As always from Ad Crucem, this article is forthright and as always from me, I appreciate its forthrightness. In specific, Dr. Harold Ristau's perspective, articulated in action in Canada during the COVID pandemic, is direct in calling for Christians to populate the public square as per Scriptural mandates. The difficulty with this prescription, both from you and from those following Dr. Ristau's advice in the LCMS, is at least twofold. First, there is the long-held theological approach called the Two Realms or Kingdoms, in which God's Realm of Grace and Power only intersect tangentially. The LCMS has promoted activity in the intersection almost solely around the issue of abortion to date in the arena of justice and righteousness. The denomination has uniformly seen abortion as a social justice mandate in opposition to the forces promoting abortion on demand. This, you and Dr. Ristau state clearly, is insufficient in terms of the breadth of justice needs from the Christian perspective in society. However secondly, the determination as to which justice issues to bring into the arena of God's Realm of Grace (the Church) is harder to determine. So the LCMS has whimpered rather than banged, so to speak.
I agree with Dr. Ristau and you in large part. At the same time, the issues I bring into the churchly realm for justice would often be diametrically opposed to those brought by others. I believe the Bible speaks clearly when it comes to migrants, and clearly when it speaks to societal responsibility for poverty and the poor, and clearly when it speaks to inclusion (as stated in our Pledge of Allegiance - "liberty and justice for all") across bounds of race, class and clan. So if and as Dr. Ristau and yourself are on the same page as I am, then let's go after it as a denomination! I state this to indicate that the arena of justice in the public square is controversial for Christians and for members of the LCMS. The mission phrase of the District I shepherded for a quarter century remains Engaging the World with the Gospel of Hope. Engagement becomes us baptized Lutheran Christians. It will come at a price for our denomination, the LCMS. Because we may end up tacking away from one another rather than tackling what stares us in the face.
Thank you, Dr. Benke. We must remember that the primary task of the church is not justice, but to deliver the bread of life first and foremost. Then we can deal with the law (which is not necessarily justice as the world sees it) where the Bible speaks to how we live this life. So, we will agree as long as our affections are correctly ordered and prioritized (believers > family > clan > tribe > nation, etc). I suspect we will disagree if “migrants” are given more affection than our spiritual as well as physical brothers and sisters.
Indeed God’s Realm of Grace is The Primary Priority. Depending on what is meant by “morality” in the narrower or wider sense, divine law and equity will intersect for Christians when it comes to baptismal responsibility.
I like that: “a public vocation, not a hermitage”! That is well characterized as a Lutheran way of being charismatic, also. I like tossing vocatus in to the conversation when being accused of “dampening the Spirit.” But no: forgiving others, receiving the gifts of God, loving the people of God, and working in our vocations are ALL miracles of the Holy Spirit. Anyway, thanks for your timely & cogent article!
"The church wields no sword, yet she must command the conscience lest it become so calloused that it is impervious to the Word of God and the hearer’s heart is left harder than Pharaoh’s."
Except that the Word of God is a sword, and one that the Church should wield to "call evil by its name or to identify public idols".
“[U]ntil ‘Christian nationalism’ coalesces into something more definitive, in my experience the phrase best describes something much simpler: a rejection of the religious neutrality of the late 20th century in favor of 1) a recognition that Christianity has had a unique and privileged influence on our American heritage that overshadows the influences of other faith traditions, 2) a conviction that a Christian understanding of the world should predominate over other worldviews in American civic life, and 3) an understanding that a nation that successfully excised or sufficiently diluted this influence could no longer be called “American” in the same sense as before. Although more general than what the statement condemns, this understanding would actually encompass many Americans, whether they accept the label or not….
“Christian nationalism is not an attempt to requisition the state to teach Christian theology—it would be even less competent at this than it is at all other types of education. Neither is it in any way an incitement to the largely hypothetical violence over which the statement’s authors wring their hands.”
Frederich Pfotenhauer (1859-1939), President of the Missouri Synod (1911-1935), in his "Unsere Distriktssynoden und die Munitionslieferung an die Kriegführenden" ("Our district conventions and the supply of ammunition to the belligerents," _Der Lutheraner_, February 15, 1916, p. 63), presented the theological justification for the involvement of the church (i.e., Christians, including church leaders) in government affairs:
"Where is the right boundary here? It must be said that the Church's office is involved wherever morality is concerned, i.e. right or wrong before God. Where right or wrong is not in question, the church should remain silent and not want to make any regulations. Luther expresses this in such a way that the church's office 'should not and cannot go further than that alone which is called sin before God, that where the same is concerned or turns' (that is, ceases), 'there also its regiment should concern and turn both, and all that lives and is called man on earth, be it emperor, king, great or small, should be subject to this regiment, no one excluded'." (St. Louis Edition XI, 757.)
As always from Ad Crucem, this article is forthright and as always from me, I appreciate its forthrightness. In specific, Dr. Harold Ristau's perspective, articulated in action in Canada during the COVID pandemic, is direct in calling for Christians to populate the public square as per Scriptural mandates. The difficulty with this prescription, both from you and from those following Dr. Ristau's advice in the LCMS, is at least twofold. First, there is the long-held theological approach called the Two Realms or Kingdoms, in which God's Realm of Grace and Power only intersect tangentially. The LCMS has promoted activity in the intersection almost solely around the issue of abortion to date in the arena of justice and righteousness. The denomination has uniformly seen abortion as a social justice mandate in opposition to the forces promoting abortion on demand. This, you and Dr. Ristau state clearly, is insufficient in terms of the breadth of justice needs from the Christian perspective in society. However secondly, the determination as to which justice issues to bring into the arena of God's Realm of Grace (the Church) is harder to determine. So the LCMS has whimpered rather than banged, so to speak.
I agree with Dr. Ristau and you in large part. At the same time, the issues I bring into the churchly realm for justice would often be diametrically opposed to those brought by others. I believe the Bible speaks clearly when it comes to migrants, and clearly when it speaks to societal responsibility for poverty and the poor, and clearly when it speaks to inclusion (as stated in our Pledge of Allegiance - "liberty and justice for all") across bounds of race, class and clan. So if and as Dr. Ristau and yourself are on the same page as I am, then let's go after it as a denomination! I state this to indicate that the arena of justice in the public square is controversial for Christians and for members of the LCMS. The mission phrase of the District I shepherded for a quarter century remains Engaging the World with the Gospel of Hope. Engagement becomes us baptized Lutheran Christians. It will come at a price for our denomination, the LCMS. Because we may end up tacking away from one another rather than tackling what stares us in the face.
Thank you, Dr. Benke. We must remember that the primary task of the church is not justice, but to deliver the bread of life first and foremost. Then we can deal with the law (which is not necessarily justice as the world sees it) where the Bible speaks to how we live this life. So, we will agree as long as our affections are correctly ordered and prioritized (believers > family > clan > tribe > nation, etc). I suspect we will disagree if “migrants” are given more affection than our spiritual as well as physical brothers and sisters.
Indeed God’s Realm of Grace is The Primary Priority. Depending on what is meant by “morality” in the narrower or wider sense, divine law and equity will intersect for Christians when it comes to baptismal responsibility.
I like that: “a public vocation, not a hermitage”! That is well characterized as a Lutheran way of being charismatic, also. I like tossing vocatus in to the conversation when being accused of “dampening the Spirit.” But no: forgiving others, receiving the gifts of God, loving the people of God, and working in our vocations are ALL miracles of the Holy Spirit. Anyway, thanks for your timely & cogent article!
"The church wields no sword, yet she must command the conscience lest it become so calloused that it is impervious to the Word of God and the hearer’s heart is left harder than Pharaoh’s."
Except that the Word of God is a sword, and one that the Church should wield to "call evil by its name or to identify public idols".
Opposing religious neutrality (e.g., Lutheran quietism), Matthew Cochran noted in his August 13, 2019, _Federalist_ article, “We Need Christian Nationalism Because Religious Neutrality Has Failed” (https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/13/need-christian-nationalism-religious-neutrality-failed/),
“[U]ntil ‘Christian nationalism’ coalesces into something more definitive, in my experience the phrase best describes something much simpler: a rejection of the religious neutrality of the late 20th century in favor of 1) a recognition that Christianity has had a unique and privileged influence on our American heritage that overshadows the influences of other faith traditions, 2) a conviction that a Christian understanding of the world should predominate over other worldviews in American civic life, and 3) an understanding that a nation that successfully excised or sufficiently diluted this influence could no longer be called “American” in the same sense as before. Although more general than what the statement condemns, this understanding would actually encompass many Americans, whether they accept the label or not….
“Christian nationalism is not an attempt to requisition the state to teach Christian theology—it would be even less competent at this than it is at all other types of education. Neither is it in any way an incitement to the largely hypothetical violence over which the statement’s authors wring their hands.”
Cochran followed up with an August 15th article, “Answering Some Objections About Christian Nationalism” (https://matthewcochran.net/blog/answering-some-objections-about-christian-nationalism/) “to the objections that I found the most amusing, common, and/or personally interesting.”
Frederich Pfotenhauer (1859-1939), President of the Missouri Synod (1911-1935), in his "Unsere Distriktssynoden und die Munitionslieferung an die Kriegführenden" ("Our district conventions and the supply of ammunition to the belligerents," _Der Lutheraner_, February 15, 1916, p. 63), presented the theological justification for the involvement of the church (i.e., Christians, including church leaders) in government affairs:
"Where is the right boundary here? It must be said that the Church's office is involved wherever morality is concerned, i.e. right or wrong before God. Where right or wrong is not in question, the church should remain silent and not want to make any regulations. Luther expresses this in such a way that the church's office 'should not and cannot go further than that alone which is called sin before God, that where the same is concerned or turns' (that is, ceases), 'there also its regiment should concern and turn both, and all that lives and is called man on earth, be it emperor, king, great or small, should be subject to this regiment, no one excluded'." (St. Louis Edition XI, 757.)