For many of us, it has been the best of times and the worst of times to be a Lutheran. In the fall of this year, we will be celebrating the 500th anniversary of Reformation Day. This is the day, when Luther supposedly nailed the 95 theses to the doors of the Wittenberg Church, thus precipitating a chain reaction that would inevitably lead to the Protestant movement. Lutherans usually don’t get any attention, and for the most part we like it like that. We aren’t like our swashbuckling friends: the Calvinists, or our “center of the universe” buddies: the Roman Catholics, or even our “can’t we all just get along” colleagues in the Methodist Church. Lutherans like to just get the job done. Most of them have a good grasp on handiwork (my dad and I are exceptions that rule), prefer to show compassion not in sermons or bombastic good works but in casseroles, and don’t mind being the largest Protestant Denomination you’ve probably never met anyone attending.
Yet, this has a limit. For one thing, when Lutherans do enter a fray; they usually dominate it. Lutherans started everything from pietism and the Welhausen Hypothesis. It isn’t just Christianity where we shine, Lutherans have been at the cutting edge of philosophy, public policy, and even rocket science. The simple fact is that the grunt work of advancing humanity has been done, in large part, by Lutherans doing there thing. Of course there is a difference between acknowledging that a group of people just likes getting the work done and not getting the limelight for it, and misrepresenting that group and why they do what they do. Yet, that is exactly what we are seeing this year. When this happens, well, one should expect that Lutherans are going to have to do what we do best: explain reality.
You see most people don’t know what Lutherans actually believe and so rather than ask a Lutheran, they just sort of project onto them their own theologies and beliefs. At the Wesleyan seminary I attended, my Lutheranism was compartmentalized as being either Wesleyan or Calvinist. Trying to explain to people that we had been at the theology game longer (and better) than these two only registered blank stares and further pigeonholing into the Calvinist/Wesleyan dichotomy.
Yet, as bad as Wesleyans can be, no one misses the point more than Evangelicals … I mean what we think of as American Evangelicals. The original Evangelical name was, you guessed it, Lutheran. Whether it is Eric Metaxas’ substandard biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer or an animated video of “Protestants” starting with Luther, but not containing any other Lutherans besides him; the so-called Calvinists in America seem to believe that after Luther, the Calvinists came along as if Luther were some half-formed proto-Calvinist and the current Calvinists are the next step in the Evangelical Evolution. (There’s something you won’t read everyday.)
This was especially galling when reading Christianity Today. Now, I have to be honest, I really like most of what Christianity Today does. I subscribe and share and generally get a lot of out it. I know they were trying to be nice and show, in their own way, how much they appreciate Luther. But subconsciously they really miss the mark. In fact, I think subconsciously, they are kind of afraid of Lutherans. Just think if Lutherans ever rose up and got it in their head to take back the name we had taken on back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the Evangelicals in America would have to find another name (Fundamentalists anyone?). So there is a, subconscious, mind you, desire to pretend that nothing ever happened in Lutheranism after Martin Luther. This is done in three ways. Either the person is ignored (see Philip Jacob Spener, Martin Chemnitz, Gerhard Forde, or just about any other Lutheran) or that person’s character is destroyed (see Philip Melancthon) or the person is coopted (Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the perfect example of this). This is a very simplistic (and dare I say, Calvinistic) way of doing theology because it allows one to streamline their beliefs and not deal with the nuances.
But nuances are where Lutherans excel. While at seminary, I was struggling with the notion of “free will.” It was a Calvinist who got me to cross certain hurtles and see what the Lutheran position was. Another time I had a Baptist preacher introduce me to the books of a Presbyterian minister who was fond of citing Lutheran thinkers. Lutherans are not the dominant members of this culture and thus are forced to take nuanced positions on every issue or risk selling out to some other belief system.
This is made far more difficult when one takes into account just how hard it is to find things of a Lutheran viewpoint. Catholics and Methodists and Calvinists churn out so many works by authors in their point of view, that it can be difficult to find a Lutheran book. Last night, I was reading an article in Christianity Today where a Bible Scholar from TEDS (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) was listing his favorite books from the past year. He listed a book on Luther that had recently been released by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols. The book features many authors explaining Luther’s life and contributions. Yet only one of those authors was Lutheran. Now we can argue back and forth about the audience and intended theology of the book, but my problem is this. The book is published by a group called “Reformation Trust” and yet seems to box out an entire group of reformers. It is as if someone stole my identity and told me I should be grateful for the publicity they were giving me.
Yet this is not just limited to Calvinists and Catholics, but extends into the secular culture. The magazine “The Economist” is usually pretty good at its news, until it starts talking about religious news. At which point it exhibits the worst characteristics of its Englishness. In an article they attempt to psychoanalyze all of their disdain for Germany by tracing it back to Luther. Any Lutheran with a passing knowledge of the Reformation and Lutheran theology could pick it apart in no time. From their insistence that Luther believed we should have sort of Wesleyan notion of sanctification and how this led to austerity in German churches (it didn’t) and central European outlook (that was John Calvin’s influence through the Kingdom of Prussia) to the notion that Luther’s views led to servility to the state to stating that his racism led to naziism* (anti-semitism was round long before Luther). Missing from the piece were civic documents given by Luther, the kernel of the separation church and state found in his works on the two kingdoms, and references to the Book of Concord. I suppose we can just chalk this up to typical English xenophobia though.
So what is a Lutheran supposed to do? Well, I hope to kick off series of pieces about what Lutherans believe (or at least what this Lutheran believes). I welcome my Lutheran friends to contact me if they have any ideas. I will try and keep these things short and sweet. But I believe there is no better time for Lutherans to declare their Lutheran difference. America has become polarized and most people have moved decisively into certain camps, but perhaps this is the invitation that Lutherans need. There is a job that needs to get done, and after looking around, I guess we are the ones who are going to have to get it done. Again.
*A standard story repeated enough to be considered true. Luther’s anti-semitism could be found all over Europe so the question is whether it is a chicken or the egg? Did Luther’s anti-semitism infect Germany or did German anti-semitism infect Luther. While the answer is far more complex than that, it is obvious that Luther’s citations were used by Nazis. All Lutherans, regardless about how you feel about Luther, should apologize and work (as German leaders have since) in manifesting contrition through right action towards all Jewish people.
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