FROM THE PASTOR

Civic Engagement of Lutherans

I have been viewing the materials for the ELCA study on civic engagement with much excitement and anticipation.  With the help of the Global Links Team we will be engaging in this study during the Adult Forum this Fall and sharing our insights with the ELCA as it completes a Social Statement on this topic and brings it to the 2025 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.   Watch for details and materials on this in the near future.  

I have been a participant and leader in a peace process with Iran over the past fifteen years, which began during my days as bishop in New York.  This process, sponsored by the Peace Research Institute of Norway (PRIO), was begun as a back channel for discussions between two countries who do not understand one another and could go to war.  PRIO has been involved in these peace efforts in many places: Sri Lanka, Israel Palestine, and many other places of conflict around the world.  The terms of engagement were “Abrahamic (Muslim, Jewish and Christian) Dialogues,” where religious, political, academic and civic leaders would take up various topics.  Over the years the conversations and relationships formed were a foundation for the eventual Atomic Accords (and for holding relationships and restoring trust after the US walked away from the Accords.  The topic of our meeting in Lisbon was “Statecraft in the Abrahamic Religions.”  I was asked to prepare a paper on how Christians engage the public arena.  I have revised and updated that paper by drawing out some foundations for this coming discussion.  I hope they touch your interest as background for our conversations this fall.  In the video I will share some highlights of these foundations. 

Some Biblical and Theological Foundations for Lutheran Civic Engagement  

Incarnation. The theologian Karl Barth said “A Christian ought to pray with the Bible in one hand and the New York Times in the other.” The Biblical narrative places God’s activity at the center of human history. Incarnation means that the real God takes real flesh (humanity) in the real world among real people. The central historical narrative for Christian traditions is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, son of God. We enter the public arena because the public square is God’s and God continues to be present in the world. Public mission is discerning what God is doing in the world and joining God there.  

Tzedik. Biblical tradition places the theology of the Jewish faith, and then of the Christian faith within a larger socio-political and religious context. Two Hebrew words can help us here. One is “mishpat,” which has been translated as justice. “Mishpat” is the activity, the defining decisions made by those in power. The other is “tzedik,” which is best translated as righteousness. “Tzedik” is the communal consensus, the meta-narrative of the community, its highest ideals. The “mishpat” must be derived from the “tzedik.” In the Hebrew Scriptures there are two competing narratives (tzedik), or ways of understanding and being in the world. One was the ethos of survival coming out of the Canaanite myths and the other was the ethos of Yahweh, the God of the widows and orphans. The mishpat of Baal, the Canaanite God, is about power and armies and treaties. The highest good is survival. It is a public consensus about accepting coercion in an age of scarcity. The ethos of God, the creator, is a consensus of abundance and grace. I believe that the choice is still before us today in our polarized world. Baal or God? These competing worldviews also played out in the Roman Empire setting of the New Testament.  These competing myths of scarcity and abundance drive public conflict. This biblical ethos of compassion, for relational connection to the least, the last, the most vulnerable informs Lutheran civic engagement.  With the tzedik of abundance and grace we move to the mishpat, the justice for the most vulnerable. God takes sides.   

Abundance. In America we have “red” and “blue” state ways of lining up on certain issues. We need a religious vision big enough to transcend both of these smaller visions. In all of the Abrahamic faiths there are some very clear central values. God is a God of abundance, not scarcity. God is not holding out on us. God calls us to welcome the stranger. The heart of God goes out to the poor and hungry. Orphans and widows have a special place in our scripture narratives. God is the author of Salaam, Shalom, Peace. For Christians in America issues like immigration, poverty, and hunger have very clear biblical mandates around which red and blue state folks ought to find ways to unite.  

Two-handed God. Lutherans believe in a two-handed God. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk and Lutheran thinking about public faith lies ever in the shadow of St. Augustine. The Augustinian distinction between the City of God and the City of Man is expressed by Martin Luther in his doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, The kingdom of the right hand (salvation) and the kingdom of the left hand (public engagement in the world). It is out of these traditions that we get the idea of the separation of church and state. This means that our efforts to participate in public political life, to stand with the poor, to transform systems of dominance and corruption, to engage in corporate and individual acts of mercy, and to influence legislation on behalf of the most vulnerable, are not messianic. We do not claim to be ushering in the Kingdom of God by our political activity in the world. It is provisional, at best a sign of the reign of God to come. That ability to live in ambiguity, guided by the tzedik of grace and abundance, also leaves us free to work with other men and women of good will in the public arena. Lutherans would say that the death and resurrection of Jesus (right hand) makes us free to love and serve our neighbor (left hand).  

Presence. Luther, as a good Catholic, believed that “finitum capax infinitum.”  The finite is capable of the infinite. Life is sacramental. The water of baptism conveys the eternal grace of God’s love. Ordinary bread and wine hold the eternal and holy presence of the body and blood of Christ. So also each Christian, each act of mercy can be a sign of God’s presence. How does one know the messiah is present? The blind will see, the prisoners will be set free, there will be good news for the poor, the oppressed will go free. (See Luke 4: 16-22.) When Christians pursue ministries of mercy and justice in the community these are glimpses of the presence of the Messiah, signs of shalom.  

Vocation. Luther’s idea of vocation is very important here. The mediating institutions of family, congregation, and neighborhood in which we are embedded gain importance as we venture into the public arena. Christian ministries tend to want to strengthen these bonds of family, congregation, neighborhood and mutual help in the kingdom of the left hand.   

Exile. The prophet Jeremiah gives a glimpse of the two kingdoms, a modest biblical realism concerning the outreach of the faith community. Israel is in exile in Babylon. They face an identity crisis. In the words of one psalm they ask “how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” While never allowing them to forget Jerusalem, Jeremiah yet gives this advice: While in Babylon plant your trees, have your babies, live your daily lives fully and “seek the welfare of the city in which God has placed you in exile, pray for it, for in its welfare you will find your own.” This is really important. It tells us that our mission field is here and now, in this place where God has placed us.   

Creation. In Genesis Adam and Eve were created “in the image of God” and embedded with each other in God’s creation.  This means that they were partners with God in unfolding creation. God told them—us—to name, bless, have a hand, be involved in the organization of the created world. We were created to be stewards—subjects, not objects, of history. We were created, in the image of God, to be actresses and actors in the human drama. To have no say in your life, no way of participating in communal decisions and well-being is to be spiritually dead. We were created to participate in creation. That means that our public presence will always be seeking voices not heard, power where there is none, seats at the table for those who have been shut out.  

Ecumenical.  Lutheranism was a pastoral care movement within the one holy, catholic and apostolic church.  Lutherans are ecumenical by definition.  There may be principled limits in participation with other church bodies (or other Lutherans) in some areas of engagement.  But in striving for justice and mercy in the world Lutherans are ecumenical, and free to work with others in the ecumenical, interfaith and public arenas who work for a more human, embedded world of healing, justice and mercy.  How can St. Luke’s be such  bridge in our place and time?  

Stephen Paul Bouman 

Park Ridge, August 2023