I urge you to read it, along with the list of signatories from around the world.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve already discussed the case, but I want to draw your attention to the way the statement distinguishes between the\u00a0 authority of the state and the authority of the church.<\/p>\n
It gives a distinctively Lutheran approach to the issue, drawing on the Augsburg Confession, but it shows that the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, far from encouraging an uncritical submission to temporal governments, offers a framework for positive religious and, indeed, intellectual liberty.\u00a0 It also repudiates both totalitarianism on the part of the state and theocratic rule on the part of the church.\u00a0 And it offers guidelines for some of church and state issues that we face today.<\/p>\n
The Augsburg Confession (AC) states that the Gospel<\/p>\n
does not overthrow civil authority, the state, and marriage, but requires that all these be kept as true orders of God, and that everyone, each according to his own calling, manifest Christian love and genuine good works in his station of life.<\/strong>\u00a0 [Note the doctrine of vocation.]\u00a0<\/strong> Accordingly, Christians are obliged to be subject to civil authority and obey its commands and laws in all that can be done without sin.\u00a0 (AC XVI, Romans 13:1-7)<\/p>\nBut authority holds only in its own jurisdiction.\u00a0<\/strong> The government holds sway over externals, the Word of god over internals.\u00a0<\/strong> \u201cThe civil magistrate protects not minds but bodies and goods from manifest harm.\u00a0 The Gospel protects minds from ungodly ideas, the devil, and eternal death.\u00a0<\/strong> Consequently, the powers of church and civil government must not be mixed\u201d (AC XXVIII).\u00a0 Since faith must remain free, AC XVI concludes that when the commands of government cannot be obeyed without sin, \u201cwe must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:39).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThese principles would apply to other issues.\u00a0 \u00a0For example, today many Christians, including many Lutherans, are rejecting the state\u2019s authority to require masks and other anti-COVID measures.\u00a0 Well, protecting bodies from manifest harm would seem to fall under the authority of the state.\u00a0 That would hold true even if we think the reasons for those requirements are ill-founded.\u00a0 The government, however, should not<\/em> punish our inner thoughts<\/em> about such measures.\u00a0 Even if we disagree with mask-wearing requirements, we should probably submit to our government authorities in this, since wearing a mask and social distancing are not sins, as such.<\/p>\nVaccination mandates are different.\u00a0 Some Christians, in good conscience, refuse to get vaccinated because they believe the use of abortion-derived stem cells associated with certain vaccines, however remote the connection might be, makes the vaccines sinful.\u00a0 That inner conviction could be a matter of religious liberty.\u00a0 Some people refuse to get vaccinated on prudential grounds, because they don\u2019t think the vaccines are safe.\u00a0 That wouldn\u2019t involve religious liberty, as such, but they could make the case that they have a right to act upon their internal ideas, over which the government holds no sway.\u00a0 Christians could disagree with each other on issues like that, and they would always need to determine what is best not only for themselves but how they can best \u201cmanifest Christian love\u201d to their neighbors.<\/p>\n
And state mandates to shut the doors of churches are certainly different, even when the state is trying to protect \u201cnot minds but bodies and goods from manifest harm.\u201d\u00a0 For one sphere to cancel the other would violate the principle that \u201cthe powers of church and civil government must not be mixed.\u201d<\/p>\n
To be sure, this distinction is not always easy to apply, and it doesn\u2019t account for all of the issues.\u00a0 Our minds control what our bodies do, so our mental liberty must manifest itself in our external actions.\u00a0 Still, the Augsburg Confession gives us a remarkably early assertion of intellectual freedom and the boundaries of the state.\u00a0 It would, for example, rule out prosecution for \u201chate crimes.\u201d\u00a0 The state can and should punish external actions that harm the \u201cbodies and goods\u201d of someone else.\u00a0 It should not, however, prosecute \u201chate crimes,\u201d since it has no control or jurisdiction over citizens\u2019 inner emotion of who they hate.\u00a0 Only the gospel can get at that, not by threats of the law even then, but by working the inner transformation of faith that enables us to love our neighbors.<\/p>\n
Am I applying the principles of the Augsburg Confession correctly here?\u00a0 (Note that the test of believing a doctrine is accepting it even when it goes against one\u2019s own inclinations.)\u00a0 How else might these principles be applied, as churches and individual Christians try to sort out their relationship to the state?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo:\u00a0 \u201cChurch and State<\/a>\u201d by Lee Coursey, via Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A statement by confessional Lutherans worldwide protesting the prosecution of Juhana Pohjola and P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen offers helpful guidelines in distinguishing between the authority of the state and the authority of the church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":56938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,19,26,36,47],"tags":[235,477,9288,9291,4951],"class_list":["post-56926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church","category-ethics","category-government","category-law","category-politics","category-theology","tag-augsburg-confession","tag-church-and-state","tag-juhana-pohjola","tag-paivi-rasanen","tag-two-kingdoms-theology"],"yoast_head":"\n
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