A Lutheran Case for Limited Government and Religious Liberty

August 16, 2023 By Gene Veith

As I was trying to think through the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms and the competing schools of conservatism, Anthony Sacramone alerted me to an interview he did with Rev. Dr. Gregory Seltz. The former Lutheran Hour speaker is the current head of the Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty. the voice of the LCMS in Washington, D.C.

The interview is from back in 2021 and was published at Religion & Liberty Online, with the perhaps surprising title Lutherans are on the front lines of the battle for religious liberty. Read it all, but here are a couple of responses from Dr. Seitz:

What are the biggest religious liberty issues facing churches today?

With the federalization of virtually every aspect of healthcare, the government is intricately woven into issues from the beginning of life to its end. The temptation of the government to stand against clear moral teachings that are fundamental to many Christians and religious people of the country is one thing, but the coercive capability of such an expansive intrusion into areas of conscience is another. We’ve seen that in the Obamacare mandates and more recently in the COVID-19 restrictions on the Church, virtually reclassifying it as a secondary institution. Such a reclassification stands in stark contrast to the constitutional protections of religious liberty enshrined in the First Amendment.

While those issues are troubling, the most pressing issue is the reclassification of gender identity as a protected class like race, sex (male/female), ethnicity, or religion. Differences of opinion are one thing, but the notion that the Church must change its teaching regarding marriage and the healthy, biblical directives for sexual expression within the marriage bond now stands not merely as a different understanding of sex, sexual practice, and intimacy—it may become “hate speech,” defining one side of the equation as constitutional and the other as not. We are seeing this already in Europe with the prosecution of Bishop Juhana Pohjola and Paivi Rasanen in Finland merely for publicly teaching that marriage is defined as the lifelong union of a man and woman and sex is part of the marriage bond. . . .

Lutherans have a reputation for political quietism, standing on the sidelines during the great social churnings, focusing strictly on gospel proclamation. Is that reputation deserved? If so, do you see yourself as trying to alter that image, opening up a space for Lutherans as Lutherans to enter the political arena?

I’m biased here, of course, but I think that the representation isn’t well deserved. Some would point to the German Lutheran state church and Hitler, but there were plenty of churches speaking out and even acting against the secular takeover of the state church and the state itself. Here in America, many of the foundational Supreme Court cases—Hosanna Tabor, Trinity Lutheran, and others—are the result of Lutheran churches standing up to government encroachment when the time is right. I think the label of “quietism” comes from a misunderstanding of our teaching of “Two Kingdoms.” Richard Niebuhr’s book Christ and Culture is a good example. There the Lutheran position is defined as Christ and culture “in tension” rather than in the proper differentiation of God the Father’s preserving work (through Caesar, through people’s vocations) and God’s unique saving work in Christ for all.

Differentiation does have a limited view of what “good” government can do, and that may be why we are not leading the charge on many of the political issues of the day. Such a view also supports a healthy limitation of what government “should do.” But that doesn’t imply nonaction.

Notice the difference between this and Christian nationalism. Dr. Seitz is indeed taking a strong position on the moral issues of our day, but he isn’t saying that Christians should rule. Rather, he is saying that the government must stay in its lane.

With the federalization of virtually every aspect of healthcare [and, we might add, virtually every other aspect of our lives], the government is intricately woven into issues from the beginning of life to its end.

The temptation of the government to stand against clear moral teachings that are fundamental to many Christians and religious people of the country is one thing, but the coercive capability of such an expansive intrusion into areas of conscience is another.

Differentiation does have a limited view of what “good” government can do, and that may be why we are not leading the charge on many of the political issues of the day. Such a view also supports a healthy limitation of what government “should do.” But that doesn’t imply nonaction.

Many of these problems and the way they impinge on religious liberty are due to the expansion of government into nearly every area of life and its coercive power to force Christians to comply with its moral dictates even when they violate Christian teaching.

To be sure, Christians believe that the government is responsible to follow the moral law, which applies to God’s temporal kingdom. This is why they oppose legalized abortion for everyone, not just Christians, an abdication of the government’s responsibility to protect its citizens, no matter how young. The other big cause of Dr. Seltz’s institute is to lobby on life issues. Christians have the right to persuade and influence by political and legal means, just as all citizens do.

The government should use its coercive power for good, but the church, as such, has no coercive power. It has power–the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word to change hearts–but not power over the state.

This would seem to accord better with small government conservatism, rather than big government conservatism.

Photo: Rev. Dr. Gregory Seltz (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

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Monday Miscellany, 8/7/23

August 7, 2023 By Gene Veith

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The American Academy of Pediatrics will revisit “gender affirmation care”; Republican candidates hide their church, while Democrats wear it on their sleeve; and Italy is banning the use of surrogate mothers.

American Academy of Pediatrics to Revisit “Gender Affirmation Care”

The board of the American Academy of Pediatrics has agreed to conduct an external review of their recommendations that children with gender dysphoria should be given hormone treatments and mutilative surgery. Until the studies are completed happens, the AAP’s current standards for “gender affirmation care” will stand.

When similar reviews were carried out in European countries–including very progressive countries like the UK, France, Sweden, Norway, and Finland–physicians drastically restricted those radical treatments.

The studies demonstrating the inadequacy of the available data have already been done. The U.K. reviewed the evidence and found that not only is gender dysphoria often “transitory,” but the data in favor of material benefits from gender-affirming care is wanting, while the risks are abundantly clear. . . .

Not only that, but a detailed study of the available studies on the question found that the data does not support GAC in children. Then, there is the de-transition phenomenon.

Some 10%-30% of those who “transition” to a different sex, are now “detransitioning” a few years after the procedures, back to the sex of their birth. But they can’t do anything about their pediatricians having subjecting them to masectomies, castrations, and sterilization.

Another point of interest is to see the headlines about this story in different media outlets.

Progressive Sources:

The [London] Guardian: Top US doctors’ group backs gender-affirming care amid rightwing attacks

Associated Press: Pediatricians’ group reaffirms support for gender-affirming care amid growing restrictions in GOP states

The Advocate: America’s Pediatricians Restate Support for Gender-Affirming Care

Conservative Sources:

Public Discourse: The Transgender Movement’s House of Cards Is Falling

Wall Street Journal: Doctors Group to Examine Guidelines for Treatment of Transgender Youths

Fox News: Potential ‘game-changer’: American Academy of Pediatrics reviewing support of youth gender treatments

The left-leaning media emphasized how the AAP reaffirmed their support for child “transitioning.” If you read closely, you may see a reference to studying new research or such like. Sometimes there is not even a mention of the outside review!

In the conservative-leaning media, on the other hand, the emphasis is all on the reviews, with the expectation that change is imminent. To me, that seemed to be the “news” in the story.

The reality includes both the reaffirmation and the outside study. The board is certainly committed to “gender affirming treatments,” but perhaps it will change its opinion, once the research is marshaled. Then again, the outside experts chosen may hold to transgenderist ideology and ignore the scientific findings from the rest of the world. We’ll have to see what happens.

Republican Candidates Hide Their Church, While Democrats Wear It On Their Sleeve

Mark Silk of the Religious News Service has made a curious observation in his story The Religious Evasiveness of GOP Presidential Candidates: It’s a Long Tradition.

He points out that going way back, Republican presidential candidates have obscured what church they grew up in or belong to. Eisenhower never brought up his Jehovah’s Witness roots. Nixon didn’t like it to be known that he grew up a Quaker. Ronald Reagan kept his membership in the liberal Disciples of Christ quiet, presenting himself as an evangelical. So did the Episcopalian George H. W. Bush and the Methodist George W. Bush. John McCain admitted that he was an Episcopalian but made it known that he attended a Baptist church. Today, Ron DeSantis is a Catholic who presents himself as an evangelical. Donald Trump grew up Presbyterian but now says he is “Nondenominational.”

Democrats, though, despite their current reputation as the less religious party, tend to be quite open about their denominational identity. Jimmy Carter never hid that he was a Baptist, and, indeed, a Baptist Sunday School teacher. Bill Clinton was far from being a moral conservative, either in his policies or his personal life, but he let everybody know that he was a Baptist. Hillary Clinton played up her background as a Methodist social activist. Barack Obama highlighted his involvement with the United Church of Christ, a mainline liberal denomination. And Joe Biden flaunts his Catholicism, carrying his rosary and telling anecdotes about his Irish Catholicism, even as he defies what his church teaches about sexuality and the sacredness of life.

Why is this? Well, obviously evangelicals have become a big part of the Republican base, so it’s understandable that candidates in that party would want to come across like them.

More deeply, and Silk doesn’t get into this, presidential candidates from both parties tend to come from our elite ruling class. Evangelicals may sometimes have political power through the voting booth, but they are not of the ruling class, whose churches tend to be Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Mainline Protestant, and (more recently) Catholic.

Democrats used to have rural, working class roots, so being Baptist resonated with their voters. Now, though, Democrats have become the party of the elite, and their candidates tend to be mainline liberal Protestants or liberal Catholics. That is to say, Christian in that non-threatening, progressive, non-evangelical kind of way.

Italy is Banning the Use of Surrogate Mothers

Italy is in the process of passing a bill that would criminalize the use of surrogate mothers.

Paying a woman to have one’s child–usually by artificial insemination or the implantation of a fertilized embryo–has actually been illegal in Italy for 20 years, but this bill goes further, imposing fines or prison sentences even if the procedure is carried out in a foreign country where it is legal.

Surrogacy, including the exploitation of women from poor countries to use as breeders, has become especially popular in the wake of same-sex marriages.

The new law, pushed by the new socially conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Miloni, has passed the lower house of parliament and is expected to pass the senate.

Breaking the bond between mother and child and reducing it to a commercial transaction involving contracts requiring women to sell their baby–yes, that should be illegal.

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Outlawing Silent Prayer

February 6, 2023 By Gene Veith

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The next frontier in violating religious freedom: outlawing not just prayer but silent prayer. Already, in the UK, three people have been criminally charged for praying silently in front of abortion clinics.

So reports David Roach in Christianity Today. A growing number of local jurisdictions in Great Britain have passed “Public Space Protection Orders” (PSPO) to create “safe spaces” around abortion clinics. These are defined as an area encompassing several city blocks. Says Roach, “The ordinance prohibits protesting ‘whether by yourself or with others,’ and it defines protesting to include prayer.”

Well, police found Adam Smith-Connor hanging outside an abortion clinic in Bournemouth, England, his back to the building. They asked him what he was doing and he said he was “praying for [his] son, who is deceased.” Thirty years ago, Smith-Connor paid to have his son aborted and is now grief-stricken for what he did. But his silent gesture of atonement was illegal. Silent prayer is a prayer.

So he was charged with violating the ordinance and fined. Smith-Connor told Roach, “I would never have imagined being in a position to risk a criminal record for praying silently.”

Also in Birmingham, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was asked what she was doing near an abortion facility. She replied that she “might have been” praying. She was arrested.

Back in 2021, in Merseyside, Rosa Lalor was “prayer walking”–defined as “praying on location, a type of intercessory prayer that involves walking to or near a particular place while praying”–in front of an abortion clinic. She was praying silently. The city had not passed a PSPO. But she was arrested for violating a COVID ordinance against protesting. Even though she was outside, practicing social distancing, and wearing a mask. The charges were eventually dropped.

Other European nations have implemented similar laws, though a court in Germany ruled that the PSPO law could not prohibit silent prayers.

Jeremiah Igunnubole, a legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom International–which is challenging these laws–said this about prosecuting silent prayers: “Adam and Isabel’s cases provide the clearest evidence that society’s failure to robustly protect the frontiers of free speech has resulted in the state machinery now feeling emboldened to interfere with our most basic right—freedom of thought.”

Notice the progression: from policing speech to policing thought; from restricting religious expressions to restricting religious thoughts.

The state, in service to the practice of abortion, presumes to impose its coercive power into the inner sanctum of the human heart, forbidding internal communion with its Maker.

Americans should thank that Maker, silently or otherwise, that their constitutional legal system gives them much more robust protection for their civil and religious liberties than many other nations have, including the supposedly “free countries” of Europe, Canada, and Australia.

And yet, prosecution of “thought crimes” can happen in the USA as well. A “hate crime” seeks to punish not only the external action committed–which is quite appropriate–but also the interior emotion that is thought to have produced the external action.

We have seen how “hate crime” charges were misused in Finland, where the simple disapproval of homosexuality was construed as “hatred,” so that Christians who taught what the Bible said on the subject were charged with a “hate crime” even though they committed no criminal actions such as assault or discrimination. And even though they professed not hatred but love for the sinners they hoped to bring the Gospel to. Their only “crime” was their religious thoughts.

A hallmark of totalitarianism is “thought control,” defined as “the practice by a totalitarian government of attempting (as by propaganda) to prevent subversive and other undesired ideas from being received and competing in the minds of the people with the official ideology and policies.” Thus the “re-education camps” and ideological interrogations that citizens are subject to. The goal is not only to control what their citizens do, but to control what their citizens think, so that opposition to the ruling regime becomes “unthinkable.”

This is difficult for governments to do, however. People who lived under communist or fascist regimes will tell about how even as they were forced to conform outwardly, they guarded their inner lives. They might not be allowed to say prayers, but they could pray silently.

Illustration: Prayer by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free.org via The Blue Diamond Gallery

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How Lutheranism Shaped the “Nordic System”

October 4, 2022 By Gene Veith

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As we were discussing the Scandinavian economic system and the Lutheran perspective on politics, I stumbled upon a fascinating article, which led me to some other fascinating scholarship on the Lutheran influence on the distinctive Nordic combination of individualistic capitalism + a generous welfare state funded by high taxes.

It seems that there is, indeed, a distinctly Lutheran approach to capitalism that is different from the Calvinist approach to capitalism as practiced in the English-speaking world. And a key factor is the difference between the Lutheran and the Reformed doctrine of vocation!

The article is by Mads Larsen of the University of Oslo and is entitled The Lutheran Imaginary That Underpins Social Democracy.

The word “imaginary,” as a noun, is a term in the social sciences meaning “the set of values, institutions, laws, and symbols common to a particular social group and the corresponding society through which people imagine their social whole.” We might say, using a more familiar term in Christian circles that means about the same thing, “world view.”

It has been said that if you want to look for Lutheran influence, we should look not to Germany–which was home not only to Lutherans but also Catholics, Calvinists, and Union churches that forced Calvinists and Lutherans together at the expense of both of their distinctives, as well as many other religious groups. But in Scandinavia, for centuries after the Reformation, Lutheranism was just about the only form of Christianity that the Nordic monarchs allowed. So the distinctly Lutheran cultural influence can be seen.

Larsen discusses the success of the Nordic model and how many Americans admire it, while confusing it with socialism. But he says that it is not easily exportable because it is grounded in a specifically Lutheran worldview, which looks at economics and political systems in a different way than is common in countries shaped by Catholicism and Calvinism. He writes, citing the work of other scholars [go to the link for the reference list],

Research reveals that the Nordic Model is undergirded by Lutheran norms and values (Stenius, 1997; Kildal and Kuhnle, 2005). The Protestant creed that was nationally embraced only in the Nordic region promotes strong work ethics, egalitarianism, togetherness, and civil duty. These values result in high labor force participation, but also motivate a willingness to cooperate closely at the national level, and to pay high taxes to ensure economic independence for a higher proportion of the population than what is the case in cultures with a Calvinist or Catholic heritage (Kahl, 2009).

Under medieval Catholicism, salvation was, for all practical purposes, by good works, and perhaps the easiest way to rack up good works was by giving alms, so that the poor would line up after church services for the people to give them something. Luther taught that we are not saved not by the rote performance of good deeds but by faith in Christ’s atonement for our sins. Taking care of the poor, Luther taught, should be the concern of the secular government, not the church, as such. Luther’s view of the priesthood of all believers , which promoted the equality of individuals from all walks of life, was complemented by his teachings about the responsibilities of the state.

Martin Luther promoted that classes be united in a “priesthood of believers.” Such an egalitarian community was to be led by a king who, as head of a powerful state church, should secure every subject’s salvation, but also their education and well-being. The state was meant to “guarantee the existence of a just society,” thus unifying spiritual and secular care. Everyone was responsible for contributing to a state within which all people, from king to beggar, are united by the “common good.” In Catholic societies, the Church was responsible for the poor. Their imaginary promoted that rich people give alms to ease their own way into heaven. The Lutheran safety net was a secular, local, and communal responsibility grounded in “neighborly love” (Lausten, 1995). To provide for those in need, the Lutheran Church, the rich, and regular people pooled resources in a “common fund,” which was the practical expression of poverty relief as a shared responsibility (Tønnessen, 2017).

That “neighborly love,” of course, is at the heart of the doctrine of vocation. Luther stressed the importance of work, but its purpose is not self-aggrandizement but helping others.

Luther was more skeptical of business ventures and wealthy people. His “employment ethic” contrasts the Calvinist “work ethic.” Instead of promoting hard work to succeed economically, Luther emphasized that employment itself is paramount, as any job can help people feel a sense of ordinariness, fulfillment, and moral satisfaction (McKowen, 2020).

That’s a striking dichtomy: Luther’s “employment ethic” vs. Calvin’s “work ethic”! As Max Weber shows, Calvinists often saw wealth as a sign of God’s favor. Whereas Luther warned against the dangers of wealth. The Calvinist view of vocation tends to focus on self-fulfillment, employing one’s talents, honoring God, and the moral imperative of the “work ethic.” Luther’s view of vocation emphasizes how God works through us to provide what others need and that the purpose of every vocation is to love and serve our neighbors.

So in a culture shaped by the “Lutheran imaginary,” workers of all kinds feel an obligation to not only work hard but to care for their fellow citizens and don’t mind paying lots of taxes to enable their government to take care of everyone. Larsen insists that this is a “liberal” model, valuing individualism, free market economics, and personal freedom–not socialist, and certainly not Marxist, since it emphases co-operation between all levels of society, not class conflict. “From a liberal perspective,” he comments, “the Nordics’ large-government, high-taxation model restricts individual freedom. From a Nordic perspective, this model makes meaningful freedom possible for more individuals in a given population” (Hänninen et al., 2019).

Larsden supports his thesis by explicating a number of Scandinavian novels and films, which depict a conflict between “good Lutheranism vs. bad Calvinism,” both portrayed in terms of their attitude towards the poor and their social responsibilities.

It turns out, a whole book has been written on this subject, one that connects the dots between Lutheranism and the modern “social democracy.” It’s entitled Lutheranism and the Nordic Spirit of Social Democracy: A Different Protestant Ethic (2017) by University of Maryland political economist Robert H. Nelson. (See the review by Mark Mattes.)

He goes so far as to engage Max Weber’s pioneering study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. If Calvinism gave us capitalism, as Weber argued, Larsen says that Lutheranism gave us social democracy.

And yet, Larsen says that social democracy as practiced in the Scandinavian countries amounts to “secular Lutheranism.” That is to say, the supernatural dimension of the theology has faded with the prevailing secularism. But the social teachings of Lutheranism remain. Indeed, they take the place of the supernatural church, with citizens finding meaning and transcendent purpose in caring for others and in their social solidarity.

It is as if they are taking Luther’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, but they reject the Eternal Kingdom–with the Gospel, the Word of God, and salvation for everlasting life–while still living in accord with the Temporal Kingdom–with vocation, love of neighbor, and its ideal of benevolent government.

Secular Lutheranism is emphatically not the same as religious Lutheranism. Justification by grace through faith is the article upon which the church stands or falls. A so-called Lutheranism without the Gospel is an empty shell. Social democracy without the faith that originally inspired it is also an empty shell. One wonders how long it can be sustained without any kind of spiritual foundation. It becomes just another moralism, another confusion of Law and Gospel, another mingling of the Kingdoms, breeding complacency and self-righteousness and evading the need for salvation by Jesus Christ.

Nevertheless, many Americans, both conservatives and progressives, are searching for an economic system that is both free and humane. Combining free markets with caring for others is the model that many people today are looking for. The answer may lie not in Lutheran socialism, but in Lutheran capitalism.

Photo: Nordic Flags [clockwise from left: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, & Iceland] by miguelb from Prince Rupert, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons

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“Lutheran Socialism”?

October 3, 2022 By Gene Veith

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Among Americans today, according to a Pew study, 57% view capitalism favorably, while 36% have a favorable view of socialism. But that’s down from 65% pro-capitalism and 42% pro-socialism in 2019. So both economic systems have lost credibility.

Factoring in politics, 78% of Republicans favor capitalism (a decline of only 4%), while 14% favor socialism (a decline of only 1%). And, indeed, I have heard quite a few conservatives complain about capitalism lately. (See, for example, this.) And a majority of Democrats, 57%, favor socialism (a decline of 8%).

When pro-capitalists argue against socialism, they bring up the Soviet Union and the recent economic meltdown in newly-socialist Venezuela. And the pro-socialists–such as Bernie Sanders–say something like, “Oh, I’m not talking about socialism in those countries. I’m talking about socialism in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Look at how well that works!”

J. D. Tucille writes about this in his piece for Reason entitled Declining Faith in Both Capitalism and Socialism Leaves … What?

I would just add that the Nordic political and economic system is sometimes called “Lutheran socialism.” Yes, for much of their history, pretty much the only church allowed in those Scandinavian lands was Lutheran, which has left a cultural mark even as those countries have now plunged far into secularism. But is the Nordic model really socialism? And is it really Lutheran?

Tucille addresses the first question. He points out that, by objective measures of free market economics, the Scandinavian countries are actually more capitalistic than the United States:

Venezuela’s government has largely seized the means of production and dominates the economy; it’s socialist. The country is ranked at 176 in the 2022 Index of Economic Freedom as a “repressed” economy. By contrast, Finland is ranked at ninth as a “mostly free” economy, along with Denmark (10th), and the United States (25th); all are countries where private enterprise prevails. Yes, both Scandinavian countries are considered somewhat more capitalist than the U.S.

The Index of Economic Freedom is even more telling than Tucille says it is. If we include Estonia (ranked 7) and Latvia (ranked 18), also northern culturally Lutheran states, all of the seven Nordic countries are in the top 20 (Finland #9; Denmark #10; Sweden #11; Iceland #13; Norway #14. Which makes them all more capitalist than the United States (#25).

Tucille quotes a former Prime Minister of Denmark:

“I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy,” then-Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen commented in 2015. “The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security for its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.”

But in addition to free market economics, the the Nordic countries, in Tucille’s words, “have expensive welfare states and tax the hell out of their private economies to pay for them. Rasmussen goes on to explain,

“So, what is the catch you might ask. The most obvious one, of course, is the high taxes. The top income tax in Denmark is almost 60 percent. We have a 25 percent sales tax and on cars the incise duties are up to 180 percent. In total, Danish taxes come to almost half of our national income compared to around 25 percent in the U.S.”

These countries are highly pro-business and personal prosperity is very high. (When I was in Denmark, I saw more Tesla sports cars than I did in California, even though automobiles are taxed at a rate of 100%, meaning that the $200,000 model would cost a Dane $400,000. And yet that Dane makes enough to pay it! Though most Danes settle for small vehicles and bicycles.)

For all of those taxes, Scandinavians get government-paid health care, financial support in caring for children, paid parental leave, money to care for senior citizens, support for the disabled, generous unemployment benefits, job-training, and on and on. Their so-called “welfare state” is not just a safety net for poor people–though they definitely have that, and a very generous one. Rather, everyone gets government benefits. The “welfare state” is called that because the state is oriented to the “welfare” of its citizens.

I’m not advocating that. We Americans are individualistic and self-reliant, so being dependent on the government grates against our sensibility. It certainly does mine. And we conservatives worry about such a big government gaining more and more control over us, overwhelming our freedom, which is one of our prime values. We want the freedom to have a car! High taxes interfere with our freedom to choose where our money goes. We don’t have the culture for a welfare state, though the Scandinavian countries do.

For example, if the U.S. government paid unemployment benefits that almost equal what a laid off employee makes working, we wouldn’t work, as happened when the COVID unemployment supplements were greater than many workers’ regular wages. But in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries, the work ethic is such that the unemployed so supported get a new job as soon as possible, helped by the job-training programs.

So the combination of free market capitalism with high taxes that pay for lavish government-funded benefits is emphatically not socialism. Instead of “Lutheran socialism,” the Nordic system should be called “Lutheran capitalism.”

So “Lutheran socialism” is not socialism. But is it Lutheran? We’ll delve into that question tomorrow.

Photo: The Streets of Copenhagen by Maria Eklind via Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0

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The Two Kinds of Integralism vs. the Two Kingdoms

September 23, 2022 By Gene Veith

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Yesterday we blogged about the controversy over National Conservatism and where the church fits into that, focusing on an open letter from some prominent theologians criticizing that movement.

In my mind, Peter Leithart offers a better critique than that letter in an article published in First Things (even though the editor of that periodical, R. R. Reno, was a drafter of the “National Conservatism: Statement of Principles“). In Against National Conservatism, Leithart emphasizes that Christianity cannot be a purely national religion because it is universal and transcendent:

Christian universalism takes concrete political form in a global communion of saints. It’s an ecclesial universalism. The bonds that connect Christians across national boundaries are deeper and stronger than bonds of blood or culture; Christians are in solidarity as members of one multinational body, joined by one baptism and one Spirit, eating and drinking at the table of the one Lord. Churches exist within nations and impart many social goods, but the church isn’t a creature of the nation or the state, nor a “mediating institution,” nor an instrument of national greatness. However deeply the church, her teaching and her rituals may become embedded in a national culture, she remains essentially an outpost of an alien civilization, a heavenly one, and she exists to point the nation to ends beyond the end of the national interest. Her vocation, like the apostle Paul’s, is to bring about the obedience of faith among all nations (Rom. 1:5). She honors the king, but above all she pays homage to another king, one Jesus (Acts 17:7).

Although Leithart is taking aim against National Conservatism, it seems to me that what he says also works against the globalist vision of the signatories of the Open Letter. The church is “an outpost of an alien civilization, a heavenly one.” Christians are part of one “multinational body,” having bonds with each other that are deeper and stronger than worldly ties of blood or culture, created by baptism and the Holy Spirit. That is to say, the church is a different kind of thing than any earthly polity, whether nation or empire.

The authors of both of the contending statements posit a political role for the church. Both sides are largely integralists. They want the church to rule society.

Catholicism gave us the Holy Roman Empire, with an Emperor who ruled over multiple kings and principalities, under the temporal authority of the Pope.

Protestantism gave us nation states, with independent sovereign nations choosing their own religions and rejecting the authority of both Emperor and Pope.

So it is not surprising that some integralists will favor the nation state, and other integralists will favor some version of a trans-national empire.

My sense is that integralists are wrong, whatever their preferred polity.

Both sides violate Luther’s insight that God governs His Two Kingdoms in two different ways. The church has to do with His eternal kingdom, in which He saves fallen human beings for everlasting life, working through His Word and Sacraments He also governs the temporal realm–His whole created order, believers and non-believers alike–working through vocation, the estates of family and government, and His natural and moral Law.

Someone might object that Lutheranism had state churches. Yes, though this never meant that the churches ruled the state. It was the other way around! The states ruled the churches! In all of the state churches, the king, queen, or other national sovereign was the head the church. The devout Queen Elizabeth II was head of the Church of England, as is now the less devout King Charles III. The same held true in the Lutheran nations of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the principalities of Germany. For awhile, at least, the state church of Finland, a republic, was under the authority of parliament.

The secular rule of the church expressed the Reformation conviction that God works through the vocation of earthly princes, and that the institutional church–as opposed to the invisible church of the saved throughout all eternity–is a temporal institution and so is subject to earthly authorities.

We Missouri Synod Lutherans fled the state church when the King of Prussia turned it into an ecumenical venture of “mixed confession,” including not only Lutherans but also Calvinists and anyone else that the King wanted to control. That was not tenable to us confessional Lutherans, so we emigrated to the United States, Australia, Canada, and other countries where we could find religious liberty.

Today, the world’s state churches have mostly embraced the secularism of liberal theology–with the exception of the Orthodox churches of Russia and other Eastern countries–so most confessional Lutherans today reject the concept, applying the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms in a more rigorous way, separating the two realms more completely.

The point is that the specific kind of government a state follows is not a theological question, though Christians are obliged to follow God’s moral law in their temporal affairs, which would include opposing injustice and supporting moral causes. The church can function in a wide range of polities, though some wage active war against Christians and their beliefs.

A polity that allows for religious liberty, including the freedom to preach and make converts, will have the best climate for the church to carry out its mission. This is why I prefer “liberal” government–that is, a system that guarantees political, economic, personal, and religious freedom–to either authoritarian nations or authoritarian empires. But that is a prudential, philosophical decision on my part, based on secular reasoning, including the history of American constitutionalism, rather than a theological dictate, as such. Though my theology makes me leery of both divinized nations and divinized empires.

Illustration, detail of the coat of arms of Żarnowiec Commune [Poland] by Bastianow (vector version) [Public domain or CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

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