Without opining myself on the issues mentioned, I'm pretty skeptical of a German immigrant, and Lutherans, at this point, weighing in on most US civic matters. Maybe the pacifism I see around me has deep roots. My own Weidner forefathers from Saxony were Brethren pietists, but I disavow that stuff.
I would argue that "before it was Americanized" is a slander. It wasn't Americanization, whatever is meant by that, but presumably to do with the transition to the English language and other assimilation into American society more broadly, but rather braoder theological/philosophical trends that really drew the LCMS from its early theology.
No slander was intended by the term "Americanized," though one can always read whatever intent one wishes into anything.
Lutheranism in America has in its history Samuel Schmucker, who infamously penned the "American recension" of the Augsburg Confession, performing a Jeffersonian excision of Lutheranism's sacramental emphasis in favor of Schmucker's own pietistic revivalism. American Christianity is Calvinistic (kudos to the Puritans and Congregationalists) and revivalistic (thanks to the "great awakenings") at its core, and it hasn't been kind to the Lutheran confession (or, for that matter, the Catholic confession!).
I believe that the great Americanization of the LCMS came with World War I/II and the LCMS' need to gain some distance between it and its German heritage. On the topic of war, one can hear it in the patriotic sermons of the Lutheran Hour, where theo-politics comes to full flower and Lutheran theology links arm in arm with American civil religion. We see it today in the Christian nationalist movements and the easy alliance between the LCMS and political conservatism.
I shouldn't have used slander; that word has a lot of baggage when I should have just said that I think the statement unfairly casts "Americanization" with negative broader theological/philosophical trends that were not particularly American. But I take your point that by moving to English and taking other visible steps to establish themselves as an American church body, the LCMS may have become more susceptible to being carried along with those broader trends. After all we see that throughout the history of the LCMS where turmoil allows more to sneak in and more to be left behind even when much is rejected and cast back out.
I'm not sure what you mean by theo-politics since that seems to be the point of the article: when theology is brought to bear on politics. But it is odd to comment on an article against WWI involvement that is consistent with LCMS commentary up through WWII that was against involvement to say that LCMS Americanized its theology to become more political?
It was Frederich Pfotenhauer (1859-1939), president of the Missouri Synod (1911-1935), who presented the theological justification for the involvement of the church (and also the Missouri Synod) in government affairs preceding and during WWI.
"The Lutheran Attitude Before 1917 - Before America’s entry into the war, the attitude of the Lutheran foreign-language press differed from the German-American press in general only in its greater moderation. Even the English Lutheran editors frequently challenged the pro-British interpretation of the conflict. “This war,” wrote Theodore E. Schmauk in 1914, “is the result of the British plan of destroying Germany’s foreign commerce and relations, and of doing away . with a rival whose influence on the world’s markets was asserting itself more and more at the cost of British commerce.”'* Most German Lutherans would have agreed and, therefore, hoped for a German victory of which they were quite confident in the early days of the war. Occasionally, a synod even prayed publicly for Germany, as did the Wartburg Synod (of the General Synod) in 1914. After the prayer it sang “Deutschland uber Alles” and “Die Wacht am Rhein.” More typical were prayers for the protection and welfare of fellow believers in the homeland.’ When American “neutrality” turned out to be in the Allies’ favor, Lutherans began publicly to criticize the government in a fashion not at all typical of their church in the past. German church papers, especially, supported movements critical of the government’s position, such as the American Neutrality League, the German-American National Conference, and the American Embargo Conference. Strange, in view of the Missouri’s Synod’s traditional social and political quietism, was the extent and vigor of its denunciations of the “atrocious trade in arms” and its charge that America’s lust for profit had turned it into a hypocritical murderer.'[16] Even more astounding was the theological justification for this new critical attitude voiced by Missouri’s president, that “anything that touches moral issues is within the sphere of the church." [17] Attacks on both American and German manufacturers, favorable reviews of books which laid the blame for the war on England, defenses against the charge of hyphenism, and synodical resolutions against arms exports which were causing loss of American lives were other expressions of the German sympathies of Lutherans. Allied defeats were interpreted as punishment for its national sins, such as the opium trade in China; German suffering as divine retribution for its spiritual decline. Only the more extreme Germanophiles went so far as to praise the Kaiser and General von Hindenburg as Christians worthy of emulation. [18]
[Footnotes]
16. Friedrich Bente of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, spoke frequently at neutrality conferences and editorialized regularly against American policy in Der Lutheraner, as did Theodore Graebner in the Lutheran Witness. Bente’s appearance before the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate in 1915 caused Henry Cabot Lodge to comment in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt in 1915 that Bente’s accent was “so strong you could stumble over it… [as he] lectured us on Americanism, patriotism… [and] the opinions of George Washington… Some of us are not hyphenates – we are just plain Americans – and the wrath of the members of the Committee, Democrats and Republicans, was pleasing to witness. I think they have overdone it.” Quoted in Carl S. Meyer, ed., Moving Frontiers: Readings in the History of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1964), p. 236.
17. Der Lutheraner, February 15, 1916, p. 63. When the issues became emotional enough, Lutherans could appeal to the very same oversimplified principle which they had criticized repeatedly when used by other Protestants to justify concern and action on social or political issues.
Having worked in the corporate world before my retirement, I have seen something that I think is very widespread, and I don’t see evidence that the church is dealing with it. When I say the church, I don’t just mean the Lutheran Church .
It’s the scourge of our times, Character is not revered in this ‘negative world’, to quote Aaron Renns’ book 📕 title.
Witness Boeing and Spirit aeronautical. Boeing paid a record $1.1 Billion dollar fine, for lying to the Federal Aviation Administration ON PAPER.
Boeing 737 airframe failures at Spirit Aeronautics in Kansas . The culture has become one where it’s okay to fire or transfer someone be-cause they won’t lie on paper, to a government agency. Dozens of inspectors were fired or transferred, 6 whistle blowers ‘committed suicide.’
There were other employees standing by while this was happening, other managers. They lack moral courage or the ability to distinguish the quality of their product.
The old morale tale still applies:
See no evil🙈
Hear no evil🙉
Speak no evil🙊
This is the world where assertive men with chests (virtue) get fired, where the three 🐒 🙈 🐵 get promoted.
Der Lutheraner, February 15, 1916: “That guilt arises because, by supplying munitions, we take part in a war to which we have no divine call. The case is simply this: whoever kills, or helps to kill, without such a call lays hands on the majesty of God’s commandment, ‘You shall not kill’.”
As Luther explains in his LC: “Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment, nor is the power to kill, which they have, taken away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them to death. Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation to any one else, and not to the government.”
Thus the argument from Der Lutheraner, February 15, 1916, is insufficient to proclaim 5th commandment guilt for supplying munitions to England.
What can be argued is whether, prior to the U.S. entry into WWI, President Wilson and his administration allowing munitions to be sent to England on passenger liners, despite German warnings that ships carrying munitions to England were liable to be sunk, is a violation of the 5th commandment. In May, 1915, the RMS Lusitania (including 139 Americans civilians among the 1,264 passengers and 700 crew) was carrying munitions from the U.S. to England, when it was sunk by a German U-boat.
Although I might have agreed with the position, I was wondering if there was a prior justification for the conclusion that they were taking part in a war in which there was no divine call. Perhaps it is simply my American view that selling you a gun and ammunition does not in itself mean I am taking part in murder if you then use it to murder. There are missing steps there to be established. While the article is responding to objections to actions taken by districts, it presupposes the foundational point.
If you divorce the sale of the gun and ammunition from all context then you would be correct, selling them is not murder. However, if I sell you a gun and ammunition knowing you intend to use them to murder your neighbor, then I bear guilt, for I've not done all that I could to protect my neighbor in his body.
To the purpose of this post. If the USA is selling arms to Ukraine so that she can defend her citizens' lives, then this is honest trade. If we do so knowing that she is using them to murder her own citizens in the Donbass, or to provoke Russian aggression, then we are complicit in the deaths they cause.
The trouble for the Church is that we seldom know which side is telling the truth about a war. We all have our opinions, but they are usually colored by the flavor of propaganda to which we've been exposed.
Re your first paragraph, hence my comment that there are missing steps to be established, and that to make the argument you would have to first establish that the seller knows and does sell to someone who is actively or intending to engage in sin.
On Ukraine, selling arms into an active war is participation in the war in my view. Whether it is a sin to do so depends on establishing a lot of foundational factors, but even then it may not be wise to get involved.
We don't need to know who is telling the truth about a war if we don't get involved. In my view, a country should have more than thinking that one side is engaged in a just war to result in getting involved.
Justin: “I was wondering if there was a prior justification for the conclusion that they were taking part in a war in which there was no divine call.”
To the contrary.
First, President Woodrow Wilson campaigned on, and once elected, formally proclaimed official neutrality in 1914 on the expanding European war. This was initially considered a safe position because of the different sympathies held by U.S. citizens with British, French, German, Scandinavian, or Irish heritage. There were also some religious and political factions promoting pacifism.
Second, existing U.S. laws allowed private companies to sell munitions to belligerent countries not at war with one’s own nation. This was a longstanding legal practice with numerous examples in the 19th century and early 20th century. Manufacturers were also free to sell munitions to Germany, but the British naval blockade of Germany was so effective that such shipping attempts were not practical. BTW, there were various neutrality laws that made it illegal for US citizens to engage in specific warfare activities against nations at peace with the United States (e.g., it would be illegal for a group of American Confessional Lutherans to attack and overthrow the government of the smallest independent nation in the world).
Third, contrary to one Der Lutheraner claim, prior to WW1, international law and domestic laws also did not prohibit manufacturers in countries, including the US, from selling munitions to countries at war, although the risk of neutral ships carrying munitions being seized was a risk born by the manufacturer and shipper. Manufacturers in other countries, even including German arms manufacturers, had sold munitions to (sometimes both) combatants in the Russo-Japanese War and the Balkan Wars.
Fourth, while initially a few merchant ships of neutral countries were used in shipping the munitions to Great Britain, eventually almost all of the merchant ships were British. According to the Cruiser Rules that had been in existence for years, during war a neutral merchant ship carrying munitions to a warring country could be boarded by the navy of the country’s enemies and the crew put on lifeboats before the ship and its munitions were sunk. However, such Cruiser Rules were disadvantageous (and risky) to German U-boats in the Atlantic Ocean, which was largely controlled by British warships. Thus, German U-boats ignored the Cruiser Rule and gave no warning before sinking merchant (or other) ships suspected of carrying munitions to England.
Fifth, for context, Germany declared war against France on August 3, 1914. But rather than a straight invasion across a well-defended French border, Germany went through the neutral Belgium, conquering it in what has been called the “Rape of Belgium”, before attacking France. This violated the 1839 Treaty of London (signed by England and the various European powers, including Germany), resulting in the August 4, 1914, declaration of war against Germany by the British Empire, who were also concerned about the possibility of Germany gaining control of Europe, and its associated colonies.
Sixth, the argument that the sale of munitions to a country at war is itself a sin is similar to what is heard more recently from leftist anti-2nd Amendment advocates, who try to make a weapons manufacturer responsible for a murder committed by a murderer using its (even if stolen) product.
Seventh, nowhere in Der Lutheraner article is it proven that the involvement in the war by the British Empire was against the 5th Commandment and thus sinful.
In my view, Der Lutheraner article’s proclaiming the “guilt of blood… in a war in which there was no divine call” was simply gaslighting hogwash, especially when such a pronouncement was devoid of any condemnation of Germany’s invasion of and atrocities committed in Belgium, and its U-boat sinkings of merchant and passenger ships. Claiming “the office of the Church bears upon everything that involves morality, that is, right and wrong before God” does not allow the Church (or the seminary president of a Synod of churches) to hypocritically skip over certain national borders.
Without opining myself on the issues mentioned, I'm pretty skeptical of a German immigrant, and Lutherans, at this point, weighing in on most US civic matters. Maybe the pacifism I see around me has deep roots. My own Weidner forefathers from Saxony were Brethren pietists, but I disavow that stuff.
Der Lutheraner is a treasure house of early LCMS theology before it was Americanized. This is a far cry from the theo-politics of today.
I would argue that "before it was Americanized" is a slander. It wasn't Americanization, whatever is meant by that, but presumably to do with the transition to the English language and other assimilation into American society more broadly, but rather braoder theological/philosophical trends that really drew the LCMS from its early theology.
No slander was intended by the term "Americanized," though one can always read whatever intent one wishes into anything.
Lutheranism in America has in its history Samuel Schmucker, who infamously penned the "American recension" of the Augsburg Confession, performing a Jeffersonian excision of Lutheranism's sacramental emphasis in favor of Schmucker's own pietistic revivalism. American Christianity is Calvinistic (kudos to the Puritans and Congregationalists) and revivalistic (thanks to the "great awakenings") at its core, and it hasn't been kind to the Lutheran confession (or, for that matter, the Catholic confession!).
I believe that the great Americanization of the LCMS came with World War I/II and the LCMS' need to gain some distance between it and its German heritage. On the topic of war, one can hear it in the patriotic sermons of the Lutheran Hour, where theo-politics comes to full flower and Lutheran theology links arm in arm with American civil religion. We see it today in the Christian nationalist movements and the easy alliance between the LCMS and political conservatism.
I shouldn't have used slander; that word has a lot of baggage when I should have just said that I think the statement unfairly casts "Americanization" with negative broader theological/philosophical trends that were not particularly American. But I take your point that by moving to English and taking other visible steps to establish themselves as an American church body, the LCMS may have become more susceptible to being carried along with those broader trends. After all we see that throughout the history of the LCMS where turmoil allows more to sneak in and more to be left behind even when much is rejected and cast back out.
I'm not sure what you mean by theo-politics since that seems to be the point of the article: when theology is brought to bear on politics. But it is odd to comment on an article against WWI involvement that is consistent with LCMS commentary up through WWII that was against involvement to say that LCMS Americanized its theology to become more political?
It was Frederich Pfotenhauer (1859-1939), president of the Missouri Synod (1911-1935), who presented the theological justification for the involvement of the church (and also the Missouri Synod) in government affairs preceding and during WWI.
From Fred W. Meuser, “Facing the Twentieth Century,” (in E. Clifford Nelson, ed., The Lutherans in North America, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975, pp. 396-7, (https://archive.org/details/lutheransinnorth0000unse/page/396/mode/2up):
"The Lutheran Attitude Before 1917 - Before America’s entry into the war, the attitude of the Lutheran foreign-language press differed from the German-American press in general only in its greater moderation. Even the English Lutheran editors frequently challenged the pro-British interpretation of the conflict. “This war,” wrote Theodore E. Schmauk in 1914, “is the result of the British plan of destroying Germany’s foreign commerce and relations, and of doing away . with a rival whose influence on the world’s markets was asserting itself more and more at the cost of British commerce.”'* Most German Lutherans would have agreed and, therefore, hoped for a German victory of which they were quite confident in the early days of the war. Occasionally, a synod even prayed publicly for Germany, as did the Wartburg Synod (of the General Synod) in 1914. After the prayer it sang “Deutschland uber Alles” and “Die Wacht am Rhein.” More typical were prayers for the protection and welfare of fellow believers in the homeland.’ When American “neutrality” turned out to be in the Allies’ favor, Lutherans began publicly to criticize the government in a fashion not at all typical of their church in the past. German church papers, especially, supported movements critical of the government’s position, such as the American Neutrality League, the German-American National Conference, and the American Embargo Conference. Strange, in view of the Missouri’s Synod’s traditional social and political quietism, was the extent and vigor of its denunciations of the “atrocious trade in arms” and its charge that America’s lust for profit had turned it into a hypocritical murderer.'[16] Even more astounding was the theological justification for this new critical attitude voiced by Missouri’s president, that “anything that touches moral issues is within the sphere of the church." [17] Attacks on both American and German manufacturers, favorable reviews of books which laid the blame for the war on England, defenses against the charge of hyphenism, and synodical resolutions against arms exports which were causing loss of American lives were other expressions of the German sympathies of Lutherans. Allied defeats were interpreted as punishment for its national sins, such as the opium trade in China; German suffering as divine retribution for its spiritual decline. Only the more extreme Germanophiles went so far as to praise the Kaiser and General von Hindenburg as Christians worthy of emulation. [18]
[Footnotes]
16. Friedrich Bente of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, spoke frequently at neutrality conferences and editorialized regularly against American policy in Der Lutheraner, as did Theodore Graebner in the Lutheran Witness. Bente’s appearance before the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate in 1915 caused Henry Cabot Lodge to comment in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt in 1915 that Bente’s accent was “so strong you could stumble over it… [as he] lectured us on Americanism, patriotism… [and] the opinions of George Washington… Some of us are not hyphenates – we are just plain Americans – and the wrath of the members of the Committee, Democrats and Republicans, was pleasing to witness. I think they have overdone it.” Quoted in Carl S. Meyer, ed., Moving Frontiers: Readings in the History of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1964), p. 236.
17. Der Lutheraner, February 15, 1916, p. 63. When the issues became emotional enough, Lutherans could appeal to the very same oversimplified principle which they had criticized repeatedly when used by other Protestants to justify concern and action on social or political issues.
18. The Lutheran Witness, December 15, 1914, p.207 (http://books.google.com/books?id=K5osAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA207&f=false); August 10, 1915, p. 253 (http://books.google.com/books?id=_pksAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA253&f=false)."
Having worked in the corporate world before my retirement, I have seen something that I think is very widespread, and I don’t see evidence that the church is dealing with it. When I say the church, I don’t just mean the Lutheran Church .
It’s the scourge of our times, Character is not revered in this ‘negative world’, to quote Aaron Renns’ book 📕 title.
Witness Boeing and Spirit aeronautical. Boeing paid a record $1.1 Billion dollar fine, for lying to the Federal Aviation Administration ON PAPER.
Boeing 737 airframe failures at Spirit Aeronautics in Kansas . The culture has become one where it’s okay to fire or transfer someone be-cause they won’t lie on paper, to a government agency. Dozens of inspectors were fired or transferred, 6 whistle blowers ‘committed suicide.’
There were other employees standing by while this was happening, other managers. They lack moral courage or the ability to distinguish the quality of their product.
The old morale tale still applies:
See no evil🙈
Hear no evil🙉
Speak no evil🙊
This is the world where assertive men with chests (virtue) get fired, where the three 🐒 🙈 🐵 get promoted.
See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.
Der Lutheraner, February 15, 1916: “That guilt arises because, by supplying munitions, we take part in a war to which we have no divine call. The case is simply this: whoever kills, or helps to kill, without such a call lays hands on the majesty of God’s commandment, ‘You shall not kill’.”
As Luther explains in his LC: “Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment, nor is the power to kill, which they have, taken away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them to death. Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation to any one else, and not to the government.”
Thus the argument from Der Lutheraner, February 15, 1916, is insufficient to proclaim 5th commandment guilt for supplying munitions to England.
What can be argued is whether, prior to the U.S. entry into WWI, President Wilson and his administration allowing munitions to be sent to England on passenger liners, despite German warnings that ships carrying munitions to England were liable to be sunk, is a violation of the 5th commandment. In May, 1915, the RMS Lusitania (including 139 Americans civilians among the 1,264 passengers and 700 crew) was carrying munitions from the U.S. to England, when it was sunk by a German U-boat.
Although I might have agreed with the position, I was wondering if there was a prior justification for the conclusion that they were taking part in a war in which there was no divine call. Perhaps it is simply my American view that selling you a gun and ammunition does not in itself mean I am taking part in murder if you then use it to murder. There are missing steps there to be established. While the article is responding to objections to actions taken by districts, it presupposes the foundational point.
If you divorce the sale of the gun and ammunition from all context then you would be correct, selling them is not murder. However, if I sell you a gun and ammunition knowing you intend to use them to murder your neighbor, then I bear guilt, for I've not done all that I could to protect my neighbor in his body.
To the purpose of this post. If the USA is selling arms to Ukraine so that she can defend her citizens' lives, then this is honest trade. If we do so knowing that she is using them to murder her own citizens in the Donbass, or to provoke Russian aggression, then we are complicit in the deaths they cause.
The trouble for the Church is that we seldom know which side is telling the truth about a war. We all have our opinions, but they are usually colored by the flavor of propaganda to which we've been exposed.
Re your first paragraph, hence my comment that there are missing steps to be established, and that to make the argument you would have to first establish that the seller knows and does sell to someone who is actively or intending to engage in sin.
On Ukraine, selling arms into an active war is participation in the war in my view. Whether it is a sin to do so depends on establishing a lot of foundational factors, but even then it may not be wise to get involved.
We don't need to know who is telling the truth about a war if we don't get involved. In my view, a country should have more than thinking that one side is engaged in a just war to result in getting involved.
Justin: “I was wondering if there was a prior justification for the conclusion that they were taking part in a war in which there was no divine call.”
To the contrary.
First, President Woodrow Wilson campaigned on, and once elected, formally proclaimed official neutrality in 1914 on the expanding European war. This was initially considered a safe position because of the different sympathies held by U.S. citizens with British, French, German, Scandinavian, or Irish heritage. There were also some religious and political factions promoting pacifism.
Second, existing U.S. laws allowed private companies to sell munitions to belligerent countries not at war with one’s own nation. This was a longstanding legal practice with numerous examples in the 19th century and early 20th century. Manufacturers were also free to sell munitions to Germany, but the British naval blockade of Germany was so effective that such shipping attempts were not practical. BTW, there were various neutrality laws that made it illegal for US citizens to engage in specific warfare activities against nations at peace with the United States (e.g., it would be illegal for a group of American Confessional Lutherans to attack and overthrow the government of the smallest independent nation in the world).
Third, contrary to one Der Lutheraner claim, prior to WW1, international law and domestic laws also did not prohibit manufacturers in countries, including the US, from selling munitions to countries at war, although the risk of neutral ships carrying munitions being seized was a risk born by the manufacturer and shipper. Manufacturers in other countries, even including German arms manufacturers, had sold munitions to (sometimes both) combatants in the Russo-Japanese War and the Balkan Wars.
Fourth, while initially a few merchant ships of neutral countries were used in shipping the munitions to Great Britain, eventually almost all of the merchant ships were British. According to the Cruiser Rules that had been in existence for years, during war a neutral merchant ship carrying munitions to a warring country could be boarded by the navy of the country’s enemies and the crew put on lifeboats before the ship and its munitions were sunk. However, such Cruiser Rules were disadvantageous (and risky) to German U-boats in the Atlantic Ocean, which was largely controlled by British warships. Thus, German U-boats ignored the Cruiser Rule and gave no warning before sinking merchant (or other) ships suspected of carrying munitions to England.
Fifth, for context, Germany declared war against France on August 3, 1914. But rather than a straight invasion across a well-defended French border, Germany went through the neutral Belgium, conquering it in what has been called the “Rape of Belgium”, before attacking France. This violated the 1839 Treaty of London (signed by England and the various European powers, including Germany), resulting in the August 4, 1914, declaration of war against Germany by the British Empire, who were also concerned about the possibility of Germany gaining control of Europe, and its associated colonies.
Sixth, the argument that the sale of munitions to a country at war is itself a sin is similar to what is heard more recently from leftist anti-2nd Amendment advocates, who try to make a weapons manufacturer responsible for a murder committed by a murderer using its (even if stolen) product.
Seventh, nowhere in Der Lutheraner article is it proven that the involvement in the war by the British Empire was against the 5th Commandment and thus sinful.
In my view, Der Lutheraner article’s proclaiming the “guilt of blood… in a war in which there was no divine call” was simply gaslighting hogwash, especially when such a pronouncement was devoid of any condemnation of Germany’s invasion of and atrocities committed in Belgium, and its U-boat sinkings of merchant and passenger ships. Claiming “the office of the Church bears upon everything that involves morality, that is, right and wrong before God” does not allow the Church (or the seminary president of a Synod of churches) to hypocritically skip over certain national borders.