the book. You can read it in its entirety online, but I’ll just post a few excerpts here:

The modern church has endured repression and persecution under Communism, Fascism, Islamism, and other totalitarian regimes. Who would have expected during the Cold War that today the church would be in conflict with governments in the democratic West? Who could have imagined that “free countries” would be shutting down worship services, restricting what church practices would be allowed, and criminalizing the teaching of Christian morality?

Christians in Canada, the United States, Australia, and Europe are not used to such treatment from their own governments, though their brothers and sisters in much of the rest of the world have known it all too well. But it is hard to know how to respond. Christians know that Scripture commands them to submit to the governing authorities (Romans 13), and yet Scripture also states, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). How do we apply both of those teachings, and how can we discern when and how we should submit and when and how we should resist? . . . .

This work by Pastor Paul Williams unpacks the Doctrine of the Estates, outlining its principles in a systematic way, and, in doing so, he sets forth a compelling template for analyzing social dysfunctions. God has purposes for each of the estates and has designed the church, the family, and the state with its government to work together for the good of all. When those purposes are violated, society becomes dysfunctional and its members suffer. Things also go wrong when one estate usurps the others, violating their authority and attempting to take on their functions.

Just as it is wrong when the church seeks to rule the state, as in the medieval church or modern social gospels whether of the left or the right, the earthly governments of the state should respect the distinct spheres of the church and the family. Pastor Williams shows, by applying the Doctrine of the Estates, that the modern state is trampling over the other estates and is violating its own God-given purpose.

Today, the state has been presuming to determine what the church is allowed to teach, as when it criminalizes teaching what the Bible says about homosexuality as “hate speech.” During the COVID shutdowns, the state interfered with worship, prohibiting singing and the Communion chalice, and ultimately forbidding corporate worship altogether.

The state has been presuming to overrule and to change the estate of the family by creating same-sex marriage, allowing the abortion of children, and using the schools to indoctrinate children to oppose their parents’ values.

The state is even violating the estate of the state! God ordained the state to protect the lives of its citizens. A state that facilitates the abortion of children and the euthanasia of its weakest members is defying its own purpose. Scripture says that earthly governors are sent by God “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” When the state punishes those who do good, such as pro-life protesters and truck drivers asserting their liberties, and praises those who do evil, such as mutilators of children in the name of transgenderism, it is contradicting its own authority. . . .

Pastor Williams’ work here focuses on the issues in Canada, but churches throughout the world are facing similar pressures. My impression is that Canada has slipped farther down the slippery slope than some other countries, including my own United States. Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) law was sold as an act of mercy for the dying, which is problematic enough, but it has expanded to allow the killing of those with non-terminal illnesses, the disabled, the mentally ill, the depressed, and the poor. Today over 4% of the deaths in Canada are caused by the state. Canada’s euthanasia laws are shocking even to secularists, scandalizing not just Christians but the civilized world.

Canada’s decline from a generous, friendly, famously “nice” nation into one that puts to death its weakest citizens who are most in need of care, has become an object lesson, showing that social evils once introduced become worse and worse. What the Canadian church is going through is likely to spread and intensify through all of the “free countries.”

But Pastor Williams’ work here will prove to be enormously helpful throughout the world, as Christians seek to defend and restore the church, the family, and the state.