LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 330

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330

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

In the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, this Lutheran teaching is
grounded in Jesus’ own redefinition of His messianic kingdom:

Christ’s kingdom is spiritual; it is the knowledge of God in the heart, the
fear of God and faith, the beginning of eternal righteousness and eternal

life. At the same time it lets us make outward use of the legitimate politi-

cal ordinances of the nation in which we live, just as it lets us make use of
medicine or architecture, food or drink or air. The Gospel does not intro-
duce any new laws about the civil estate, but commands us tu obey the
existing laws, whether they were formulated by heathen or by others, and

in this obedience to practice love. (Ap XVI, 2-3)

Article XVI of the Apology makes it clear that the Gospel does not have as
its task the transformation of society. Indeed, making the Gospel a guide to
civil law, according to the Apology, would be as ill-fated for Protestants as
it was for the papacy:

It was mad of Carlstadt to try to impose on us the judicial laws of Moses.
Our theologians have written extensively on this subject because the
monks had broadcast many dangerous ideas through the church. They
called it an evangelical state tu hold property in common, and they called
it an evangelical counsel not to own property and not to go to court. These
ideas seriously obscure the Gospel and the spiritual kingdom: they are also
dangerous to the state. (Ap XVI, 4)

So as to make the Lutheran Law-Gospel distinction clear, the Apology
repeatedly emphasizes that “the Gospel does not legislate for the civil
estate but is the forgiveness of sins and the beginning of eternal life in the
hearts of believers” (Ap XVI, 6). Yet, at the same time, the Apology also
makes clear that Christians will leaven the whole social loaf in which they
find themselves by practicing a faith active in love: “Good works should
be done because God has commanded them and in order to exercise our
faith, to give testimony, and to render thanks” (Ap IV, 189).

~ This subject is also addressed clearly in Melanchthon’s Loci Communes of 1543: “The
Gospel clearly teaches that the kingdom of Chnist is spintual. Christ sits at the right hand of
the Father and intercedes for us, and gives the Holy Spirit and the remission of sins to the
church, that 1s, to those who believe in Him and call upon God with confidence in Him that
He will sanctify them, so that He may raise them up on the last day to eternal glory, ... The
Jewish error of the Anabaptists must be regected and condemned. They have the notion that
the church before the last day will be some kind of civil and worldly state in which the godly
will rule, and by force of arms destroy all the ungodly and occupy all the empires of the
world.” Philip Melanchthon, Lact Communes 1543, trans. J. A. O. Preus (St. Louis: Concurdia
Publishing House, 19921. 176

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Responding to Walter Rauschenbusch’s sharp criticism of this Luther-
an “social quietism,” the president of the General Council, T. E. Schmauk,
wrote:

We do believe ina vigorous and thorough treatment of social questions by
Christians in the State, but we believe that this work should be done by
them as citizens, and not as Christians. We do not believe it to be the
province of the Church to enter as a Church upon the problems of society
or of the body politic."

While most mainline denominational members of the Federal Council of
Churches had by 1915 established committees or boards to handle corpo-
rate social concerns, Lutherans had not done so. The General Synod; how-
ever, and the Augustana Synod did begin to move in the direction of polit-
ical advocacy on the matter of temperance between 1866 and 1917," and
some districts of the Missouri Synod had also engaged in direct advocacy
with regard to their parochial schools.

Only during World War I did most Lutheran church bodies begin to
address the state directly. Twelve Lutheran church bodies banded togeth-
er in the National Lutheran Commission for Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Welfare
to provide service to Lutheran military personnel, because the government
would not work with individual denominations. The Missouri Synod, rep-
resented initially, did not participate. In 1918, this wartime cooperation led
to the first inter-Lutheran umbrella organization, the National Lutheran
Council, which also did not include the churches of the Synodica! Confer-
ence. One early thrust of the Council was its work in Washington “to keep
in constant touch with various government officials and agencies in order
to help protect the rights of Lutherans and in order to interpret Lutheran
viewpoints in the postwar world.” Lutherans wanted to make it clear to
the government that they were full-fledged Americans and not merely
transplanted Germans or Scandinavians.

For about a decade and a half, the work of the National Lutheran
Council consisted largely of overseas emergency appeals and public rela-

"See George W. Sandt, Theodore Emanuel! Sckhmauk (Philadelphia: United Lutheran Pub-
heation House, 1921), 279. Quoted in Klein and von Dehsen, 11-12.

* On the issue of temperance, the General Synod learned how to take a corporate
activist stance. From 1866 to 1917, this issue dwarfed all other social concerns in the Synod.
Three responses demonstrate farms of activity which would become more common in the
mid-twentieth century. First, the General Synod was drawn into corporate public advocacy.
Second, it organized a committee with funding from the general treasury and eventually
hired an administrator Third, it developed links to a political lobby and came into the orbit
of churches which founded the Federal Council of Churches in 1908, Temperance more than
the Social Gospel accomplished this shift.” Klein and von Dehsen, 12-13.

* Frederick K. Wentz, Lutherans in Concert: The Story of the National Lutheran Council,
1918-1966 (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1968), 31

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C. American Lutherans
and the Missouri Synod

These doctrinal commitments of confessional Lutherans have led at
times to conflict with Puritan-Reformed Americans. Lutherans were in
general less enthusiastic about the American Revolution as a religious
cause, for instance, than were their Reformed neighbors. The patriarch of
American Lutheranism, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, said: “As far as pos-
sible I have stood between both parties, and I could not have done other-
wise, for I have had no vocation to meddle in political controversy.”” This
did not mean that Lutherans could not support the Revolution, however.
To the contrary, even Henry’s son Peter Muhlenberg exchanged his cleri-
cal robes for a military uniform, and another son, Frederick, became the
Speaker of the House of Representatives in its first and third sessions.

For most of American history, Lutherans have been more content to
leave their churches out of politics than were their Reformed neighbors.
Lutheran citizens participated in politics and sometimes became as impas-
sioned as any other Americans over issues that concemed them (such as
slavery and the Civil War), but they usually resisted that direct connection
between political questions and the church that so appealed to the
Reformed. Part of the reason for this, no doubt, was the ethnic isolation
that characterized much of American Lutheranism, particularly in the
Midwest, until the mid-20th century. But most Lutherans were also con-
scious of the profound theological differences that existed between them
and their Reformed neighbors at the beginning of the 20th century:
“Deeply suspicious of the optimistic theology of the Social Gospel, Luther-
ans were also uncomfortable with the requirement that church bodies par-
ticipate directly in social reform.”

” The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, trans. Theodore G. Tappert and fohn W.
Doberstein (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1958), 3:121.

Christa R. Kicin with Christian D. von Dehsen, Politics and Policy: The Genests and The-
ology of Social Statements in the Lutheran Church in American (Minneapotis: Fortress Press, 1989),
11. Reginald Dietz summarized the perspective of American Lutherans before World War I
this way: “Liberals and conservatives alike agreed that personal salvation was the church’s
basic mission. Liberals were simply a bit more venturesome in staking out for the church in

society a somewhat broader area of responsibility for judgment, rebuke, criticism, guidance,
and education. All agreed that whatever public action was to be taken lo deal with the spe-
cific ills was the responsibility not of the church but of individual Christians as citizens,
workers and employers. The church as such must eschew the roles of political lobby and
reform movement.” “Easter Lutheranism in American Society and American Christianity
1870-1914" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1958), 255-56. Quoted in Klein
and von Dehsen, 12.

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tions at home. Yet, in the 1930s, the Council did establish a “Church and
Social Trends Committee” and charged it with collecting and studying the
social pronouncements of the various church bodies “with a view to pre-
senting the united testimony of Lutherans to the world.”™ But, once again,
it took a war to propel American Lutherans into greater cooperation and
contacts with government. The Service Commission of the National
Lutheran Council facilitated the work of Lutheran military chaplains,
established service centers near major military bases, published and dis-
tributed huge quantities of literature, and operated with a (then phenom-
enal) budget of $600,000. The temporary commission became a permanent
Bureau of Service to Military Personnel in 1948.

After World War II, inter-Lutheran cooperation was focused on relief
efforts in Europe and the resettlement of refugees. But the Division of Pub-
lic Relations also established a Washington Office in 1948—maintaining
channels of communication, informing key churchmen about contemporary
events in the federal government, and informing key government officials
about current programs and thinking in the Lutheran church.® In 1957, a
new Social Trends Committee was established as a standing committee, and
in 1959 the NLC approved a policy statement titled “Toward a Statement of
National Policy” as a Lutheran contribution to the public discussion about
definitions of the “national interest.” The National Lutheran Council had
steadily evolved toward full participation in American public life.

Much of the impetus for greater involvement with American govern-
ment by Lutherans came from the United Lutheran Church in America,
which, in 1918, was the first Lutheran church body in America to organize
for the study of social issues. The ULCA contributed about half the total
baptized membership represented by the National Lutheran Council and
provided much of the Council’s leadership over the years.

In 1919, ULCA President Frederick H. Knubel called upon Lutherans
to make the Gospel relevant for “an age of labor.” During the Great
Depression, ULCA church publications showed growing appreciation for
the New Deal.® In 1946, the ULCA created a new position of secretary for
social action with its Board of Social Missions. The American Lutheran

“Tbid., 87. In the 1930s, The American Lutheran Conference (consisting of all the mem-
bers of the National Lutheran Council except the ULCA) also created a Commission on
Social Relations, but its mandate was limited to keeping denominational leaders abreast of
socal issues. During the Depression, there was little impetus for new ventures in coopera
tive church work in social ministry because Lutherans were not in agreement regarding the
New Deal.

“Wid. 124-25.

“See Ralph Moellering, “Lutherans on Social Problems, 1917 lo 1940,” Concordia Hes-
torical Institute Quarterly 42, no. 1 (February 1969): 27-40.

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