Bach and His Bible

Last updated on: April 3, 2018 at 1:59 am By Gene Veith

Is Bach Lutheran? The question is like, “Is the Pope Catholic?” OK, there may now be some question about that, but not about Bach among his fellow Lutherans, who know him as their greatest artist. And yet some critics have been saying that Bach “was a forward-looking, quasi-scientific thinker who had little or no genuine interest in traditional religion.”

Setting aside the counter-historical assumption that a person can’t be forward looking and scientific while holding to traditional religion, the critics who say that are just demonstrably wrong when it comes to Bach’s faith.

And major evidence for what that faith consists of can be found in Bach’s Bible with its extensive underlining, notes, and marginalia. That text, a study Bible with commentary by Abraham Calov mostly drawn from Luther’s writings, happens to be in the library of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. (I have held it in my hands and leafed through it!)

Now a facsimile edition has been prepared for the low, low price of $5,000. (It isn’t on Amazon. You can get it here.)

This enables scholars to see for themselves that Bach was a Bible-believing, evangelical, Lutheran Christian.

An article in the New York Times, no less, underscores that fact. Written by Michael Marissen, the author of the excellent Bach & God, the article has the unpromising title Bach Was Far More Religious Than You Might Think (at least, presumably, more religious than most readers of the New York Times think).

But Marissen’s article makes brilliant use of Bach’s Bible. For example, the Calov Study Bible was a great resource, but it was filled with typographical errors. Bach’s copy contains many corrections that the composer inserted into the text, based on a better edition of Luther’s translation. Several times, Bach’s emendation is itself incorrect, substituting a similar-sounding word for the correct rendition. Which suggests that Bach was listening to the Bible being read.

Marissen concludes that Bach was following along with his Bible, pen in hand and noting corrections, as someone else was reading the Scriptures out loud. Marissen says this would probably have been in connection with family devotions, with some of Bach’s 20 children taking turns reading the Bible.

Note too Bach’s reflections on vocation, as Marissen unpacks them.

From Michael Marissen, Bach Was Far More Religious Than You Might Think, New York Times, March 30, 2018:

Bach biographers don’t have it easy. Has there ever been a composer who wrote so much extraordinary music and left so little documentation of his personal life?

Life-writing abhors a vacuum, and experts have indulged in all manner of speculation, generally mirroring their own approaches to the world, about how Bach must have understood himself and his works.

The current fancy is that Bach was a forward-looking, quasi-scientific thinker who had little or no genuine interest in traditional religion. “Bach’s Dialogue With Modernity,” one recent, indicative book is called. In arriving at this view, scholars have ignored, underestimated or misinterpreted a rich source of evidence: Bach’s personal three-volume Study Bible, extensively marked with his own notations. A proper assessment of this document renders absurd any notion that Bach was a progressivist or a secularist.

Bach’s copy of these tomes — which were published in 1681-82 with commentary culled by Abraham Calov from Martin Luther’s sermons and other writings — was unexpectedly discovered in the 1930s among the belongings of a German immigrant family in Frankenmuth, Mich., and is housed today at Concordia Seminary Library in St. Louis. An enterprising publisher in the Netherlands, the Uitgeverij Van Wijnen, has now issued a spectacular facsimile.

All three volumes are inscribed “JSBach.1733” and contain a host of handwritten corrections and comments. Bach handwriting experts have identified the vast majority of these verbal entries as “definitely Bach” or “probably Bach.” Hundreds of passages are further scrawled with marginal dashes and other nonverbal markings. Although these are harder to evaluate, physicists at the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory have concluded through ink analysis that “with high probability, Bach was also responsible for the underlinings and marginal marks.”

Where does all this science get us? Bach’s notations bear witness to a life of conservative Lutheran observance.

[Keep reading. . .]

Illustration: Bach’s annotation on 2 Chronicles 5: 13, translation by Martin Luther (1483-1546), Abraham Calov (1612-1686), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) (http://bach.csl.edu/media/calov) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

HT: Paul McCain

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Excruciating: The Ironies of Holy Week

Last updated on: March 27, 2018 at 10:44 pm By Gene Veith

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We had our Tenebrae service on Tuesday, here in Australia, and the Scripture readings struck me with their irony. It’s excruciating, I thought, using an adjective often used to describe irony in its extremest form. Then I realized that the very word “excruciating” comes from “crucify.”

Irony is very difficult to define, but let me take up my literature professor vocation once again and give it a try: Irony involves the tension between two meanings. The tension may arise because the two meanings are contradictory, or because the intended meaning conflicts with an unintentional meaning, or because someone asserts one meaning in conflict with a larger meaning perceived by the observer.

“It is better for you that one man should die for the people,” said Caiaphas, “not that the whole nation should perish.” (John 11:50). His intended meaning was to launch a plot to kill Jesus, so as to avoid a greater retaliation from the Romans. But as St. John comments, what he said meant more than he intended! “He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation,and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:51-52). By virtue of his priestly office, Caiaphas’s wicked words were, ironically, also prophetic words of the Gospel!

When Pilate proclaimed Christ’s innocence, the people clamored for His crucifixion, crying, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Those words are claims of responsibility, and though they have been used as a pretext for persecuting the Jews, they underscore that all of us sinners are responsible for Christ’s crucifixion. And, yet, ironically, those very words express the solution to the people’s sinfulness and that of their descendants, including us: “His blood be on us!” Exactly! Being covered with Christ’s blood is exactly what we need!

The Roman soldiers mocked Jesus: “They clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him” (Mark 15:17-19). But, ironically, Jesus is King of the Jews! They clothed Him in purple, crowned Him, and even bowed down to Him. What they meant as mockery was, in reality and against their intention, a testimony to Christ’s true identity.

The mockery continued even after Jesus was nailed to the cross: “‘You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe’ (Mark 15:29-32). The mockers have no inkling that they are alluding to what will happen in three days, that Jesus will rise from the dead (see John 2:18-22).

Reflect on the irony in this: “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” Actually, He can save himself, but if He does, he cannot save others. To save others–that is to say, us–He refuses to save Himself. He makes Himself a sacrifice.

Then there are all of the ironies of the cross: His defeat is His victory. His humiliation is His glory. His powerlessness is His greatest miracle. His suffering is the basis of our eternal joy. His death is our salvation from death.

And then another level of irony is added to all of this on Easter day: After all of these depictions of Christ’s humiliation, suffering, and death and in the midst all of the sadness on the part of His disciples and those of us who read and hear about what happened to Him, He rises from the dead!

Excruciating!

Painting, “The Crowning with Thorns” by Caravaggio – yAGZLO5MaPVjfQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22003449

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Secularism or Liberal Religion?

Last updated on: March 20, 2018 at 2:46 am By Gene Veith

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Having spent time lately in the “happiest” countries that are also allegedly among the least religious, I have pointed out that they are not nearly so “secularist” as they are usually portrayed. (Do a search on my blog for my posts on Christianity in Finland, Denmark, Scandinavia, and Australia.) Now Christian Smith’s sociology of religion, as developed in his book Religion: What It Is, Why It Works, and Why It Matters, gives us some new ways of thinking about secularism.

Like other scholars, Prof. Smith discredits the “secularization theory,” the notion that modernity brings about a decline in religion. This certainly hasn’t happened in the developing world. Western Europe, though, would seem to be an anomaly. Prof. Smith acknowledges that religions can fade, lose adherents, and change. But religion, he says, is innate to human beings, and hardly any society is truly without it.

“No human society has existed that did not include some religion. A broad array of religions exists around the globe today, with a single religion dominating society in some places, while in others many traditions mix, morph, and clash. Efforts by some modern states to do away with religion have failed. Though thin and weak in some regions, religion is robust and growing in other parts of the world.” (1-2)

Secularization is relative and specific to a religion, he says. Secularism sometimes is not so much the absence of religion but a change in the religion. Many societies with little apparently “religiousness” (a quality he contrasts with “religion” as such) continue to have a strong religious presence in its “deep culture.”

Prof. Smith encourages his fellow social scientists to concentrate on religious practices, not just religious beliefs. And he offers a new way to assess religious cultural influence.

Consider Scandinavia’s religious practices. (These are my musings, not Prof. Smith’s.) In these supposedly “secularist” countries, church membership remains extremely high, around 80% (even though this means paying a church tax of 1-1.5% of one’s income). Virtually everyone has been baptized. Virtually everyone goes through confirmation, gets married in church, baptizes their children, and has a church funeral.

Scandinavia observes more religious holidays than the ostensibly more-religious United States. In addition to Christmas and Easter, Sweden takes off work for Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day, Christmas Eve, Second Day of Christmas, and Epiphany. Scandinavians continue to pray, both personally and at public events, including in public schools.

The religious practice Scandinavians–as well as other Europeans–do not do very much is attend weekly religious services. Only about 2% of church members go to church on any given Sunday. This is the primary metric being used today to quantify a country’s religious commitment.

But weekly worship is not a part of most of the world’s religions. You can be a good Hindu or Buddhist without attending Temple. Muslims have adopted Thursday prayers at the mosque, but they can just as legitimately conduct the prescribed prayers on their own. Isn’t it possible to be a Christian, at some level, without attending church services except on special occasions? (Scandinavians do tend to attend church on said holidays and at baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and funerals.)

Liberal Protestant theology has diminished the sacramental role that the traditional divine service was thought to have. Pietism–which has had and continues to have a powerful influence on Scandinavian Christianity–emphasized the individual’s relationship with Christ and stressed small group gatherings, such as Bible studies and prayer groups, over church rituals. Isn’t it understandable, in this context, that a Christianity without regular worship might emerge?

Notice that worship attendance has also plummeted in American mainline Protestant churches. Might we envision a time when these church bodies will simply stop holding weekly worship services? This would free up the clergy to concentrate on individual counseling, small group activities, political activism, and community charity. Worship services would continue to be held on major church holidays and for milestone life events (baptism, confirmation, weddings, funerals).

Prof. Smith says that the cultural presence of a religion can be determined by examining the elements in the culture that would not be there if the religion had not existed. Scandinavian values such as benevolence and generosity to the disadvantaged are very different from those of its pre-Christian Viking heritage, with its warrior culture of violence and plundering, and can be traced directly to the continuing Christian influence. Scandinavians’ specifically Lutheran heritage is still evident in their strong sense of vocation and service to the neighbor. These persist even after the specifically religious beliefs that inspired them have faded.

So religious practices persist, but what about religious beliefs? In Denmark, 24% are atheists; 47% believe in “some sort of spirit or life force”; and 28% believe in God, with 25% confessing that Jesus is the Son of God and 18% confessing that He is savior of the world.

Clearly, church membership includes many non-believers, though if one-out-of-five Danes is a believing Christian, that is a significant number. Certainly most Scandinavians do not hold to traditional Christian teachings. But the same can be said of many–not all–of their churches! The liberal theology that dominates the state churches allows for and even teaches these departures from historical Christian orthodoxy.

Liberal Christianity has long jettisoned the authority of the Bible and the historicity of what it teaches. Even in the United States, there are bishops in the Episcopal Church who teach that Jesus is not God, did not atone for the sins of the world, and did not rise from the dead. “Christian atheism” is even a respectable option in many mainline seminaries and pulpits.

The gospel of salvation has been largely replaced in liberal theology with the “social gospel” of left-wing political activism. Traditional Christian morality–especially sexual morality–has been replaced with the values of acceptance, inclusion, and tolerance. And these church values have become the norm in Scandinavia and Western Europe.

Are we to say that a society has no religion when it continues to follow the teachings of its official state church?

From the standpoint of orthodox, evangelical Christianity, though, secularism and liberal Christianity, however similar or equivalent, are both Godless. Faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. Belief in Christian doctrines is extremely important. Christian ethics must not be minimized. The Word of God is authoritative. Regular worship is an essential part of the Christian life.

But that Scandinavia and Western Europe still has a religion, a Christianity that is highly attenuated and yet still culturally present, makes a difference. The churches–which exist along a continuum of liberalism and orthodoxy, with some remaining quite conservative–provide a Christian infrastructure that have the potential of coming back to life. What European Christianity needs is what the devoted Christians I met there are praying for: revival.

Photo: Service at Missionskyrkan (Mission Covenant Church) in Vårgårda, Sweden, on the second Sunday of Advent 2008. By David Castor (dcastor) (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Religion Is For Those in Need

Last updated on: March 19, 2018 at 1:37 am By Gene Veith

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The 10 happiest countries one earth are among the least religious; conversely, the 10 least happy countries are among the most religious. Such information would seem to discredit religion, but it shouldn’t at all. Christian Smith’s theory of religion helps us to see why.

As we blogged about, Smith in his book Religion: What It Is, Why It Works, and Why It Matters. defines religion in terms of people seeking help from “superhuman powers.”

Thus, he observes, people who suffer more—that is, deal with more difficulties that they cannot overcome themselves and so seek superhuman help—tend to be more religious. Conversely, people who have few problems tend to be less religious.

“At root, human approach superhuman powers for help in conditions and situations they cannot control and with problems that they cannot solve. Generally, when people are able to resolve their difficulties in a reasonable amount of time using ordinary, human means, they do so and leave the superhuman powers alone.” (p. 36)

So why should people from the “happy” secularist countries–who are affluent, whose government takes care of them, who feel no guilt, who have few worries–be religious?

Of course people in less developed nations–who struggle with poverty, who live under tyranny, who know their weaknesses, who see death all around them–are going to be more religious.

Religion is for those who are in need: those who are sinners and yearn for forgiveness; those whose lives are a wreck and need help; those who are suffering; those who need more than what this material world offers.

Now in reality, the people in those “happy” countries–where I have spent some time lately–have needs that they are blind to. And they are not as happy or irreligious as they appear. Smith’s theory has applications to “secularism” that I want to discuss in a later blog post.

The United States appears to be an outlier. Here, the affluent tend to be more religious, while poor and struggling white people tend to be more “unchurched.” (Black Americans, however struggling, are highly religious. So are Hispanics.) How might we explain this anomaly?

The conventional wisdom is that the problem of suffering–if there is a God, how could He allow me to suffer?–undermines religious belief. But if Smith is right, suffering is at the essence of religion.

To be sure, in the Christian religion, faith is a response to God’s grace. While it is true that it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, Jesus adds an important qualifier: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

The God who can make a camel go through the eye of a needle can, by his grace, bring a rich man into His kingdom. For which all of us who have it relatively easy must be grateful.

But those who have it easy do have needs that they need to awaken to. Complacency, worldliness, and self-satisfaction have always quenched the spiritual life. But the Law reveals our sinfulness and our need for the Gospel. Death awakens us to our need for everlasting life. Vocation makes us see our need to love and serve our neighbors, as opposed to merely loving and serving ourselves.

Illustration: Chagall’s “White Crucifixion,” CC BY 3.0, https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4188903

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Surrogacy for Money

Last updated on: March 7, 2018 at 2:43 am By Gene Veith

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After getting married, the next step for most couples is having children. Now that we have same-sex marriage, there is the impulse for same-sex parenting. But natural law still holds for reproduction, so two married men who want to be parents must find a woman who will bear a child for them. Thus we are seeing a huge increase in the use of surrogate mothers.

Most states do not permit compensation for surrogate mothers beyond medical expenses. The reasoning is that paying mothers for their babies amounts to buying and selling children. But Washington state has just passed a law that commercializes surrogacy, joining 8 other states that allow women to be paid to bear a child and give her baby to the buyers.

The practice today for gay couples is to employ in vitro fertilization, both contributing sperm samples so that they will not know which is the biological father which is used to fertilize a donated egg. The conceived child is then implanted into the womb of the surrogate mother, who thus has no genetic connection to the child she is carrying. Sometimes, though, the surrogate is simply artificially inseminated.

Up to this point, women who agreed to be surrogate mothers have usually done so out of kindness to their friends or relatives, what is called “altruistic” surrogacy. Some Christians have even taken up this role as a way to help infertile couples. An article on the subject in Christianity Today quotes a woman who sees surrogacy as a God-given vocation: “God called me to seek out what seemed like unconventional ways to serve others.”

But such generosity cannot meet the increasing demand for surrogate mothers. Because of abortion, few American children are available for adoption, and foreign adoptions have become increasingly difficult. Paying women for this service, letting supply and demand set the rates, would seem to be the solution.

A clinic in California, where commercial surrogacy is legal, charges from $90,000-$130,000 for a baby. Of that, a base rate of $50,000 goes to the mother. The rest goes for medical and legal fees.

Already, some couples are taking advantage of poor women in less developed countries, particularly India, which has turned surrogacy into a $2.5 billion industry, with 500 clinics and women who will bear someone else’s child for a mere $5,000. (India has passed a law banning all but altruistic surrogacy, but the practice of commercial surrogacy continues.) Wesley Smith calls this practice “biological colonialism.”

Not all states allow even uncompensated surrogacy contracts, which require the mother to give up all custody claims. But the Washington state law will allow surrogacy for hire, with few restrictions, as Brandon Showalter reports. He quotes pro-life activist Katie Faust, who testified against the bill: “When I say that we have established a global marketplace for children, I am not exaggerating. That is exactly what this is.”

As the bill stands, Faust explained, no limits are placed on how many children can be procured through surrogacy arrangements, no requirements exist saying that people intending to pay for surrogacy services must be residents of Washington state or American citizens, or even that the women must be inseminated in Washington. All it takes is one consultation that occurs on Washington soil and a contract can be legally enforced even if the individuals using the surrogate mother hail from nations where surrogacy is prohibited.

Motions to amend the bill requiring all “intended parents” to be subject to the same screening procedures as adoptive parents and the creation of a state-run database to track those intended parents and limit the number of births were voted down.

Currently, eight other states also allow “compensated” surrogacy: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Nevada, Oregon, and Rhode Island. For countries that allow commercial surrogacy, go here.

Does any of this count as exploitation of women? As human trafficking? As the commodification of human life? As the privileged exploiting the underprivileged?

Apparently such seemingly liberal concerns do not apply in this case, as all of Washington state’s supposedly liberal Democrats in the legislature voted for commercialized surrogacy, just as all of the Republicans opposed it.

How does surrogacy fit with the doctrine of vocation? Is there a difference here between altruistic and commercial surrogacy? Does it make a difference vocationally if the mother is giving up her genetic child as opposed to one conceived artificially?

And, setting aside the ethical issues for a moment, is $50,000 nearly enough to pay a woman to go through pregnancy and to give up her child? Presumably, as the supply of surrogates increases, the price will go down. But does this strike you as exploitive wages?

Photo of Drewitt-Barlow family [first gay men to legally have children via surrogacy in UK] by Surrogacy-UK (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Catholic, Lutheran, & Reformed Approaches to the Poor

Last updated on: February 25, 2018 at 10:37 pm By Gene Veith

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I’ve been reading a ground-breaking new book in the field of the sociology of religion (more on that later), which put me onto the work of Yale social scientist Sigrun Kahl. She has studied the attitudes towards the poor in the Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed traditions. She then shows the connection between those theological positions and the way nations influenced by those traditions deal with the poor to this very day.

She has written a book on the subject that has not come out yet, but here is an article that lays out her findings: Sigrun Kahl, “The Religious Roots of Modern Poverty Policy: Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed Protestant Tradition Compared.”European Journal of Sociology, 46 (1), 2005, 91-126.

I’ll summarize her research, while adding my own thoughts.

Catholics

Catholics tend to exalt the poor, considering them to be morally and spiritually superior. (Listen to Pope Francis when he talks about the poor, which he does in nearly every pronouncement.) After all, the poor are unencumbered by the material possessions that are the obsession of this world. Also, they suffer, thus practicing the discipline of asceticism, which brings them closer to God.

In the Middle Ages, one of the most practiced “good works” necessary for salvation was almsgiving, so that for the more affluent, the poor became, in effect, a means of salvation. Begging was encouraged and rewarding.

The Catholic respect for the poor manifested itself in the practice of voluntary poverty. Those wishing to pursue the highest spiritual life by becoming a monk, nun, or a priest take a vow of poverty.

Ironically, according to Kahl, the governments of Catholic nations–such as Italy, Spain, France, and she might have added the countries of Latin America–tend to be “ungenerous” in helping the poor. This is seen as the task of the church and of pious individuals, not the government.

There are relief efforts, including from the governments, that feed the hungry and take care of poor people’s basic needs. But this is still the equivalent of almsgiving. The poor remain poor. This is because being poor is seen as a good thing.

Reformed

In stark contrast to the view of Catholics, the Reformed tend to stigmatize the poor. Poverty is due to sin. The poor bring their poverty onto themselves by their irresponsible behavior, profligate ways, sexual transgressions, substance abuse, and laziness.

Kahl draws on Max Weber, who maintained that Calvinists viewed prosperity as a sign of their election. Conversely, she says, poverty can be a sign of reprobation. (I have questioned Weber’s thesis and whether Calvinists did, in fact, believe in these things.)

There is, however, a category of the “deserving poor,” who are in poverty through no fault of their own. They are worthy of help, and helping them is a “good work.”

Reformed Christians did and do help the poor, with a good dose of evangelism so that they can be freed of their poverty-causing sin.

In Reformed-influenced nations–such as the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands–the stigma of poverty remains. Kahl cites the early workhouses in Great Britain, which were purposefully harsh with horrendous condition so that poor people would not want to go there, an effort, in effect, to punish the poor. As in Catholic countries, helping the poor tends to be seen as tasks for the church and individuals–manifested in various “Christian ministries”–though the governments somewhat grudgingly operate “welfare” programs.

Kahl says anti-poverty programs in the USA, UK, and the Netherlands are thus highly fragmented and non-systematic.

I would add that the stigma attached to poverty in these countries is, for many of the poor, a powerful incentive to escape it. Many American poor people feel shame that they have had to “go on welfare,” and they become highly motivated to “get off welfare,” which restores their self-esteem.

Lutheran

For Lutherans, the poor are sinful, but so are the rich and middle class; and they have all been redeemed by the blood of Christ. The Lutherans approached the poor in terms of vocation.

All vocations are equal before God and so are all worthy of respect. God gives daily bread to all by means of the poor peasant hard at work in the fields, who can thus live out his faith by loving and serving his neighbors. But begging is anathema! And those who are poor because they have no work must find a vocation!

Thus, in Lutheran-influenced nations–especially the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, and also Germany (though Kahl says the German approach is also influenced by its large Catholic population)–the emphasis is on ensuring that the poor work.

These so-called “welfare states” have strong work requirements. These are bolstered by programs to actually help the poor find employment. (Germany also incorporates the principle of “subsidiarity” associated with Catholicism, meaning that institutions than the government also play a role. If a poor person’s extended family can help, they must do so, and the government will give the person in need no payments. I would say that this approach also rests on vocation, since family is also vocation.)

With the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, the church takes care of people’s spiritual needs, while the state takes care of their temporal needs. Thus, the Lutheran churches turned over the task of dealing with the poor to the state, which developed systematic programs to alleviate poverty by ensuring that the poor have vocations.

The goal is for the poor person to no longer be poor!

And, indeed, the Lutheran countries have far less poverty than the Catholic or Reformed countries do.

To be sure, there are other factors at work in those outcomes. Scandinavian countries are more culturally–and religiously– homogeneous than the United States and Great Britain.

But it’s interesting that even in these ostensibly “secularist” nations, the religious influence is still operative. And the Scandinavians know it, as Kahl makes clear:

When asked why work is so important in Swedish poverty policy, an interviewee in the Public Employment Service smiled and replied with a proverb: ‘‘We Swedes have Luther sitting on our shoulders’’ (p. 94).

Photo by Steve Depolo, Charity Box for the Poor, Basilica of St. Adelbert, Grand Rapids via Flickr, Creative Commons License

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