Luther’s Cultural Influence

Last updated on: November 9, 2022 at 1:59 pm By Gene Veith

Following up on our post about the Reformation’s political influence, I offer today a reflection on the Reformation’s cultural influence.

The conservative Methodist Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, has written an article for World entitled Our great debt to the Reformation. Though he speaks of the Reformation generally, he specifically references Martin Luther. Here is Tooley’s take:

Arguably, Protestantism created modernity. That’s either a blessing or a curse, depending whom you might ask. Catholic and Eastern Orthodox critics fault Protestantism for modernity’s failures, including radical autonomous individualism, rabid secularism, ideological extremisms, and hedonism. Humanity would be more in sync with its Creator if Christianity had remained moored to the authority and continuity of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, they say.

These Catholic and Orthodox arguments have some traction, but they are far from the whole story. By stressing humanity’s direct access to God and the Bible, stressing salvation through faith alone, and also uplifting non-ecclesial vocations and marital life, Protestantism ennobled and liberated much of humanity. Modern literacy, modern science, modern markets and capitalism, constitutional democracy and human rights were all advanced by the Reformation, and in a decisive way. . . .

Luther’s insistence on human direct access to God through Christ dethroned the medieval church’s grasping after inordinate spiritual and temporal power. His stress on direct reading of the Bible by laity in their own language facilitated mass literacy, in order that the Bible might be read. His translation of the Bible into German, amid endless pamphleteering, helped launch modern publishing. His departure from the celibate priesthood, and his wife’s departure from the convent, into a happy marital union, elevated marriage, and family, into godly estates no less than celibacy.

His stress on scholarship and translation from original sources, accompanied by rational discernment apart from direct ecclesial control, contributed to a broadening of scientific analysis and discovery, with free inquiry. His affirmations of professions outside the church dignified labor, trade, and finance, further enabling modern markets. His stress on private conscience and rejection of unquestioned ecclesial authority undermined political and ecclesial authoritarianism. After the Reformation, there was increasing expectation that governance was no longer the exclusive preserve of a favored few but now was a project involving all God’s creatures.

And yet, I wonder if Protestantism created modernity, for better or worse. Certainly, Luther was hearkening back to a more ancient way of thinking when he took his stand on the Bible as the source and norm of the Christian life. In the same way, the Renaissance was seeking a cultural rebirth by recovering the insights of the ancient Greeks and Roman. The move was backwards in time, not forward. Both Luther and Erasmus considered the Medieval scholasticism of their time to be “modern” and sought to recover something older.

Tooley is certainly right about Luther’s emphasis on faith, education, family, and vocation. But when he extrapolates Luther’s translation from the original sources in the Biblical languages–a principle of Renaissance scholarship–into the rise of science and technology, and when he credits Luther for the rise of capitalism, I am not convinced. Calvin is usually credited, or blamed, for the rise of trade, finance, modern markets, and, hence, capitalism. Luther believed countries should stick to their own resources and not trade for things they didn’t need, and he discouraged the pursuit of wealth. He may have been naive about that, but he wasn’t “modern.” There is a huge difference between Luther and Calvin, which other Protestants (as well as Catholics) seem oblivious to.

Tooley’s Reformation sounds more like the Enlightenment, plus evangelicalism. The missing link is Pietism, whose emphasis on human experience led naturally to an emphasis on the human mind.

Moravian Pietists converted John Wesley, who gave us Methodism, which is Tooley’s tradition. And though some Pietists held on to Luther’s theology, others went in other directions, opposing Lutheran orthodoxy in favor of a more individualistic and later more “enlightened” faith. That is to say, they became more “modern.”

But just as we don’t have to accept the progressive paradigm of human society getting better and better, we don’t have to accept the Procrustean bed of pre-modern, modern, and post-modern. Those categories are far too broad to capture the nuances of history. Surely there was a huge difference between the classical and the medieval–are both “pre-modern”? And what about the differences between ancient Greece and ancient Rome? And where does Romanticism fit in? Is it “modern” like Enlightenment rationalism is modern?

Suffice it to say that reforming the church around the Gospel of Christ and the Word of God, as inaugurated by Luther, was much needed. And it did a great deal of good, not only for European culture but for the world. And that in our broken culture today we would do well to draw on that influence again.

Illustration: “Luther Making Music in the Circle of His family” by Gustav Spangenberg (ca. 1875), Museum der bildenden Künste, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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The Political Influence of the Reformation

Last updated on: November 9, 2022 at 1:58 pm By Gene Veith

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In this political season and amidst the debates about liberal democracy, we would do well to reflect on the political influence of the Reformation.

Hillsdale professor of politics Adam Carrington sums up that influence in his RealClear Religion article On October 31, Remember the Political Contributions of the Reformation.

With the Reformation teaching of “Sola Scriptura,” he says, the authority of a written text (the Bible) was held to be greater than that of a human ruler (the Pope). This gave us the concept of the rule of law, particularly as seen in the role of the American Constitution.

“Sola Scriptura” also led to the push for universal education, so that people of both genders and from every walk of life could read God’s Word. “This massive expansion of who could read opened the door for increased political participation, both based on Biblical principles and on the increased capacity to read other documents besides Scripture, such as political pamphlets and newspapers.”

The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers did away with spiritual hierarchies and so undermined political hierarchies. “The equality of human beings before God naturally bolstered ideas of human equality in the political realm.”

The concept of “covenant,” an emphasis to be found among the Reformed more than the Lutheran, had to do with a binding agreement, both between God and man (in the Bible) and also between other human beings (as in the Mayflower Compact). This, says Prof. Carrington, would lead to social contract theory, according to which “legitimate governments are formed by the people agreeing among themselves and/or with a ruler on a state’s purposes, procedures, and structures.”

I’m glad to see that Prof. Carrington also recognized the importance of the doctrine of vocation. This teaching exalted “the dignity of the common man.” This teaching “recognized dignity in all persons’ work and carried political implications to codify that view into law. In our own time, when some tend to denigrate working-class jobs, this Reformation principle defends the dignity of all work and thus of all workers.”

The Reformation also contributed to the rise of the nation-state, with its emphasis on local rulers (as opposed to the Holy Roman Emperor) and the development of national churches (as opposed to transnational Catholicism). “Contra global, transnational trends, Protestantism often reinforced national identities even as it saw underlying unity among churches across national borders. Thus, current movements seeking to respect and preserve the nation-state and the goods attending it owe a great debt to the Reformers.”

In light of the current controversies, all of this makes me think that those of us in the Reformation tradition should be in favor of liberal democracy, Constitutionalism, and small government conservatism. And, indeed, most of the “integralists”–who have problems with individual liberty and popular rule, who prefer a more authoritarian “big government conservatism,” and who get nostalgic about multi-national empires over individual nation-states–are Catholics.

Illustration: “The Dream of Frederic the Wise of Saxony” by Jan Barentsz. Muyckens (1643), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. [Referring to an alleged dream the Elector had on the night before Luther posted his theses, of a monk writing something on the door of the Castle Church with a quill so long that it reached to Rome and knocked the tiara off the pope’s head.]

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Midterm Election Post-Mortem

Last updated on: November 9, 2022 at 2:02 pm By Gene Veith

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Despite what conservative pundits, pollsters, and even Democrats were predicting, there was no red wave. More of a red ripple. Or a red droplet. Or maybe just a red fantasy.

The results are not all in yet, as of this writing, and they may not be for weeks, but there is still a path for Republicans to gain control of the House of Representatives–which is still quite likely–though any majority will be razor thin. And there is still a path for Republicans to gain control of the Senate.

There are three remaining races still to be determined: in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada. Republicans need two of the three. It may well be that control of the Senate hinges once again on Georgia. But neither Republican Herschel Walker nor Democrat Raphael Warnock won a clear majority, which means, according to state law, that they will have to face each other in a run-off, with the Libertarian candidate who got 2% of the vote dropping out. But the runoff election will take on December 6! So we may not know which party will control the Senate until next month!

Here are some thoughts about the election:

• Why would we conservatives and Christians think we are in the majority? I think every political side just assumes that most people, if they only knew, would agree with them. But most Americans seem to be more progressive than we realize. I’m thinking that conservatives and Christians should start thinking of themselves as a minority group, and then plan how they might leverage that status.

• There are, however, conservative strongholds, with lots of electoral votes. In addition to Texas, which stayed red, we can add Florida, which used to be a “battleground state.” But in this election there actually was a red wave that, like the tidal surges of Hurricane Ian, struck Florida. Ron DeSantis not only won re-election as governor by a large margin (as contrasted with the first time he ran for that office, in which we won by a tiny margin), he even won in Democratic precincts, including Miami-Dade County! That takes political and governing skill, which will make him the hope of Republicans.

• Donald Trump’s stock has gone down. There apparently is not a vast horde of Americans so angry about inflation, crime, and President Biden and so large in number that they could put him back in the White House. A red wave would have indicated that this is a possibility. But if Americans will stick with Democrats despite all of these problems, which would usually mean a repudiation of the ruling party, they will surely not re-elect Trump. I’m seeing that some of his biggest supporters–see, for example, this at RedState–are starting to realize this. I read that only 15% of Americans consider themselves to be “MAGA Republicans.” That’s only one-third of Republicans. They are passionate and committed and can perhaps win primaries, but there is not enough of them to win elections.

• Can Republicans stop pushing celebrity candidates? Herschel Walker was a great running back, but what qualifies him for the Senate? Dr. Oz was a TV doctor, but what about that resume would make anything think he would be a good senator? I’m all for them, for national reasons, but they have no experience in running for office or for governing, and it shows. I am aware that those well-qualified for their offices, such as President Joe Biden, are not doing a good job either. But still.

What else? Give your analysis and observations in the comments.

Photo: A drop of red dye mixing with water by Eric Bégin via Flickr, CC 2.0.

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Muslims vs. Their Woke Allies

Last updated on: November 5, 2022 at 12:58 pm By Gene Veith

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Among the biggest puzzlers of our time is why leftists are so supportive of Muslims, given their stance on women, LGBT issues, sexual morality, and other moral issues. Another is why Muslims are so supportive of leftists, given their stances on those issues.

The first puzzle can be partially solved by the leftist doctrine of ‘intersectionality.” Progressives maintain that Muslims are oppressed, due to Western colonialism and the “war on terrorism.” Plus, most Muslims have brown skin, so they qualify as “people of color.” Intersectionality teaches that all oppressed groups–women, homosexuals, Blacks, Hispanics, the disabled, etc.—must become “allies” of each other in their common struggle against white heterosexual male supremacy.

The second puzzle is more puzzling. Apparently, Muslims feel that leftists are at least on their side and that progressive politicians serve their rational self-interests when it comes to immigration, opposing Israel, and the like.

But Muslims seem to be waking up–as opposed to being “woke”–to the contradictions between their convictions and their leftist allies. In Dearborn, Michigan, which has a large Muslim population, parents of that religion have seen the explicit sex, promotion of homosexuality, and encouragement of gender changing in the public schools. Like Christian and even many liberal parents, they are shocked and appalled. So Muslims have been complaining at school board meetings, demonstrating, and exerting political pressure to get this kind of material out of the classroom and away from their children.

Progressives–including the Dearborn congressional representative Rashida Tlaib, who identifies as Muslim and is a member with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the hard left “squad”– responded to the protests by calling them acts of “hate” and “bigotry,” in which Muslims were manipulated by Republicans and the Christian right. And yet, the protesting Muslims were more successful than Christians usually are, and the books were removed.

Two Muslims, Zain Siddiqi and Farhana K., have written a fascinating explanation of the Dearborn protests. They give cogent reasons for opposing the sexualization of children in public schools–reasons that Christians can agree with–and go on to object to the condescension neo-colonialism and racism of the left.

From the online Islamic magazine Traversing Tradition, Dearborn Schools and the Protests against LGBTQ Books:

The rhetoric leveled at protesters is largely ironic, considering that the Left has been long engaging in a subversion of the Muslim community in attempt to capitalize on the alienation perpetrated by the Right. Muslims have largely been convinced into supporting the Left’s social causes as a means to better their own situation regarding issues like discrimination and immigration. . . .

The premise that Muslims protesting these schools are falling prey to “culture wars” and are victims of a “dangerous ideology” also suggests that Islam is not at all morally opposed to the material being presented in these books. While the Islamic attitude to sin differs from Christianity, it does not mean that Islam gives a green light to hypersexualized content. This is the same case for viewing homosexual acts as a sin. . . .

For years, Islam in America has been racialized in the political sphere, assumed to be fully onboard the progressive bandwagon, given the decades of discrimination and scrutiny. Since we as Muslims are under the boot with other minorities, we are expected to automatically band together and support all causes amongst the subjugated. This idea supposes that Muslims should abandon their principles in support of an amalgamated idea of a “greater good,” an idea which contradicts the very spirit of Islam. . . .

We should note here that it is not only the sexual content and explicit nature of the books that are and should be protested. Considering the outrage to be restricted to “only” the pornography-esque presentation and not LGBT is a common refrain, but the situation is more nuanced than that. What is also being protested is the evolving nature of sexuality and hyper-sexualization of society. . . .What is at issue here is the condescending demands that the Muslim community confirm belief in hegemonic ideas about gender and sexuality, or be branded bigots.

Sexual activity between two men or two women fall under liwat, categorically forbidden in orthodox Islamic beliefs. Even if a Muslim were to engage in liwat, the deen necessitates its rejection as a moral act necessitating tawba (repentance). Furthermore, premarital intimacy is forbidden, and masturbation is largely prohibited. As such, even an ideal teaching and explanation of sexuality among Muslims conflicts with wider societal acceptance of fornication, masturbation, and affirming of same-sex sexual activity as moral.

See also a similar response to the LGBTQ Identity movement by a Muslim woman that we have blogged about.

Shouldn’t Christians make common cause with Muslims on these moral and civic issues? The article says that Muslim parents had no idea what their children were being exposed to, until a Christian woman showed them the textbooks. The authors say that while conservatives have sometimes favored discriminatory policies against Muslims–mentioning Trump’s restrictions on allowing Muslims into the country–at least conservatives support religious liberty and moral truth. Maybe, the authors say, on an issue-by-issue basis Muslims can “ally” with conservatives, using a term favored by the intersectionalists.

Photo: “Iftar at Habib’s Cuisine in Dearborn” from GPA Photo Archives via Flickr, CC 2.0 License

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Thoughts on Today’s Election

Last updated on: November 8, 2022 at 12:03 pm By Gene Veith

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Today is the Midterm Election, when the ruling party of the House and Senate will be determined, as well as a vast array of governorships, state and local officials, and referenda.

As we discussed earlier, the stakes are particularly high this year for all sides. And despite the adage “all politics is local,” we may find ourselves setting aside our local concerns–or even our personal preferences–in our higher national priority of determining which party has control of Congress.

I’ll be staying up to watch the returns. I invite you to watch them with me and we can all discuss the results as they come in. I’m not committing to doing a complete “live blog,” as I have done before–I can’t stay up as late as I used to–but, if you help me, we can share our thoughts in the comments to this post.

The polls are indicating the possibility of a “red wave,” with Republicans flipping both the House and the Senate, thus thwarting President Biden and the Democratic Party’s progressive agenda. But polls are often wrong, and if they have lately been wrong in Republicans’ favor, they might also be wrong in the Democrats’ favor. The only poll that counts now is what happens at the polling place.

I would like to comment on some of the issues and factors that will shape today’s election.

On Democracy Being at Stake

President Biden and the Democrats are claiming that “democracy is on the ballot,” that if Republicans take over, with their “election deniers” and “January 6 insurrectionists,” our democracy is doomed.

But those who believe that cheating occurred in the 2020 election and that Donald Trump won are hardly anti-democracy. They may be wrong or deluded, but they clearly want democracy. They are angry because they believe their votes were outweighed by fake or illegal ballots. That may have never happened, but if it did, that would be anti-democratic. The “election deniers” are angry because, in their minds, however mistaken, they think democracy was thwarted.

It’s true that it’s important for citizens to accept election results, but not if the votes were miscounted or the election were hijacked. This is why things like voting security and accurate tabulation are so important. The process of elections must be above reproached. Which is why voting integrity laws are not anti-democratic. Quite the contrary.

The Economy, Stupid

Inflation is a huge problem. And while Presidents are often blamed for a bad economy and praised for a good economy even if they had nothing to do with it, in this case, the President and the Democratically-controlled legislative branch do bear responsibility. Funding COVID bailouts, infrastructure programs, and other spending by printing trillions of dollars that we do not have can only be inflationary. Add to that supply chain problems due to misguided COVID shutdowns and regulations, energy restrictions, and other regulatory mismanagement–in addition to the war in Ukraine and distortions in global trade–the current Democratic regime has much to answer for.

Notice that Democrats are not campaigning on their “Inflation Reduction Bill,” which actually was yet another pretext to pour more trillions of spending into the economy, making inflation even worse. Instead, they do things like Biden taking credit for the social security benefit increase, tweeting, “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.” But the increase is pegged by law for inflation! The only reason Social Security payments are going up is because Biden has messed up the economy so badly!

What they will do to our kids?

There is overwhelming antipathy among parents–even those who normally lean liberal–to what has become a shibboleth for progressive Democrats: transgendering children. A study has found that 63% of Americans say they will be less likely–with an additional 9% saying they will be somewhat less likely–to vote for a candidate who supports giving anti-puberty drugs and sex change surgery to minors.

And yet, President Biden, the educational establishment, and progressive “rights” organizations are all for it. To the point sometimes of administering these life-changing treatments that can include sterilization to children without the parents’ permission! Parents across the political spectrum are scared to death of this. Suddenly, they see public schools as a physical threat to the their kids! Politicians and activists should beware of what parents will do when they believe their children are threatened.

Crime Destroying Our Cities

The George Floyd killing resulted in a wave of white guilt that allowed Black Lives Matter rioters and Antifa to burn our cities and that provoked the “defund the police” movement. Now the state of some of our major cities–San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York, Portland, and more–at least in some neighborhoods have descended into anarchy.

Progressive politicians have decriminalized shoplifting, which gives us more shoplifting, shuttering businesses and driving them away. Progressive District Attorneys are refusing to prosecute “minor crimes” and have eliminated cash bail for serious crimes, meaning criminals who are arrested are soon released back into the communities they have terrorized.

Yes, funding for the police once defunded has largely been restored, but departments are severely undermanned. Few people want to be police officers, so demonized is that profession. This is a problem especially among Blacks and Hispanics, who would be made to feel ashamed for becoming a cop, at the very time we need more minority police officers. And the officers who are still serving are severely demoralized, since the criminals they arrest are just set free, and since they risk going to jail themselves if they inadvertently hurt a criminal they are trying to subdue.

This shakes even liberals, though they may not want to admit it, as well as those who actually have to live in these war zones, mostly Blacks and Hispanics, giving them more reason to defect from the Democrats.

The COVID Chain of Events

Rank and file Americans harbor a deep resentment of the COVID shutdown and how it was handled. Yes, Trump started it, but progressives governors and bureaucrats were the most heavy-handed and punitive in enforcing their rules: forbidding people to go to work, to go to church, to mingle with friends, to go to school, etc., etc. Americans are not used to being ordered about like that.

As Stephen Kru iser points out, the government’s COVID response led to many of our other problems: inflation (due to bailouts), economic woes (due to shutting down the economy), controversies over the election (due to changing election rules due to COVID), parents’ outrage at the public schools (because of closing schools over COVID, thus harming their children, exposing the perfidy of teacher unions, and making parents aware via online instruction at home of the political and sexual curriculum their children were getting indoctrinated in).

Why Won’t You Defend Yourself?

And the big puzzler is, if Democrats think their policies are so good, why aren’t they running on them? Where are the ads taking credit for the “Inflation Reduction Act”? Where are the speeches in which politicians take credit for “criminal justice reform”? What politician is congratulating himself for critical race theory in the classroom and “gender affirmation” treatments for children?

Democrats aren’t even defending the policies they have put in place–just denying their effects or trying to distract attention away from them. As Victor Davis Hanson says, “Strangely the hard-left architects of the last two years neither offer a defense of their failing agendas, nor agree to change them.”

Most Americans Do Want Abortion

Sadly, most Americans do seem to want abortion. Most of them want some limits, but they seem willing to accept no limits, if it means the freedom to abort one’s child.

This is our nation’s original sin today. We’ll see if the lust to free ourselves–women and the men who want to have sex with them without the burden of having a son or a daughter–will outweigh all of the other factors above.

Again, have your computer with you while you watch the returns and comment on what unfolds!

Photo by Tom Arthur from Orange, CA, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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What We Say in Public vs. What We Really Think

Last updated on: November 4, 2022 at 8:21 am By Gene Veith

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When we talk to our friends or colleagues or take an opinion poll, we say one thing about our beliefs. But deep inside, we might believe something else. That is to say, social pressure influences our public opinions, what we say in public; but our private opinions may be completely different.

Erin Norman has written an article for The Hill entitled Why Americans are concealing their true political beliefs. She reports on a study from the think tank Populace Insight that compared what people say and what they really think as applied to hot-button political and cultural issues.

Researchers gave participants sets of questions, but asked them only to record how many statements they agreed with. Thus, they didn’t have to commit to expressing a direct opinion. But this gave the researchers aggregate data that they could compare to traditional polling data. The information is then sorted out demographically. (See the study report, Private Opinion in America, for a fuller explanation of the methodology.)

Less than half, 48%, of people age 30-45 say publicly that parents should have more say in school curriculum, but three-quarters, 74%, actually believe that they should.

Overall, 53% of Americans agree publicly that “racism is built into the American economy, government, and educational system.” But only 44% believe that privately. The gap is even bigger with 18-29 year olds: 65% say publicly that they believe in systemic racism, but only 42% actually believe it.

Very few Americans believe that corporate CEOs should take a public stand on controversial social issues. Only 28% say publicly that they should, but half that, 14%, believe it privately. And among Democrats, there is an even bigger gap: 44% take the party line that corporations should advocate for “woke” causes, but only 11% actually believe it.

Interestingly, this works both ways. Among Republicans, only 13% agree that CEOs should take a stand on controversial issues, which is about what you would expect. But one out of five, 20%, actually are fine with it. Which is a bigger percentage than Democrats!

Americans are also more accepting of transgenderism than they let on. Among the general public, 59% say they agree that gender is determined at birth, but, privately, that dips to 53%. And 63% say teaching children in kindergarten through 3rd grade about gender identity is inappropriate, but, privately, that dips to 53%.

On the subject of abortion, the results are mixed. A slight majority of Americans do believe that “abortion should be legal in most cases,” with a small gap of 56% public and 51% private. Only 31% public and 29% private agree that Roe v. Wade should have been overturned. On “The choice to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor,” 67% say in public that they agree with that statement, though privately 58% do. Significantly, 60% of men say that only the mother should make the decision, but, actually, less than half, 48%, believe that.

In general, people are more conservative than they are willing to admit in public. This is especially true for Millennials and young people. “As groups, Hispanics and independents are the least comfortable sharing their private views in public,” says the report. “Across demographic groups, Hispanics and Independents have the greatest number of sensitive topics with double-digit gaps between public and private opinion (14 out of 25 issues).”

This is doubtless good news for conservatives, as young people, Independents, Hispanics, and others may well vote their way, despite what the polls may say, in the privacy of the voting booth.

But this is small comfort. What does it say about America that citizens are afraid to say openly what they really believe? And what does it say that, in some cases, a left-leaning minority is capable of exerting so much social pressure that a majority of Americans feel constrained to say that they agree with them, even though they really don’t?

There is political power, which comes and goes. But there is also cultural power, the ability to set norms, determine values, exert peer pressure, and establish the criteria for social acceptability. And right now, the left wields that, no matter who wins the midterm elections.

Photo by cottonbro: https://www.pexels.com/photo/shallow-focus-photo-of-man-holding-face-mask-8091607/

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