PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL D. WATSON/PHOTOS FROM SHUTTERSTOCK ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩
nouncements about it. While his occupation, zealously pursued, was farming, his voca- tion was serving his neighbors and the larger community. This sense of vocation, expressed in differ- ing ways, is basic for any Lutheran approach to politics.
Before exploring what this sense
of vocation implies, let us ask about Martin Luther. What can we learn from him about the role of faith in politics?
For one thing, Luther, at least in
the early years of the Reformation, didn’t want the church to be under the state’s control. The church, he
said again and again, should use per- suasion, not coercion. He advocated freedom of con-
science in matters of religious belief. This didn’t mean, however, that he was ready to endorse all that we would today include in freedom of religion. He and his contempo- raries believed the state still could stop citizens from publicly advo- cating divergent religious ideas. Individuals were free to hold theo- logical ideas that disagreed with the church’s doctrines but not to teach them publicly. Americans have, rightly I think, broadened the con- cept of religious liberty.
For another, Luther did not want the church to control the state. When theologian Thomas Muentzer tried to set up a theocracy (church-run state) in Muhlhausen, Germany, during the Peasants War, Luther objected. Doing so endangered the good news, the gospel, the announcement of God’s grace. It transformed the gospel from a free gift into a law that people needed to obey or face the coercive power of the state.
Similarly, Luther objected to the use of “Christian” to describe any
For a study guide, see page 26. October 2012 21
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