This coming month a few big things will be happening in our church. The first is the Community Service and Family Fun Day on September 8th. You could also call it “Rally Day” or “God’s Work Our Hands” Sunday. It’s all those things. We’re trying to market it to people outside the church, who probably don’t know what Rally Day or God’s Work Sunday is. But we have food, community service projects, and some things for kids: the face painter and Willie the balloon maker are back. BUT…..you don’t have to have young children to participate!!!! It’s for the whole church, and intended to be an all-church, all-ages, all-community event.
In olden times it was Rally Day, which was the start of Sunday school. It was a kick-off to get kids back into Sunday school and the church program year. We haven’t had a traditional Sunday school for over 13 years; we do our lessons for kids during the sermon at the 10:30am service. Nonetheless, it’s still a fun time to get everyone back together.
And, unless you have been living under a rock, there’s an election coming up. And it’s big. And we will be asked to vote on candidates and a host of propositions and judges and various positions. We will have the opportunity to make change and participate in government, something a lot of the world does not get to do. As Christians, we have values that inform those decisions, but not uniform agreement on exactly what those values are, or what the role of the government is, or how involved the church should be in these matters. Unlike some pastors, I will not tell you which candidate is “appointed by God” and which propositions are “Biblical”, for many reasons. However, I do believe it’s good for us to do more with politics than just have church about personal problems and prayer, and leave the policies and justice discussions for someone else.
So, where does one begin?
The ELCA (The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), our denomination, puts out social statements from time to time. These are teaching documents, not binding on members (so you don’t have to agree with them to be an ELCA Lutheran). They are not policy documents for congregations. They don’t function with the weight of a Catholic encyclial, say. I’ve done videos on some of the old statements, giving my interpretation of them and introducing them to the people online who might not know that the ELCA exists, or that Christians exist who take social positions that are not reactionary.
Now a new statement is being proposed, and it’s still in the study phase, where people can view it and send back feedback to the committee crafting it. These are not concocted in smoke-filled rooms or in seminary salons. They’re open to the whole church to participate in. It’s called “Civic Life and Faith”. It delves into the issues of engaging issues as a church, faith and public life etc. It has not been ratified, which requires a 2/3 vote of a national assembly.
I decided to do a few study sessions on it to get us started in the conversation, and to be a part of the process. Feedback is open until the end of September. I will host four sessions, in-person, here at church, on September 11, 18, 25, and October 2nd at 6:30pm in the conference room. It’s just a read through and discussion, with no end goal; I’m not aiming to convert to a particular position, just to explore what the social statement committee has come up with.
Peter Muhlenberg. Lutheran Pastor, Revolutionary War hero.
Our history of engagement as Lutherans has been mostly about not-engaging, or selling out. The history is long and sometimes complicated. Lutheran churches in Europe are state churches, paid for by taxes and administered as branches of the government. This has changed in recent years, with the churches becoming moreindependent. It used to be in Sweden, and in England, that a new hymnal needed a vote of parliament. No longer. But with that history, we should not be surprised that bishops were not inclined to bite the hand that feeds them. As much as Martin Luther envisioned a dialectic with the church holding the state accountable, and the state keeping order, and them working back and forth simultaneously as “two kingdoms”, the reality became more one of political union and spiritual separation. Faith was about praying and worshiping and getting to heaven. Politics was the state. So most Lutherans who came to the US stayed out of active politics, with some important exceptions, such as Lutheran pastor Peter Muhlenberg who led troops at Valley Forge under George Washington.
So the history became what theologians now call “quietism” – Christians staying quiet about politics, keeping faith to personal matters and the interior and moral life. When I was in seminary it was a dirty word, and we were admonished constantly to not fall into it, but keep a prophetic witness. Speak the truth to power. Proclaim justice. Name names. It always worked better in principle than parish, where people can choose to leave, or try to run you out if they don’t like your prophecying.
But, and there’s always a but, one can’t forget the German church of the 1930’s. Hitler required an oath from all pastors, his oath, of course, and 98% took it. The Dietrich Bonhoeffers and Martin Niemoller’s were the exception. Yes, they had a prison camp waiting if they didn’t, but most were not doing it with gritting teeth, but with glee. The pastor in Eisleben, at Luther’s family church, where Luther was baptized, had swastikas on his boots under his robes. Because religion was so deeply internalized, it no longer had anything to say to the authorities. It was about making good citizens, with good morals, and not revolutionaries who cause chaos. We look back in such horror at their acquiescence and buy-in, but that’s hindsight. In the moment they were good patriots who loved their country and were proud their leader would make Germany powerful and respected again, the way they believed God wanted it. Their hearts were not initially in antisemitism, at least not openly, but in quietism and a theology that refused to see any contradiction between the Gospel and the desire for the greatness of the nation.
I keep that in the back of my mind, and always hope that we can take a critical view of our own political views, and not fall for the desires of ethno-nationalism and authoritarianism. But it’s hard, because we don’t like to think our views are on the table. It’s “those people” who are out to destroy us. Except Jesus died for them too.
So join me; I think it will be fun. We can model what the rest of the world struggles with: intelligent conversation about religion and public life.
Pastor Lars
