The African Bonhoeffer

February 23, 2021 By Gene Veith

Thanks to my former student John Ehrett, now a fellow Patheos blogger at Between Two Kingdoms, for letting me know about Gudina Tumsa, the Ethiopian Lutheran theologian who was martyred by Marxists and has become known as the “African Bonhoeffer.”

In his post Living Christianly in the Face of Political Change, John discusses his sense that the prevailing strains of “political theology”–from the liberalism and Marxism of progressives to the “integralism” of Catholics and many evangelicals–are inadequate. He sees a way forward in the thought of Gudina Tumsa, who applies the Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms in some interesting ways.

Gudina (1929-1979) became the General Secretary of Mekane Yesus (“Place of Jesus”), the largest Lutheran church in the world with some 10 million members, which recently broke ties with various liberal denominations and is developing a relationship with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. He was arrested and killed by the Communist government that ruled Ethiopia from 1974-1991. (See this and this. For an excellent survey of his life and faith that hails him as a “saint,” read this.)

His works are collected, along with a memoir by his wife Tsehay Tolessa, who worked closely with him and who was tortured for her faith, in The Life, Works, and Witness of Tsehay Tolessa and Gudina Tumsa, the Ethiopian Bonhoeffer.

Read John’s post about his “political theology.”

Whereas most theorists try to develop “the best” political system that is meant to last for all time, Gudina recognizes the transient nature of all earthly regimes. He concludes, drawing on both the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms and the doctrine of Vocation, that Christians can, within limits, function in and serve under virtually any temporal system. (Think of how Daniel, Esther, Nehemiah, and other Biblical figures served productively under pagan regimes, even when they became hostile to the faith.) In John’s words,

What this suggests is that there is no single, valid-for-all-time Christian answer to the question of the “best form of government.” That question can only be answered by reference to any number of contingent circumstances. In a monarchy, is the king wise? In a democracy, are the people virtuous? Ex ante, removed from any particular circumstance, these questions are entirely unanswerable. (Even St. Thomas Aquinas admitted a degree of ambiguity on this point.) But Gudina goes beyond Aquinas (and the integralists who claim to follow him) in working out an expression of Christian faithfulness in the midst of dramatic regime change. If God’s kingdom is administered by way of two swords—temporal and spiritual—is it possible to live rightly when the former sword is blunted or broken? Gudina certainly believed so.

The issue for political theology is not so much constructing the best possible form of government. Rather, it has to do with the faithfulness of the individual Christian and of the Church, especially in the face of tumultuous social change, injustice, and hostility to the faith, as was the case in Ethiopia. And is also the case, in a different way, with us.

Illustration from the Gudima Tumsa Foundation.

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Horror and the New Nihilism

October 8, 2019 By Gene Veith

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God created the Heavens and the Earth. “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Then an alliance between human beings and the devil brought sin into the world and all our woe. Then sinners, to excuse themselves, see everything that God had made and behold, it is very bad.

Augustine said that evil is an “absence of being,” that is, a lack of something God created good. Death is the absence of life, and murder attempts to negate someone else’s God-given life. Sexual sins reflect the absence of life-giving sexuality according to God’s design. False witness, stealing, coveting, cruelty, hatred, and other sins against our neighbor exhibit the absence of love. In this view, sin amounts to a rebellion against reality.

What provoked these thoughts is a post by John Ehrett, former student and fellow Patheos blogger, entitled Lovecraft and the Metacrisis of Liberalism. It is a masterful example of how literary criticism can illuminate a worldview issue and give us insight into our times.

The post is about the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), whose writings are enjoying a comeback, along with the horror genre generally. Lovecraft developed the Cthulhu Mythos, in which human beings inadvertently awaken the underlying deities of the universe, who are utterly malign. I’ll let Ehrett explain it:

Lovecraftian “cosmic horror” is built around the premise that the cosmos is utterly indifferent to human beings. But that’s not to say the cosmos is empty. Rather, the most powerful forces in reality are ancient, godlike beings of chaos—the Great Old Ones—whose intentions are inscrutable and who care nothing for humanity. These Great Old Ones cannot be comprehended within the frame of normal human experience: even momentary exposure to the Great Old Ones’ presence is enough to reduce a human consciousness to gibbering madness.

This, of course, is very different from horror stories influenced, if only implicitly, by Christianity.

Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic horror reflect a metaphysical picture wholly alien to Christianity. Other stories like Dracula, The Exorcist, or even Event Horizon emerge from a distinctly Christian milieu. The forces of evil in those stories are understood to be evil by virtue of what they oppose: Dracula sets himself up over against God, a demon seeks to claim the soul of an innocent girl, and an ancient power of evil defiles the image of God in man. That is to say, there is a distinct moral duality at work in these tales and others like them—one that allows the descriptor “good versus evil” to be properly applied to them. The heroes are on God’s side, and the villains are on the devil’s.

But that is not how Lovecraft’s tales proceed. “Evil” is an unintelligible concept in Lovecraft’s literary world, because there is no transcendent ideal against which “evil” might define itself. There is no good or evil, only comprehensible or incomprehensible power. Indeed, the very essence of the Great Old Ones is near-absolute coercive authority that feels no need to justify or legitimate itself. They will do what they will do, and be what they will be, regardless of what human beings might think. There is nothing democratic or deliberative about these power relations; Lovecraft’s cosmos is ruthlessly, relentlessly hierarchical—and the human species is at the bottom of the ladder. The primary objective of any human character in a Lovecraft story is simple: escape!

I remember watching a modern Dracula movie that purported to be more faithful to Bram Stoker’s original 1897 story (1897) than the iconic black-and-white 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi. But it wasn’t. In the Lugosi film, as in Stoker’s novel and as in vampire folklore, Dracula is vulnerable to sacred symbols and cannot remain in the presence of a crucifix. But in the modern version, Dracula attacks a man who, cowering, holds up a crucifix. The vampire swats it away to general laughter.

Consider today’s hit movie Joker, which portrays the comic book villain in terms of the isolated involuntary celibates associated with today’s school shooters and mass murderers. His world is “utterly indifferent” to him, wholly bleak and ugly and evil, which eventually transforms its victim into someone who himself becomes “utterly different” to other human beings, wholly bleak and ugly and evil, his “human consciousness” reduced to “gibbering madness.” In this Joker, there is no Batman.

Ehrett relates this nihilistic worldview to the “postliberal” mindset that we have discussed.

The increasing popularity of Lovecraftian horror, I think, tracks (at least in part) a broader cultural shift away from the good/evil conceptual duality. In Lovecraft’s pitiless world, the traditional “good/evil” dyad is replaced by the dyad “freedom/oppression”—as it has in much contemporary discourse.

Leftists think all authority is a Cthulhu-like imposition of oppressive power. The only hope is for the oppressed to assert their freedom by resisting the power structure and its imposed values until they can seize a similar power for themselves. But conservatives, while being very different, sometimes think in terms of the same dichotomy, with government, by its nature, exercising oppressive power, with individuals needing to assert their freedom against it.

We have lost the basis of legitimate authority and legitimate power, the sort that is “very good.” Vocation teaches that God, in His providential love, works through human beings–in their ordinary callings in the family, the workplace, the church, and the state–to care for His creation. We not only lack that understanding, we have a lack of people carrying out their callings in love and service to their neighbors, preferring instead to use them for their own Cthulhu-like self aggrandizement.

In the absence of God and His righteousness, people assuming that “the real world” is intrinsically evil. When people do talk of God, they often project Him as being intrinsically evil too! This is evident in the new atheist’s moral arguments against God’s existence. And sometimes even believers in God present him as an arbitrary, indifferent, amoral power not much different than Cthulhu! Ehrett notes that we sometimes hear this view of God from extreme Calvinists–of the sort Lovecraft grew up with–though the Reformed folks that I know do not go nearly that far but always insist on God’s radical and inherent goodness.

Still, I appreciate Ehrett’s Lutheranism:

As a Christian, I would argue that the legitimation of power (in the very deepest sense) begins with the fundamental ontological hierarchy inscribed into the very fabric of creation: the infinite God calls into being the order of finite things. This foundational hierarchy can never be transcended, try though we might. But the Lutheran tradition goes a step further: God’s power is revealed in the death of Jesus on the cross and His subsequent resurrection—not through explosive demonstrations of sovereign will that shatter human categories. And in the cross, the categories of power relations are accordingly subverted: the truest and best leader is the one who voluntarily dies for his people. Power, in short, manifests as love.

Without God all you have is the devil. The Biblical worldview recognizes the darkness inherent in a sinful world. Those who feel trapped in that world–the depressed, the hurting, the unfortunate–are not abandoned in their suffering. God Himself entered that dark and sinful world, bearing it all in the cross, bringing redemption. And then He rose from the dead. He now calls us to join Him in the battle against the Cthulhu in the world and in ourselves.

Illustration: “Cthulhu,” by Reiner Zaminski [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

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The Debate Over Nations, Empires, and the Church

September 22, 2022 By Gene Veith

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We blogged about A Manifesto for National Conservatism, issued by a number of prominent conservatives.

National Conservatism is not the same thing as Christian Nationalism, though they are often confused. And no wonder, since one of the manifesto’s articles says that Christianity should enjoy a privileged position in America’s public sphere. (See our post about this, National Conservatism and Religion.)

Now an international group of prominent and mostly-conservative leaning theologians have responded to that manifesto with An Open Letter Responding to the NatCon “Statement of Principles.”

The letter says, for example, that

A pure nationalism, disconnected from universal ideals, risks becoming the mirror image of the abstract globalism the statement’s signatories rightly reject. By implicitly asserting the supremacy of nations over culture and communities, it subordinates both the universal and the particular to the national, as if national interests and national traditions were necessarily good and anything exceeding nations must therefore be evil.

The signatories criticize the “nation-state” for obliterating local cultures and is critical of the “Statement’s” focus on the American constitutional order, leaving out European models and issues of European conservatism:

The commitment to an explicitly “Anglo-American” ideal of “free enterprise” and “individual liberty” is at odds with much of the European conservative tradition which has historically sought to limit the market and uphold a non-individualistic model of liberty, balancing rights with responsibilities.

Furthermore, the Statement, while saying much about moral values, says nothing about love, which is “the supreme theological virtue and the guiding ideal of Christian civilization” and which binds binds members of society together.

“In the end ,” the letter concludes, “the National Conservative statement is neither conservative nor Christian.”

John Ehrett, a Lutheran and a political theorist, responded to the open letter with his post Some Questions for National Conservative’s Theological Critics. He notes that some of the signatories have advocated an “imperial model” as something to be desired over the “nation state.”

His first question is “how to account for the fact that premodern “empire” did not appear to conceive of itself as universal or global in the modern sense, but required an “other” against which to define itself?” Rome defined itself against the “barbarians.” “Today, however, the institutions of liberal internationalism do claim to enjoy universal/global jurisdiction.” Ehrett concludes (his italics):

given today’s empirical knowledge of the extent of cultural differences, it is reasonable to believe that a global transnational political authority is unlikely to be able to identify a common “center” that can justify terms of coexistence capable of peacefully mediating and preserving local differences.

His second question: “Is the nation-state always and everywhere more opposed to the preservation of local difference?” He thinks not. In fact, ” the American example of federalism [which the Open Letter signatories disdain] appears to pose an empirical problem for this claim.”

Finally, “to what extent are the potentialities of Christian theology actualized through an encounter with alternative traditions?” He cites evidence that Christianity has thrived when it encounters different perspectives and that a single global church that suppresses religious differences–I think of Roman Catholicism–might not be a good idea after all.

To my mind, national conservatives can make arguments against globalizing theo-political projects that sound in a distinctively Christian register, without forfeiting the universal claims of Christian morality by succumbing to a thoroughgoing relativism.

So which is better, individual nations or an empire that brings together many nations? Individual churches or a global church?

Next time, my thoughts on the controversy.

Illustration: War Flag of the Holy Roman Empire, Ad17minstral, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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An Actual Millennial Responds to Church Efforts to Attract Millennials

March 2, 2020 By Gene Veith

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My former student, John Ehrett, has written a response to a church growth consultant who is urging churches to become even more contemporary to attract millennials. Since this is talking about his generation (I can tell your generation if you catch that allusion), John takes issue with the consultant’s suggestions.

John’s position is evident in the title of his post: How to Lose a Generation: Against Tony Morgan’s Worship Quick-Fixes. Did you catch that? Far from being techniques for reaching this generation, these tactics are a formula for losing this generation.

John takes up each of the 10 points the consultant raises. The essay defies excerpting, so I will simply quote the beginning of the post, expecting you to click to the link to read every word. After that, I’ll quote another millennial and former student cited by John on what this generation is really yearning for.

From John Ehrett, Between Two Kingdoms at Patheos:

As a general rule, I try to be a pretty charitable reader. Most of the time, I can manage to put a positive spin on an argument I disagree with—because most of the time, there’s a kernel of truth to be extracted. (This principle generally keeps me from getting too outraged by the Internet.) Every once in a while, though, I happen on a piece that’s wrong on so many different levels that the presumption of “there’s a good insight in here” no longer applies.

Full disclosure: the first time I read “church consultant” Tony Morgan’s recent article, “#OkBoomer: 10 Signs Your Weekend Services Aren’t Designed for the Next Generation,” I thought it was a straight-up parody. But based on the surrounding website, I actually think it’s sincere (I’ll revisit this post with a correction if the author shows up to explain that, no, it was actually satirical). Morgan’s article, in essence, is a plea to make contemporary church worship even more contemporary, in an attempt to attract millennials and Gen-Z types who’ve drifted away from institutional religion. It won’t surprise anyone who’s read things I’ve written over the last few years that I think he takes a wrong turn from the start, but let that slide: what’s really mind-boggling about the article is the sheer audacity of Morgan’s central assertion: “You can’t reach the next generation of young adults without being a church for young adults. In other words, everything you do must be designed with the next generation in mind.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s take Morgan’s “10 Signs” point by point. I gather, demographically speaking, that I’m Morgan’s “target market” (I hate using that term in the church context, but if the SEO profile fits…)—and I’ve attended a pretty wide range of churches over the years, so I guess I’m as qualified as anyone to weigh in on whether this is what “young people” actually want.

[Keep reading. . .]

John concludes by quoting the talented and perceptive Gracy Olmstead (again, also one of my former students, though I can’t take credit for them):

“The millennial generation is seeking a holistic, honest, yet mysterious truth that their current churches cannot provide. . . . Protestant churches that want to preserve their youth membership may have to develop a greater openness toward the treasures of the past. One thing seems certain: this ‘sacramental yearning’ will not go away.”

Did you catch that? “This ‘sacramental yearning.'”

Photo: “Day 77, Project 365 – 1.7.10” by William Brawley, Creative Commons 2.0 License, via Flickr.

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Is God’s Power Intrinsically Oppressive?

January 20, 2020 By Gene Veith

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The Southern Baptists in convention recently approved a resolution that advocated “critical race theory and intersectionality . . . as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture.” This has sparked a controversy within that church body that raises some significant theological questions. For example, if power and privilege are always oppressive, what does that do to how people see God, who exercises almighty power and is at the top of every hierarchy of privilege?

In terms of the Baptist resolution, “critical theory,” whether applied to race or gender or LGBTQ issues, analyzes just about every issue in terms of power and privilege and how groups that have them oppress those who do not. “Intersectionality” has to do with classifying the different identities a person has–some of which might be privileged and some might be oppressed–and encouraging members of different oppressed groups to ally with each other.

That resolution recommending this way of thinking has stirred up a hornets’ nest in Baptist circles. Now a documentary video entitled By What Standard has been released that addresses this controversy by making the case that “critical theory” is incompatible with Christianity.

My former student and fellow Lutheran Patheos blogger John Ehrett has written an informative and insightful post entitled The Southern Baptist Breakdown, in which he discusses the issues and reviews the film. Basically, he says that he agrees with the basic conclusions of the film, but finds that it fails to truly do justice to the issues.

In the course of his discussion, John raises an issue of great importance:

In developed form, the genealogical approach argues that traditional Christian moral claims are illegitimate—whether or not God exists—because of the fundamental inequality in power between God and human beings and the apparent arbitrariness of God’s commands (shades of Milton’s Paradise Lost here).

If power is intrinsically oppressive, then God’s power over us–which is supreme and unlimited–must be intrinsically oppressive! I have come across this mindset but had not connected it to critical theory. Apologists and evangelists need to be aware that this is how many postmodernists think of God. The issue is not just whether or not God exists. Even if God exists, according to this sensibility, He should not be worshipped. Rather, since His authority–indeed, all authority–is nothing more than a mask for power and since the exercise of power is always oppressive, God must always be rebelled against.

John says that the video By What Standard fails to deal with this issue, which it really needs to do if it is to answer the problems of critical theory (which he calls “the genealogical approach”). Instead, it falls back on the Reformed emphasis on God’s sovereignty. In the words of the film’s subtitle, “God’s world. . .God’s rules.” There is truth to that, but much more must be said in order to defend Biblical orthodoxy and to answer the critical theorists’ objections. John writes:

Classically speaking, though, “sovereignty” is only half the story: the Church has traditionally taught that God’s infinite power is not unintelligible or irrational power. The creative power exercised by God—by which every finite thing exists and flourishes according to its kind—is of a fundamentally different metaphysical order than the derivative power exercised by one human over another. Only the latter, more nuanced view of God’s sovereignty offers a genuinely satisfying rejoinder to the premise underlying the genealogical approach—that unequal exercises of power are intrinsically oppressive by nature. The classical view asserts, over against the genealogical approach, that (1) all kinds of power are not alike, and (2) because God’s power to create things is also the power by which created things flourish, all exercises of derivative power are not irrational; temporal power ordering things toward their proper flourishing is inherently liberating.

I would add that Christianity–which has a different conception of God than Islam, Judaism, or Deism–further teaches that in order to save and liberate us, God, the Second Person of the Trinity, divested Himself of His privilege and His power:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 1:5-8)

See Luther’s distinction between the Theology of the Cross and the Theology of Glory, as explained by Carl Trueman:

When theologians of glory read about divine power in the Bible, or use the term in their own theology, they assume that it is analogous to human power. They suppose that they can arrive at an understanding of divine power by magnifying to an infinite degree the most powerful thing of which they can think. In light of the cross, however, this understanding of divine power is the very opposite of what divine power is all about. Divine power is revealed in the weakness of the cross, for it is in his apparent defeat at the hands of evil powers and corrupt earthly authorities that Jesus shows his divine power in the conquest of death and of all the powers of evil. So when a Christian talks about divine power, or even about church or Christian power, it is to be conceived of in terms of the cross—power hidden in the form of weakness.

Illustration: Crucifixion of Christ, detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece (1516) by Matthias Grunewald [Public Domain]

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Integralism, the Pope, and the Emperor

September 16, 2019 By Gene Veith

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As Christians wrestle with the problems of holding onto the faith in a time of unbridled secularism, Roman Catholic political theory is coming back with a vengeance.

This is evident in the debate between Sohrab Ahmari and David French, with the Catholic Ahmari arguing that the culture and the government must be informed and shaped by the church, while the evangelical French argues that the church must work not for dominance but for liberal democracy and religious liberty.

Many Protestants are taking the side of Ahmari–a legitimate position, to be sure–but they would do well to be aware of how Catholic theology fits into these Christian political theories that are receiving more and more attention.

The Catholic political theory is called “integralism.” From the Wikipedia article:

In politics, integralism or integrism (French: Intégrisme) is the set of theoretical concepts and practical policies that advocate a fully integrated social and political order, based on converging patrimonial (inherited) political, cultural, religious, and national traditions of a particular state, or some other political entity. Some forms of integralism are focused on achieving political and social integration, and also national or ethnic unity, while others were more focused on achieving religious and cultural uniformity. In the political and social history of the 19th and 20th centuries, integralism was often related to traditionalist conservatism and similar political movements on the right wing of a political spectrum, but it was also adopted by various centrist movements as a tool of political, national and cultural integration.

As a traditionalist political movement, integralism emerged during the 19th and early 20th century polemics within the Catholic Church, especially in France. The term was used as an epithet to describe those who opposed the “modernists“, who had sought to create a synthesis between Christian theology and the liberal philosophy of secular modernity. Proponents of Catholic political integralism taught that all social and political action ought to be based on the Catholic faith. They rejected the separation of church and state, arguing that Catholicism should be the proclaimed religion of the state.

Contemporary discussions of integralism were renewed in 2014, with critiques of capitalism and liberalism.

Evangelicals too often speak of “integrating” the various spheres of life under a Christian worldview. And the article agrees that there can be a non-Catholic, even non-Christian, integralism. But Catholics are leading the charge.

Here is how the Catholic integralist Jonathan Culbreath explains the concept, from Catholic Integralism: The Only Viable Post-Liberal Political Theology:

Integralism begins with the first premise that it is the role of politics to direct human beings to their final end, the purpose for which they were created by God, their highest good — which is of course God himself. The end or purpose of human life is union with God, and political power directs humans to this end. But this end has two distinct but interrelated dimensions: a temporal dimension and an eternal dimension, or a natural and a supernatural dimension. To these two dimensions of the end, or the good, there correspond two dimensions of political power itself: a temporal power and and a spiritual power, or the State and the Church. These institutions have distinct but interrelated jurisdictions over matters directed to the two dimensions of the good. Consequently, they are obligated to cooperate towards the joint attainment of this end, in its two dimensions. It is obvious at this point that integralism is diametrically opposed to the classic liberal principle of the separation of Church and State, expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution — which is just one application of the general liberal commitment to political neutrality. Integralism, unlike classical liberalism, adheres to an assertive and substantive vision of the political good, making no pretenses of a politics which abstains from such a vision.

Culbreath goes on to cite various “post-liberal” thinkers who are approaching this view, but he says that it can never be achieved apart from submission to the Roman Catholic Church. He concludes, “The embrace of integralism, and the subordination of states to the sole universal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, is the solution to all of the problems which are facing liberals — and conservatives — not only in America, but globally.”

This political theology is traced back to the writings of the 5th century Pope Gelasius I, who wrote about how God governs the world by means of both a spiritual authority invested in the Pope and a temporal authority invested in the Emperor. The so-called “Gelasian Dyarchy” of Pope and Emperor has been a staple of Catholic political theology from the Middle Ages through the Counter-Reformation and afterwards.

And it continues in Catholic integralism. So says integralist Edmund Waldstein in his illuminating essay Integralism and Gelasian Dyarchy.

What would this look like today, if integralism as the solution to our political and social woes could be implemented?

The Pope we have today is Pope Francis, whom most integralists, being conservative Catholics, cannot abide. Would he really function as the moral and social authority that they crave?

And who would be Emperor? The presiding bureaucrat of the European Union, which would be the closest equivalent of the trans-national Holy Roman Empire? Surely the Gelasian Dyarchy would require someone who would apply temporal power more vigorously. Donald Trump might fit the part, but he is a nationalist and anti-globalist, working against what Patrick Buchanan criticized as the “American Empire.” Maybe a better candidate would be Vladimir Putin. “Czar” was the Russian rendition of “Caesar,” and Putin seems to be an embodiment of that kind of figure, who would love to rebuild the Russian, if not the Soviet, empire. But that would be an eastern empire, a Byzantine kind of revival, being Orthodox, not Catholic, and Eastern Orthodoxy cannot abide the papacy.

Most integralists today are nationalists. But empires, which their theory seems to require, are cosmopolitan and multi-national. Can there be an integralism based on Papacy and King, or Papacy and President? But this would mean a universal spiritual leader and a localized head of state.

Could both the spiritual and temporal authorities be localized? Would integralists countenance a national church, as was the practice in the early nation-states? But those were Protestant. (Great Britain had Anglicanism. Scandinavia and parts of Gerany had Lutheran state churches. America’s state church today, should one be started, would presumably be Evangelical.) Catholic nation-states may have had their kings, but, except for France, they tended to owe allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor.

Nationalists sometimes forget that the nation-state is a modern innovation, like liberal Democracy. (Medieval Europe had no nations, as such, just feudal relationships that transcended ethnic and language identities. England’s Norman kings were French. Germany was a collection of principalities, not a unified nation at all until the 19th century.)

The problem is that integralism is theoretical and idealized. But history and government are particular and concrete. Governance by Pope and Emperor may sound like the ultimate means of promoting the common “good.” But the Popes may well be like the depraved Alexander VI or the liberal-minded Francis, rather than the integralist ideals. And the Emperor may well be like the actual Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, who fought wars against the Pope.

Both the Pope and the Emperor opposed Luther and the Reformation, and vice versa. Notice that “integralism,” the notion that the social and political order should be integrated with the church, is the opposite position of Luther’s Two Kingdoms, which insists that the two realms should be distinguished from each other.

Lutherans, other Reformation Christians, Protestants in general, and non-Catholics of every stripe should be very cautious in accepting “integralism” as a way out of our social problems.

HT: My former student and fellow Patheos blogger John Ehrett, who offers a sophisticated Lutheran perspective on these issues. See his posts here, here, and here.

Image: “Pope Clement VII and Emperor Charles V [the Pope and Emperor during Luther’s Reformation] on horseback under a canopy,” by Jacopo Ligozzi via Wikimedia, Public domain.

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