Luther at the Movies Destroys the Metaverse

Last updated on: October 24, 2022 at 8:43 am By Gene Veith

Some of you may remember the legendary blog Luther at the Movies, which portrayed the venerable reformer as somehow finding himself in our contemporary age, whereupon he thunders against the religious and cultural foibles of our times and reviews movies. His “execrable assistant,” who actually wrote the posts, was a Lutheran comedy writer and editor named Anthony Sacramone.

He seems to have had a crisis of faith and disappeared from the blogosphere, after writing a body of work that is some of my favorite religious satire, being both hilarious and devastating. Those of you who were with this blog from its inception will recall him fondly, since I was always linking to him, and you may have wondered whatever happened to him.

Well, he contacted me recently, wanting me to review a book for the periodical he edits, Religion & Liberty, a publication of the Acton Institute think tank. His day job has always been editing periodicals, and he has been diligently fulfilling this vocation, including a stint with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the scourge of woke academia.

He put me on to his website Anthony Sacramone: Writer of Fun Things, which contains the whole archive of Luther at the Movies and his other legendary blog Strange Herring, plus lots more things he has been writing.

The latest issue of Religion & Liberty is devoted completely to the metaverse, that attempt to replace actual reality with virtual reality. We’ve been blogging about this. (See, for example, here and here.) Sacramone destroys the concept not with satire but this time with his skill as an editor, assembling a wide range of writers and articles who undermine the metaverse dream. Here are the articles:

The Metaverse Does Not Exist by Dan Hugger

The Screen Is Not Your Master by Dan Churchwell

Bodies Must Worship by Trevor Sutton

Jacques Ellul and the Idols of Transhumanism by Stefan Lindholm

The Digital Economy in Christian Perspective by Dylan Pahman and Alexander Salter

Friendship in the Age of Facebook by Rachel Ferguson

The first three are available online, as linked. The others will go up on the days ahead. Sacramone has changed Religion & Liberty from a blog to a webzine and–starting with the Winter issue–an actual hard-copy magazine that you can subscribe to. (For now, the complete issues are available at the archive.)

To give you a taste, Dan Hugger in The Metaverse Does Not Exist explores the origins of the metaverse in Science Fiction, particularly the work of Philip K. Dick, along with other novelists and filmmakers. They not only anticipate the technology but critique its implications before the technology even exists. “The metaverse, as of yet, does not exist,” he writes. “It’s a fiction built upon science fiction. A dream with dreamers of the day dreaming it who, if anyone can, will make it possible. The meaning of the metaverse is thus the meaning of the desires for the metaverse. Where does one find the reality in illusion itself? In the alluring hopes and haunting fears of the science fiction from which it first arose.”

Hugger shows the religious themes attached to this dreams of an illusion. The metaverse becomes the equivalent of the spiritual realm, with prospects for everlasting life. And Hugger closes by bringing the actual Luther to bear on the issue:

The first commandment given to Moses on Mount Sinai was “Thou shalt have no other Gods.” In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther gave a concise explanation for this commandment, stating simply: “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” Science fiction writers explore alternate realities in the realm of the imagination but rarely trust them. Faith placed in the metaverse to emancipate us from the constraints of creation and providence is a faith misplaced, one built on the shifting sand of the whims and capacities of those who fashion them. Looking to the metaverse for love, community, and solidarity outside our service to neighbors in the real world violates our duty to both them and their Creator. To fear the metaverse is also wrong, as God provides all we need even in this oversaturated information age. Philip K. Dick famously defined reality as “that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” The ultimate reality, God himself, is with us always, “And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31:8).

Tomorrow, we’ll look at what Trevor Sutton, my co-author on Authentic Christianity: How Lutheran Theology Speaks to the Postmodern Age, has to say about worship in the metaverse.

Photo: Anthony Sacramone via The Stream

5 Tips To Keep In Mind When Visiting A Lutheran Church

Last updated on: October 24, 2022 at 8:36 am By Gene Veith

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When my wife and I first attended a Lutheran service, we were impressed with how formal it was, a far cry from what we were used to in the mainline Protestant denominations we grew up in and in the evangelical congregations we attended in college. So we came back next week, only to find both the congregation and the pastor chanting. We thought we had been transported back to the Middle Ages.

It turns out, that first service we attended was the one informal service that was held on months with five Sundays. We came to learn that when Lutherans try to be informal–or, more recently, contemporary–they are still more formal and less contemporary than just about anyone else. But the definitive Lutheran worship, which we learned to treasure, is to be found in what they call the “Divine Service,” which is called that because in it, Lutherans believe, God serves us.

Patheos has asked its writers to respond to some of the most frequent questions about the various religious traditions that they receive. What most puzzles Patheos readers about Lutheranism is its worship. They wonder what they need to know in order to understand what is going on. Specifically, as the Patheos editors summarize the inquiries, “What should I keep in mind when visiting a Lutheran church?” So it falls to me to try to explain.

What follows is an account of the traditional Divine Service, which can be dressed up or down, made more elaborate or more simple. Even contemporary Lutheran services will tend to have the same structure and most of the same elements–from the confession and absolution to the Law & Gospel sermons–so that what I describe here, except for what I say about music, will mostly still apply.

(1) The Liturgy Consists Mostly of Words from Scripture

The first reaction of many visitors is, “This is Catholic!” Or, “This is too Catholic!” Yes, the liturgy goes way back through church history and is similar to that of Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, and, among Protestants, Anglicans, whose Book of Common Prayer was greatly influenced by Lutheranism.

But the Lutheran liturgy also shows forth the principles of the Reformation. Luther wanted to reform the church, not start a new one. Later Protestants would want to start, more or less, from scratch, but the work of “reforming” means changing what is problematic, but leaving what is good. For Luther, everything that pointed away from Christ and the Gospel should be eliminated, but what does point to Christ and the Gospel should be retained.

So the Lutheran liturgy leaves out elements in the Catholic mass such as praying for the dead and invoking the saints. But it retains the overall structure and the ancient liturgical set-pieces, such as the Kyrie (“Lord have mercy. . .”) and the Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”). In fact, those set pieces and nearly all of the responses of the congregation are taken straight from the Bible. When someone objects to our liturgy, I ask, “Which words of God do you think we shouldn’t say?”

The sanctuary will also demonstrate the Reformation principle of retaining elements that point to Christ. There will typically be quite a bit of art in the sanctuary. Lots of crosses. That will include pictures of Jesus and other representational art. This is not idolatry, since that means worshiping false gods and Jesus is the true God, who came as a visible, tangible human being discernible by the senses (1 John 1:1). Lots of crucifixes, depicting Jesus on the cross. Some Christians say that one should only use empty crosses because Jesus isn’t on the cross any more–He rose! Well, Lutherans certainly believe in His Resurrection (and also have empty crosses), but we need to keep a constant focus on “Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:1 and 2 Corinthians 1:2), upon which which our salvation is based and which Lutherans apply in a host of ways in their “theology of the Cross.”

(2) Chanting Lets Us Sing Prose, Such as Texts from Scripture

The Divine Service is mostly chanted by both the pastor and the congregation. This may be the aspect that seems the most “Catholic” or “Medieval” or just unusual to visitors. But chanting, with its flexible meter and flowing melodic line, is simply the way that a person can sing prose.

Most of our songs today–whether hymns or raps–are metrical, with fixed patterns of rhythm and rhyme. That is to say, they put music to poems. But it is also possible to sing any sequence of words. That requires music that flows along with the pattern of speech. This is what chanting is.

Some of my friends who are Reformed (a term Lutherans never use for themselves), belong to Psalms-only congregations. Using their principle that Christians may only do what the Bible specifies (while Lutherans believe they are free to do whatever the Bible does not forbid), they do not sing hymns, just Psalms. But what they sing are really metrical paraphrases of the Psalms, forced onto the Procrustean bed of meter and rhyme. But we Lutherans sing the Psalms right out of the Bible by chanting them.

Lutherans do sing hymns that will be familiar to most visitors, including some of those metrical Psalms, drawing on the vast and varied musical heritage of the church universal. Perhaps stranger to some visitors’ ears are the hymns from the Lutheran tradition, particularly those from the 16th and 17th century, often in the baroque style of vivid imagery and achingly beautiful, but complex, music.

(3) The Pastor Will Forgive Your Sins

What most puts off quite a few visitors is at the beginning of the service when the members of the congregation confess their sins, first reflecting silently and then reading a prayer of repentance, after which the pastor says this or something like it:

Almighty God in His mercy has given His Son to die for you and for His sake forgives you all your sins. As a called and ordained servant of the Word I announce the grace of God to all of you, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

“I forgive you?” some say. “The pastor can’t forgive sins! Only Jesus can do that!” Well, right, only Jesus can forgive sins. But Lutherans believe that God works through human beings. That is the doctrine of vocation. Notice the wording: “As a called and ordained servant of the Word.” “Called” refers to vocation, which is simply the Latinate word for “calling.” God forgives sins through pastors, just as He gives us our daily bread through farmers and creates new life through mothers and fathers. The basis of the pastor’s forgiveness, also known as “absolution,” is “the grace of God to all of you” and the fact that He “has given His Son to die for you.” (Lutherans reject the Reformed doctrine of Limited Atonement, so all have access to this grace and atonement.)

And the Scriptural warrant for human beings forgiving sins is pretty explicit. After His resurrection, Jesus breathes on His disciples, saying,“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld” (John 20:22-23).

(4) You Will Hear a Law and Gospel Sermon

The sermon may also be different from what you are used to. There will be no politics, no pop psychology, no Biblical principles for successful living. (Lutheranism, with its theology of cross-bearing, is pretty much the opposite of the Prosperity Gospel.) The sermon will be based on one or more of the three Bible readings (an Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel reading as determined by the Lectionary, a plan for Scripture reading tied to the church year), but it will be handled in terms of the distinct Lutheran hermeneutic and preaching paradigm of Law and Gospel.

The moral law in the Scripture will be proclaimed, but in a way that precludes self-righteousness. Listeners will be persuaded that they do not, in fact, obey God’s Law, with its multiple ramifications, and that they are in sore need of repentance. Whereupon the sermon will move to a proclamation of the Gospel, namely, that Christ has fulfilled this law on our behalf and has paid the penalty that we deserve for breaking it with His atoning death and resurrection. When we know that we are sinners and cannot save ourselves and believe that Jesus has died for us and offers us new life, we have saving faith, which, in turn, bears the fruit of love for our neighbors.

This is not “cheap grace” the pastor is teaching. A skillful preacher can really make you feel guilty, which tempers our bad behavior. And, by preaching the Gospel, he really make you feel free. Lutherans speak of three uses of the Law: the first, the civil use, is to restrain our external sinful proclivities; the second, the theological use, is to convict us of sin and drive us to the Gospel; and the third, the didactic use, is to teach Christians how to live in order to please God, which, motivated by gratitude, they now desire to do.

You will find no altar call in a Lutheran sermon. Coming to faith is not a one-time decision. Rather, the pattern of repentance and faith is repeated throughout the Christian’s life, and is enacted throughout the Divine Service. The point at which you objectively became a Christian is when you were Baptized, even as an infant, a purely passive experience in which God called you by name and gave you the gift of the Holy Spirit. But, just as that infant must be fed, be taught, and grow, the baptized Christian must be fed and taught and grow by means of the Word and Sacraments. Otherwise, faith will die.

(5) You Must be Catechized Before You Go Up for Communion.

If you are a visitor to a Lutheran church, observe what is happening and, if you want, go up for a blessing. (Bow and cross your arms when the pastor comes your way.) But if you are not a Lutheran and if the pastor doesn’t know you, you should refrain from taking the consecrated bread and wine. The liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) would probably let you, but the more conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and smaller and independent church bodies practice “closed communion.” Sometimes this is phrased as “close” communion, meaning that those who commune together should be close to each other as in being part of the same congregation or church body, but it means the same, that the altar is “closed” to those who have not been catechized and confirmed in the host church, its denomination, or a denomination with which it is in formal fellowship.

Please, please, do not be insulted, as many visitors are. Lutherans are not denying that you are a Christian. Anyone, of any denomination or non-denomination, who confesses faith in Christ is considered to be a Christian, and Lutherans do accept all Baptisms, of whatever mode or at whatever age. It’s just that Lutherans hold to the Biblical teaching that no one should receive the Lord’s Supper without examining oneself and without “discerning the body” (1 Corinthians 11:28-29).

“Discerning the body,” of course, means different things to different theologies. Catholics believe the bread is transubstantiated into the Body of Christ and so is no longer bread; Calvinists believe in a spiritual presence that depends on the faith of the person receiving it; most Protestants, again, hold it be merely symbolic. But Lutherans believe that the body and blood of Christ are really present in, with, and under the bread and wine. More than that, Christ gives His body and His blood in these physical elements “for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28). Evangelicals speak of “receiving Christ” at their conversion. Lutherans believe they “receive Christ” every time they take Holy Communion.

Some say that “discerning the body” refers not to the bread and wine of Holy Communion, but to the Body of Christ that is the Church. Well, fine, and maybe it refers to both, since the two senses are intimately connected. But that too is an argument for “closed” or “close” communion, since it requires awareness of those with whom you are communing.

Catholics and the Orthodox also practice closed communion, in line with their similarly high view of the Sacrament. I have had occasions—weddings and funerals—to attend a Catholic mass, but it never bothered me that I couldn’t take communion. I didn’t want to. If I presented myself for communion, I would be participating with a church body that I don’t belong to and that I don’t agree with. This is also why most Lutherans won’t commune at other churches that practice “open” communion. It’s a matter of respecting differences. And this respect can co-exist with a spirit of welcome and good-will.

So, please, visitors, know that you are welcome to a Lutheran service and don’t let our quirks be an obstacle. I think you will appreciate, as my wife and I did, the sense of transcendence and holiness that we found there.

If you would like to learn more about Lutheranism, read the book that I wrote on that subject, The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals; talk to a pastor; and visit the Divine Service.

Photo: Divine Service by adcarlson2 via Lutheran Wikia

The Hippocratic Oath vs. the New Medical Oaths

Last updated on: October 14, 2022 at 5:20 pm By Gene Veith

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Yesterday’s post about sterilizing young children in the name of “gender affirmation” makes us wonder, how could doctors do such a thing?

From time immemorial, physicians have sworn to “do no harm.” Of course, they have also sworn not to commit abortion. Or euthanasia. Those parts have been omitted in the many versions of the Hippocratic Oath that physicians have to take upon graduation from medical school, before they enter the profession.

Here is the original version, dated from the 3rd or 4th century B.C. It invokes the Greco-Roman gods of healing and reflects the medical practices of the day.

The early church Christianized the oath. Here is The Christian Hippocratic Oath, dated from the 2nd or 3rd century A.D., first recorded in the 4th century, and written out in the shape of a Cross (see illustration, above), a beautiful expression of medicine as vocation:

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, be blessed for ever and ever. I do not lie.

I will not tarnish the science of medicine.

I will not give anyone poison, even if he asks me for it, nor will I suggest anyone to take it.

Likewise, I will not induce abortion in any woman with treatment from above or below.

I will teach the art to those who want to learn it, without hiding anything from them and without making them my servants.

According to my ability and judgement, I will only apply my treatments for the benefit of the sick. I will practice my art with purity and holiness.

In whatever house I enter, I shall enter to help the sick, and I shall refrain from any action, intentional or unintentional, that may cause harm or death, and from any erotic intercourse with servant or free, male or female.

I will keep silent about everything I see or hear, on the occasion of my internship (or even outside of it in my social relations), and I will consider these things as a sacred secret.

If I keep this oath and do not break it, may God help me in my life and in my art, and may I be honoured of men. If I remain faithful, may I be saved; but if I swear falsely, may the contrary befall me.

Here is the watered down and uglified Modern Version, that has been used by many medical schools. But in a 1989 survey of 126 American medical schools, only three used the original oath; 67 used the modified version; others used alternatives or didn’t bother with any of them. A survey in 1993 found that only 14% of medical oaths taken prohibited euthanasia, and only 8% prohibited abortion.

Now, though, we are in the era of woke academia, so a new kind of oath has emerged, one that heralds a new approach to medicine. What follows is from the University of Minnesota White Coat Ceremony, in which new students are given their white lab coats, symbolizing their entry into the field of medicine. In keeping with postmodernist notion that ethical principles are self-constructed, rather than being tied to transcendent truths, students come up with their own oath, as composed by a committee from the class. Here it is:

So the upcoming physicians commit themselves to oppose the “gender binary,” the existence of two sexes, which they classify along with white supremacy, colonialism, and ableism in the demonology of “oppression.” Just as Hippocrates invoked the Greek deities and Christian physicians invoked “God the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” this oath invokes the totems of wokeism.

Most interestingly, though, it also makes the future doctors “pledge to honor all indigenous ways of healing that have historically been marginalized by Western medicine.” So much for modern medicine!

Illustration: A 12th century Greek manuscript of the Christian Hippocratic Oath, used in book: Foto de la Biblioteca Vaticanascan from book: User:Rmrfstar – page 27 of Surgery: An Illustrated History by Ira M. Rutkow, M.D. published in 1993: ISBN 0801660785., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1446714

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Salvation by Dying in Battle

Last updated on: October 10, 2022 at 12:42 pm By Gene Veith

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In support of Vladimir Putin’s order to mobilize Russians for the war in Ukraine, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, proclaimed that “sacrifice in the course of carrying out your military duty cleanses away all sins.”

That is to say, if you die while invading the Ukraine–as is happening to so many Russian soldiers who are being slaughtered by Ukrainians fighting to protect their homeland–your sins will be forgiven and you will attain salvation. Patriarch Kirill is turning the invasion into a holy war.

This is Islamic theology. In a jihad, a holy war against the infidels–a concept seized upon by Islamic terrorists–those who die while killing the enemies of Allah–often construed as Orthodox Christians–have their sins forgiven and go straight to a martyr’s reward in paradise.

The medieval crusades were a Christian jihad, in which popes offered a complete indulgence for those who volunteered to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim control, so that those who died in the effort would be cleansed of their sins, spared Purgatory, and accepted directly into Heaven.

The crusades pioneered this concept of indulgences, which the church would later sell to raise money, leading Luther–who attacked the theology behind the crusades–to post his 95 Theses.

Ironically, one thing that the crusades did accomplish was the sack of Constantinople, in which self-styled holy warriors destroyed a Christian city, slaughtering thousands of Orthodox Christians. The crusaders essentially ended the Byzantine Empire, leading to the Muslim dominance of the Middle East that continues to this day. Orthodox Christians throughout the east were horrified by this atrocity on the part of the western church. And now an Orthodox Patriarch is teaching that same mindset?

Here is how Archbishop Kirill explains his teaching, from a sermon as reported by Mark Tooley in World:

“And at the same time, the Church realizes that if someone, driven by a sense of duty and the need to honor his oath, stays loyal to his vocation and dies while carrying out his military duty, then he is, without any doubt, doing a deed that is equal to sacrifice. . . .He is sacrificing himself for others. And, therefore, we believe that this sacrifice cleanses away all of that person’s sins.”

No, your Beatitude, we are not cleansed of our sins by our sacrifice, but by the sacrifice of Christ.

We do not have to die; rather, Christ died for us.

We are not saved by our “deeds” but by the deeds of Christ, who atoned for our sins and rose from the dead.

I do appreciate your attention to vocation. Yes, we are called to do our duty in our various vocations, including military service, in which we are to love and serve our neighbors in acts of sacrifice. You might consider whether you and President Putin are loving and serving your Ukrainian neighbors by invading them. Or whether in your vocation as the head of the church you are loving and serving the flock under your care by sending them to their deaths under false assurances that deny the Gospel.

In any event, however important vocations are and however pure and self-sacrificial our deeds in vocation might be, we are not saved by our vocations. We are saved by Christ.

Photo: Patriarch Kirill with Vladimir Putin via Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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How Lutheranism Shaped the “Nordic System”

Last updated on: September 29, 2022 at 8:52 pm 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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A Lutheran Critique of National Conservatism

Last updated on: September 30, 2022 at 8:41 am By Gene Veith

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James R. Rogers is a Texas A&M political scientist and member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, whom I have referenced frequently at this blog . (For example, see this.) So I was curious how he would come down on the current controversy in religious circles over National Conservatism that we have been following. (See my posts A Manifesto for National Conservatism, National Conservatism and Religion, and The Debate Over Nations, Empire, and the Church.) He has come through in a piece for Law & Liberty entitled Looking for a Church in the State.

In attempting to respond to the movement as a Lutheran, I attempted a critique in terms of Luther’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. Prof. Rogers takes a different but complementary approach. He criticizes the defining document National Conservatism: A Statement of Principles in terms of Luther’s doctrine of the Three Estates. the three institutions–the church, the family, and the state–that God created for human flourishing.

Prof. Rogers argues that National Conservatism ascribes to the state attributes that only belong to the church; indeed, as the title of his article suggests, it attempts to turn the state into the church. He says, “the Statement looks to the nation and other worldly institutions to provide the type of solidarity only the Church can provide, and aspirations only the Church can realize.”

According to the Statement, the nation-state provides a foundation not only for patriotism but also for “religion and wisdom, congregation and family, man and woman, the sabbath and the sacred, and reason and justice.”

What can one say? Only an untoward enthusiasm can locate a “proper public orientation toward” realities like “man and woman,” “religion and wisdom,” and even “the sacred” and “reason” itself in the restoration of the nation-state. I always assumed that conservatives generally hold as a part of their conservatism that these phenomena have their own integral existence outside the existence of the nation-state (it is certainly true that they all existed prior to the rise of the nation-state), and that recognition is due these phenomena as a result of their reality irrespective of the status of the nation-state at the time.

As a result of this emphasis, “it is exclusively to the political, and not to the religious, that the Statement looks for social redemption. It expressly proffers the nation ‘as the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies’ (emphasis added).”

The document speaks of religion and Christianity, but it never so much as mentions “the church.” Prof. Rogers observes that it does speak of “congregations,” which are local, but not “the church,” which is universal. And in speaking of Christianity, it ignores its central teaching.

Instead, what the Statement emphasizes about Christianity is not the Gospel but rather its “moral vision.” To be sure, the Gospel and Christianity’s moral vision are not antithetical; I do not in the least suggest that antinomian love should replace grim moralism. But, critically, the Gospel does not merely offer a “moral vision,” it offers transformation—literally a transfiguration of the human in Christ (Romans 12:2 and 2 Co 3:8). . . . Without the liberation of the Gospel, moralism only kills.

The nation and the family are important, to be sure, but “the Church is the Christian’s first family, the Church is the Christian’s first polis, and the Church is the Christian’s first ethnos.” And “the Church uniquely offers what the nation-state cannot provide: A true solidarity, a true union between peoples without tyranny.”

In stressing the centrality of the church, Prof. Rogers is emphatically not recommending that the church rule the state, as some Christians are recommending.

The point is not that the Church somehow runs the nation-state in this age. Forsooth!

Rather, the point is that the community of the nation-state is but an image of the full community—the communion—found only in the Church. This telos is of course realized only in the Age to Come with the passing of the nation-state. . . The point is not to conflate ecclesial governance with civil governance; it is not an invitation to “immanentize the eschaton.” Rather it is to identify what is the proper ultimate in the Aristotelian sense. While the Statement identifies the nation-state as the “foundation” for revivifying civil, religious, and familial life, and so asserts a political-centric reality, it does so by ignoring the appropriately ecclesiocentric claims of the Church.

Prof. Rogers agrees with the Statement that the family, the nation, and Bible-reading are important, and that Christians could make common cause with National Conservatives on many issues. But its “foundational commitments are fundamentally wrongheaded.”

This helps. But I see a problem or at least a limitation with what Prof. Rogers calls his “ecclesiocentric political and social theory.” It is helpful in adjusting the attitudes of Christians to each other and to the nation they live in. But how does it apply to a society of non-Christians, which most Western nations have become and which the United States is rapidly becoming?

God indeed reigns in a hidden way even over those who do not know Him, and He blesses them through the estates of the family and the nation. Non-Christians too have and are part of families. Non-Christians too are citizens of their nations. But they are not members of the church.

What should their social polity look like? Wouldn’t it need to be centered around the other God-ordained estates that they are a part of, the family and the nation? While it is true that those estates, unlike the church, can never be transcendent or eternal–and the Statement errs when it implies that they are–they still are necessary for human flourishing on earth, if not in heaven. So it would seem that a secular political ideology should emphasize them, even though Christians will consider them incomplete.

Also, the church’s “moral vision”–that is, the First Use of the Law–is the part of its teaching that does relate to the temporal kingdom. The state can never save anyone, since no one can coerce faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ; that is to say, the state can never be a church. But the church can offer the state, however secular it may be, a beneficial moral influence, especially as its members–who are also members of the state–live out their faith in good works.

Which brings up the topic of vocation, which may be a way for Christians to extend at least some of the community that can be found only in the church to outsiders. Prof. Rogers criticizes the Statement for saying nothing about the Christian virtue of love. Indeed, Christians could extend “true solidarity” and “true union between peoples without tyranny” through the doctrine of vocation, in which they are called to love and serve their neighbors, including non-believers, in their various vocations in all of the estates.

Illustration from the Marriage and Religion Research Institute

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