Biblical Worldview Crisis?

Last updated on: June 6, 2021 at 4:46 pm By Gene Veith

A worldview is the set of assumptions and beliefs according to which you see the world. The concept derives from Kant, who coined the term Weltanschauung (in English, worldview) for the mind’s preconceptions by which it organizes the data it receives from the outside world. You don’t have to be a Kantian to find the notion useful, as it is applicable in many different fields.

A number of Reformed theologians, notably Abraham Kuyper as popularized by Francis Schaeffer, have shown its importance for Christians. If you believe in the Bible, its teachings should affect the way you view the world. A Christian will therefore think differently than non-Christians, and this will affect every area of life.

I have found this concept extremely useful in my study of literature, art, and culture. And it can help Christians see the implications of their faith, apply Biblical truth to their vocations, and recognize the alternative worldviews of the surrounding non-Christian culture so as to avoid succumbing to them.

So, yes, I am a worldview critic. And yet, as a Lutheran, I look at some aspects of Biblical worldview in a somewhat different way than my Reformed friends and colleagues. This will be a matter for more than one post. . .

First comes the news that only 6% of Americans–and only 9% of Christians (!)–actually have a Biblical worldview.

This was the finding of research sponsored by the Family Research Council, which has launched a Center for Biblical Worldview. The findings were published in the report Perceptions about Biblical Worldview and Its Application.

Now around two-thirds of Americans identify as Christians, and the study found that 51% of American adults claim to have a Biblical worldview. But then those supposed Bible believers were asked specific questions.

The study found that a minority of those Christians who thought they did have a Biblical worldview actually held to teachings the researchers considered to be benchmarks of a Biblical worldview. Only 9% got all of the answers right. From the study:

[Only] 26% believe the personal accumulation of money and other forms of wealth have been entrusted to them by God to manage for His purposes
[Only] 29% believe that the best indicator of success in life is consistent obedience to God
[Only] 33% believe that human beings are born with a sinful nature and can only be saved from the consequences of sin by Jesus Christ
[Only] 47% believe that when they die they will go to Heaven only because they have confessed their sins and have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior
[Only] 48% believe that it is very important for their religious faith to influence every dimension of life
[Only] 49% say that their most likely source of moral guidance in any given situation would be the Bible
[A whopping] 49% accept reincarnation as a possibility after they die

The researchers had asked 1,000 Americans to pick from a survey which position best reflected their beliefs. Christian journalist Tyler O’Neil, writing about the findings, asked the Center for Biblical Worldview what the other choices were. That is, what beliefs they held to instead of a Biblical worldview. Here are a couple of them, from the article:

Researchers also asked, “Which of these statements best describes your view of the human condition?” The options included (biblical answer in bold):

-People were originally good but have become corrupted by society

-There is no such thing as a person being good or bad; people are who they are

-People are born into sin and can only be saved from its consequences by Jesus Christ

-People are neither good or bad when they are born, but everyone becomes one or the other according to their life choices

-Everyone is a divine creature engaged in the eternal pursuit of unity and a perfected consciousness.

Only 33 percent of respondents chose the biblical answer on the human condition.

. . . . .

Researchers also asked, “Which one of these statements best describes what you believe will happen to you after you die?

-You will go to Heaven because you have worked hard to be a good enough person to earn that reward

-You will go to Heaven only because you confessed your sins and have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior

-You will go to Heaven because God loves all people and will not let you perish

-You will probably go to Hell

-You will go to a place of purification before you can enter Heaven

-There is no life after death, physically or spiritually; you will simply cease to exit

-You will return to Earth as a different life form or different person

Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents chose the biblical answer about heaven, while another half (49 percent) accepted reincarnation as a possibility after they die.

The report of the study does not include these questions. It would be extremely interesting to know also what percentage of Christians picked these other choices. The details of the survey are probably forthcoming.

Now all of this is depressing enough, and it’s a testimony to the appalling lack of catechesis and basic Christian instruction in contemporary Christianity.

As a Lutheran, I would say that this is what happens when churches think they can do without creeds, confessions, and catechisms, which so many evangelical and non-denominational churches think are unnecessary. If you don’t identify your doctrinal beliefs, how can you teach them?

But also as a Lutheran, I would say that some of these worldview benchmarks themselves assume the worldview of Reformed Calvinism.

And as a worldview scholar myself, I would say that some of these are (extremely serious) doctrinal lapses rather than paradigms for looking at the world, as such. And that when we look at the deeper structure of Americans’ Weltanschuung, the Biblical worldview is still a powerful influence, even among secularists, though it may be fading in more subtle ways.

We’ll get into these topics next week!

Photo by form PxHere, Creative Commons 0, Public domain

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The Baptism of Simone Weil

Last updated on: May 30, 2021 at 6:06 pm By Gene Veith

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Yesterday we blogged about The Conversion of Simone Weil. There is more to the story. . .

This brilliant young woman was a peer of French existentialists, such as Albert Camus and Andre Gide, as well as leftwing activists, including Leon Trotsky, atheists all. That she became a Christian was thus very notable. And the intensity of her devotion and the quality of her piety was striking and greatly impressed the small world of European intellectuals just before and after the war.

Gide said, “Mademoiselle Weil is the most truly spiritual writer of this century.” Camus described her as “the only great spirit of our times.” Another modernist convert to Christianity, T. S. Eliot, called her “a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of saints.

And yet, the reason you may have never heard of her is that Christians don’t quite know what to do with her. She accepted Christ, as we say, but she refused to get baptized. In her book Waiting for God, she said that she considered her vocation to be that of an outsider, and so she resolved, despite her faith and her own desire, to be an outsider to the Church as well. This, for her, was the ultimate act of self-denial.

Now this makes no sense at all. From a Protestant point of view, the very fact of her faith made her a member of the invisible church, but what she knew was French Catholicism. Certainly, one can be a Christian without being baptized, but that usually happens when there is no opportunity to get baptized, as with the thief on the cross. It is said that the lack of baptism does not condemn, but only despising it condemns. But she seemed to despise it! And how Christian can she really be if she rejects what Christ has commanded?

This is especially a problem in the context of Catholicism, which is was her orbit, going to mass, watching the Eucharist being celebrated–and writing eloquently about it–but never partaking of it. Her evident sanctity–which even cynical atheists like Camus and Gide were greatly moved by–led to a movement after her death to have her declared a saint. But that would be impossible if she wasn’t even baptized!

To be sure, Weil (pronounced “Veyh”) was extremely eccentric in many ways, but this hang-up about baptism would seem to limit her stature as a Christian thinker.

Well, a bit of information has come out. Biographers began reporting rumors and second-hand reports to the effect that she had been baptized after all, except not by a priest. And in 1994, a scholar confirmed those reports and actually interviewed the person who baptized her.

Weil’s Wikipedia article now says that she was “probably baptized.” The footnote to that statement took me to the article by Eric O. Springsted, “The Baptism of Simone Weil” in Spirit, Nature and Community: Issues in the Thought of Simone Weil (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), which is available online.

Weil managed to leave Nazi-occupied France in 1942 with her parents, moving to New York. But she then went to England where she joined the French resistance movement, taking a position with Charles De Gaulle’s provisional government in London.

Always in poor health, Weil was diagnosed as having tuberculosis after she was found unconscious in her apartment in April 1943. Her condition was made worse by her resolution to eat no more than the food ration in occupied France. It was evident that she was dying.

As death neared, Weil sent for a priest, a Catholic chaplain for the resistance. She said that she wanted to be baptized, but underscored that she had disagreements with official Catholic teaching on several points. She got in an argument with the priest, who–in a shameful dereliction of pastoral care–refused to baptize her, reportedly saying that she was “too Jewish.”

After he left, Weil’s close friend, Simone Deitz, offered to baptize her herself. Weil agreed. Deitz took tap water and baptized her friend, as she reported, “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

On August 24, she died. She was 34 years old.

Baptisms by laity are valid. Even the Catholic church acknowledges that.

Springsted, a Weil scholar, identified Dietz as the rumored baptizer and interviewed her. She confirmed that she baptized Weil and filled out the details. Springsted’s article discusses the whole question and the controversy surrounding it, concluding that Dietz is telling the truth.

So evidently, like Herbert’s traveler, Simone Weil finally stopped quibbling and just accepted Christ’s gift.

Photo: Simone Weil by Unknown photographer – http://wunderbuzz.co.uk/author/iona-goulder/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29678012

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The Conversion of Simone Weil

Last updated on: May 30, 2021 at 3:28 pm By Gene Veith

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I’ve been working on a research project about the 17th century Christian poet George Herbert–whom I wrote my dissertation and my first book about–and how he has influenced readers with his Reformation-informed faith.

The French Jewish philosopher, social justice activist, and member of the anti-Nazi resistance Simone Weil, credits him directly for bringing about her conversion to Christianity. In digging into this incident, I discovered something more, which I’ll post about tomorrow.

Weil (pronounced “Veyh”) lived from 1909 to 1943, dying at the age of 34. She was a peer of the French existentialists and a star of the European intellectual scene before and during World War II. She said that she became a Christian through meditating on “Love” (III), a poem by Herbert about sin and grace, guilt overwhelmed by the love of God.

Here is her account of her conversion, from a letter to a priest, published in her book Waiting for God:

There was a young English Catholic there from whom I gained my first idea of the supernatural power of the sacraments because of the truly angelic radiance with which he seemed to be clothed after going to communion. Chance—for I always prefer saying chance rather than Providence—made of him a messenger to me. For he told me of the existence of those English poets of the seventeenth century who are named metaphysical. In reading them later on, I discovered the poem of which I read you what is unfortunately a very inadequate translation. It is called “Love.” I learned it by heart. Often, at the culminating point of a violent headache, I make myself say it over, concentrating all my attention upon it and clinging with all my soul to the tenderness it enshrines. I used to think I was merely reciting it as a beautiful poem, but without my knowing it the recitation had the virtue of a prayer. It was during one of these recitations that, as I told you, Christ himself came down and took possession of me.

Here is the poem:

Love (III)

by GEORGE HERBERT

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

This comes as the final poem in “The Church,” Herbertg’s carefully sequenced series on the Christian life, right after “Death,” “Dooms-day,” “Judgement,” and “Heaven.” As such, it is about the soul’s reception into everlasting life, using the figure of a simple country inn. The poem’s central conceit—of the servant being served by the master—derives from a comment of Jesus: Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them” (Luke 12:37).

The traveller is dusty (like Adam he is made of dust) and guilty, feeling that he doesn’t belong at the (heavenly) banquet. But as he draws away, Love (1 John 4:8) draws ever nearer, claiming him by virtue of creation (“Who made the eyes but I?”) and redemption (“And know you not. . .who bore the blame?”). The traveler says, in effect, fine then, but I will serve you, thinking in terms of salvation by good works. But no, he needs to be served. The imagery of a waiter at a meal turns into eucharistic imagery. All the traveller has to do is accept what Love has done for him. So he does.

The poem, for all of its artistry, conveys the Word of the Gospel, and that Word does not return void (Isaiah 55:11). Intensely meditation on these lines, Weil realized what they meant. “Christ himself came down and took possession of me.”

She said of the experience in Waiting for God, “In my arguments about the insolubility of the problem of God I had never foreseen the possibility of that, of a real contact, person to person, here below, between a human being and God.” Weil the philosopher had thought of God in purely abstract terms, considering not just God but “the problem of God.” Indeed, she found that problem “insoluble.” But the gospel and the sense of Christ coming down to her was “a real contact, person to person, here below, between a human being and God.”

This story is well-known for those acquainted with Weil, though perhaps it is new to you. But her story continues, and I found out something that is not generally known, even among Weil’s fans. I’ll tell about that tomorrow.

(For more on Weil and her theological reflections, see my post from last year Simone Weil on Vocation.)

Photo of Simone Weil by Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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LCMS-Related Christians Charged for Teaching the Bible

Last updated on: June 1, 2021 at 9:39 am By Gene Veith

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Last year I blogged about how a Finnish pastor and a laywoman who is a member of the Finnish parliament were being investigated by authorities for teaching what the Bible says about homosexuality. Now prosecutors have taken the step of issuing criminal charges against them and taking them to trial.

And lest we think that such persecution of believing Christians, while regrettable, at least is a problem on foreign shores far away from us, the individuals facing prison for their beliefs have direct ties to the Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod here in the United States.

I blogged about these two cases last year in my post Criminalizing Christian Teachings about Sex. Please read that.

Dr. Päivi Räsänen, a medical doctor and a member of parliament–who once was Minister of the Interior, no less–wrote a booklet in 2004 entitled Male and Female He Created Them (for an English translation, click the link), arguing that “Homosexual relationships challenge the Christian concept of humanity.”

Her book was published by the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland (ELMDF), a church body in full altar and pulpit fellowship with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Its bishop-elect is Rev. Dr. Juhana Pohjola, who earned his STM from Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, an LCMS institution, where he also served as a Visiting Scholar.

Finnish prosecutors began investigating Dr. Räsänen in 2019, believing that her book–printed with the support of the Lutheran Heritage Foundation, a Recognized Service Organization of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod–could constitute a violation of the law against “incitement against a group of people.” They also began an investigation of Rev. Pohjola, since he approved the book’s publication.

Prosecutors also found other incidents that could be considered criminal: she posted a tweet critical of the state church for being a sponsor of the Gay Pride parade, quoting Romans 1:24-27; and she gave the wrong answer when she was invited to speak on Finnish public radio on the topic of “what would Jesus think of the homosexual?”

Now both Dr. Räsänen and Rev. Pohjjola have been formally charged. They face up to two years in prison.

The Prosecutor General said that the book and statements from the pair are derogatory to homosexuals and therefore “overstep the boundaries of freedom of speech and religion.”

Finland, as a liberal democracy, ostensibly holds to the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion, but, according to this determination, those are trumped by the LGBT cause. Nevermind that the book came out 13 years before Finland legalized same-sex marriage, when the issue was still a matter of debate.

Rev. Pohjola said this after he was charged:

“As a Christian, I do not want to and cannot discriminate against or despise anyone created by God. Every human being, created by God and redeemed by Christ, is equally precious. . . .This does not remove the fact that, according to the Bible and the Christian conception of man, homosexual relations are against the will of God, and marriage is intended only between a man and a woman. This is what the Christian church has always taught and will always teach.”

A European evangelical site quotes Dr. Räsänen:

Räsänen has repeatedly said “the teachings concerning marriage and sexuality in the Bible arise from love, not hate”, because “the core message of faith, i.e. grace and atonement, is founded on the Christian view of humanity seen in creation, on the one hand, and the great fall, on the other”.

She also has made clear that she supports the dignity and human rights of all homosexuals, because “the Christian view of human beings is based on the inherent and equal dignity of all persons”. . . .

The Christian politician underlined the importance that citizens in democratic countries use the fundamental right to express their opinions: “The more Christians keep silent on controversial themes, the narrower the space for freedom of speech gets”.

I met both Päivi Räsänen and Juhana Pohjola when I was in Finland for a series of speaking engagements and had lunches with each of them. This was before their legal troubles broke out. I was greatly impressed with both of them. Here is a Christian living out her faith in her vocation as a public official and doing so effectively–rising in her party to be named Minister of the Interior– in a highly secularist country. Here is a pastor who is faithfully proclaiming the Word of God and presiding over congregations whose members adhere to that Word, despite the secularism even of the state church. I was inspired by the many devoted Christians I met there. (See my post on the state of confessional Lutheranism in Finland.)

I believe that the opposition they face makes them stronger in the faith. We Americans have it so much easier. And yet, we too may someday face similar persecution. It is already touching us Missouri Synod Lutherans because of our fellowship with the Finnish church body that is under attack.

A FINAL THOUGHT: Is this what conservative Christians will all face if the Equality Act, which allows LGBT claims to trump religious liberty claims, becomes the law of the land?

Photos:

Rev. Dr. Juhana Pohjola, dean and bishop-elect via The Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland

Päivi Räsänen by Eurooppalainen Suomi ry, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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Teaching the Trinity to Young Children

Last updated on: May 16, 2021 at 8:44 pm By Gene Veith

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Critics of infant baptism say that very young children can’t have faith. They don’t know anything about God. They can’t reason. They can’t make a decision for Christ.

We Lutherans and other advocates of infant baptism say that they can too have faith! Just as they live in dependence and trust in their mother and father and receive their love, they can live in dependence and trust in their Heavenly Father and receive His love. That’s what faith is. Not reason. Not a decision.

Jesus makes the faith of a child–not the faith of an adult–our benchmark:

And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:2-4)

Reason, with our insistence on understanding everything, can get in the way of our faith. Our will constantly leads us astray.

To be sure, as children grow and mature, they grow and mature in their faith. They need to learn about their faith, about who God is and what He has done for them. If their faith isn’t fed by God’s Word, it will die. Just as they will die unless someone feeds them.

So how do we go about teaching young children about the Trinity? Surely that is a complex and difficult theological concept, we might think, better saved for adulthood. But the Trinity is not just a theological abstraction. The Trinity is who God is. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is God at His most concrete.

Especially with a mystery of the magnitude of the Trinity, human reason gets in the way. Of course children can learn about the Trinity.

My daughter, Mary Moerbe, has written a children’s book called Trinity for Tots. It’s a picture book for toddlers. It presents the one God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–through simple rhymes and in terms little children can relate to.

The illustrations are beautiful and evocative. Not cartoony or cutesy or condescending. They are watercolor works of art, which serve the text while being objects of meditation in their own right, something that both the children and the adults who read the book to the child on their lap will love.

The illustrations are the work of Jamie and Naomi Truwe, one of my former students and her daughter. Yes, all of this makes me feel old, but in a good way.

Anyway, here are the endorsements on Amazon:

“In a beautifully simple poem, Mary Moerbe invites all children of the heavenly Father to worship the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity. God be praised for this book which brings the first great mystery of the Christian faith to the Lord’s youngest Christians!” – Rev. Bryan Wolfmueller, pastor, podcaster, and author of books including Has American Christianity Failed? and A Martyr’s Faith in a Faithless World.

“The mystery of the Trinity is a difficult concept for anyone to grasp. Mary Moerbe’s inspired eloquent poetry combined with the watercolor pictures leads readers to the inspirational message in Trinity for Tots.” – David Birnbaum, Principal of First Lutheran School & Education Executive of the LCMS Oklahoma District.

“Trinity for Tots teaches with beauty and rhyme the great mystery of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This wonderful book will delight parents and children alike.” – Rev. Dr. Carl Beckwith, Assistant Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University (Birmingham, Alabama)and author of The Holy Trinity, volume 3 of the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series (Luther Academy, 2016) and Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity (Oxford University Press, 2008).”This little book offers a wonderful, faithful, and simple definition of the Trinity that children can understand. The rhymes and artwork kept my children interested. The book provided several opportunities to stop and teach the children. Recommended!” – Rev. Garen Pay, pastor, parent, and author
“A marriage of engaging illustrations and orthodox text, complimenting a liturgical lifestyle, Trinity for Tots is another winner by Deaconess Mary Moerbe! This title is the perfect addition to the Christian’s arsenal of spiritual weapons against Satan’s attacks, equipping parents with a tool to tackle this tricky topic with our most tender little ones.” – Marie MacPherson, classical educator, homeschool mother, and author of Meditations on the Vocation of Motherhood (Into Your Hands, LLC) and Teaching Children Chastity for Life (Lutherans for Life).

“The God of the Bible and of our salvation is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is no Christian faith other than in this God. Yet, as a deep mystery it is difficult to speak of him as one God in three Persons. For this very reason this book is priceless. It gives a primer on how to think and how to speak of Him as our Father who in his Son gives to us the Spirit of eternal life.” – Rev. Dr. William Weinrich, Professor of Early Church and Patristic Studies at Concordia Theological Seminary (Fort Wayne, Ind.).

“And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance” (Athanasian Creed, Lutheran Service Book, p. 319). And therein lies the great joy of this delightful little offering by Mary Moerbe. It introduces tots to the joy of this One in Three and Three in One whom we worship as catholic Christians. The genius of tots is that they believe what they are told without insisting on first having to understand HOW what they are told can be so. In this delightfully illustrated and simply written volume the mystery of the Holy Trinity is proclaimed, not explained, to children who are thus brought into His adoration and praise. And they can indeed WORSHIP Him even if (like the rest of us) they will never comprehend the infinite mystery of His being!” – Rev. William Weedon, pastor, author, host of The Word Endures Forever, and former Director of Worship and Chaplain for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

So I urge you to buy Trinity for Tots for yourself, your children, your grandchildren, your godchildren, and other children of God.

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The Real Reason Why Scandinavians Are So Happy

Last updated on: May 11, 2021 at 8:41 pm By Gene Veith

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For the fourth year in a row, Finland is ranked as the happiest country in the world. So why do Finns and other Scandinavians rate so happy when they are also notoriously gloomy?

According to the World Happiness Report, an ambitious yearly study, in the plague year of 2020, here are the world’s 20 happiest countries:

Finland
Iceland
Denmark
Switzerland
Netherlands

Sweden

Germany

Norway

New Zealand

Austria

Israel

Australia

Ireland

United States

Canada

Czech Republic

Belgium

United Kingdom

Taiwan

France

The list is interesting for lots of reasons. (Such as why is Israel happier than the United States, despite having to live with the constant threat of terrorism, rocket attacks, and the opprobrium of much of the world?)

But the biggest puzzle is why five of the top eight spots are occupied by Scandinavian countries? That violates all stereotypes. What about the “melancholy Dane”? What about all of those jokes about the morose Norwegians of Minnesota? As for Finland, I heard a joke about its famously introverted and reserved people and COVID, something about their reaction to the two-meter social distancing rule. After COVID goes away, the Finns will be glad they won’t have to stand so close.

A Finnish immigrant to the United States, Jukka Savolainen–who says that he moved to America in part because he likes to see people smile–has written an article that explains it all entitled The Grim Secret of Nordic Happiness.

Nobody is more skeptical than the Finns about the notion that we are the world’s happiest people. To be fair, this is hardly the only global ranking we’ve topped recently. We are totally fine with our reputation of having the best educational system (not true), lowest levels of corruption (probably), most sustainable economy (meh), and so forth. But happiest country? Give us a break.

He quotes approvingly a visitor’s description of Helsinki’s glum pedestrians: “This is not a state of national mourning in Finland, these are Finns in their natural state; brooding and private; grimly in touch with no one but themselves; the shyest people on earth. Depressed and proud of it.”

So why do they rank as the happiest people in the world? Savolainen points out that the research behind the World Happiness Report asks respondents to rate their lives on a scale of one to ten, with ten representing “the best possible life for you,” and one representing the worst. That is to say, the scale measures what people think is possible for themselves. The Scandinavian countries are indeed prosperous and safe, with a welfare state that takes care of them. But the key, says Savolainen, is their low expectations. They don’t expect much, so they are highly satisfied, and, thus, very “happy.”

Savolainen makes this observation, which makes this all of interest to this blog: “Consistent with their Lutheran heritage, the Nordic countries are united in their embrace of curbed aspirations for the best possible life.”

So Lutheranism is what makes Scandinavians both gloomy and satisfied? I wonder about that. True, Lutherans know themselves to be sinners. They will be skeptical about any kind of earthly utopia. They reject any “theology of glory” in favor of the “theology of the cross.”

Then again, Lutherans believe they have been saved despite their sins by the grace of God, who justifies them freely by the sacrifice of Christ. That takes the pressure off. Lutherans also believe in vocation, that God is present and active in ordinary human work and relationships. That gives meaning to ordinary life.

Scandinavians today have a Lutheran “heritage,” but the Lutheran faith has faded considerably, with some notable exceptions. Perhaps what remains is Lutheranism without faith, the devastations of the Law without the joy of the Gospel, the depressing parts with only a dim–but real–memory of the happy parts. (But read this about confessional, evangelical Lutheranism in Finland.)

And yet, there may be wisdom even in this secular version of Lutheranism. Another word for satisfaction even in the face of low expectations is contentment. The Word of God–another Lutheran emphasis–has much to say about this:

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. (Philippians 4:11-12)

Godliness with contentment is great gain,for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. (1 Timothy 6:6-8)

The Scandinavians have food and clothing and much more. Why shouldn’t they be content?

We Americans, by contrast, tend to want more than we have and be ambitious for ever-greater success, only to be miserable when we do not attain it. We are restless, changeable, and dissatisfied. Though we are still optimistic that a better life is just ahead. This aspect of our national character is part of our strength and dynamism. But it is also why we come in on the World Happiness Report at #14.

Photo: Hamlet [the Melancholy Dane] by Nawe97, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. With the following caption: Sam Gregory, left, will portray the Ghost of John Barrymore and Alex Esola will portray Andy in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s I Hate Hamlet play this summer at the University of Colorado Boulder. (Photo by Casey A. Cass/University of Colorado) .

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