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Theses on Woman Suffrage in the Church

April 5th, 2023
In presenting this liberated PDF, Old Lutherans wishes to state for the record that the author of the featured content is in no way affiliated with this site, its authors, or the opinions and content which are featured, published, and/or promoted herein.

“Theses on Woman Suffrage in the Church“

By Dr. Douglas Judisch, M.Div, Ph.D

CTQ, Vol. 41:3, July 1977

In 1956 the Committee on Woman’s Suffrage concluded its thorough report to the Synod at St. Paul with these words: “We believe that Scripture fully sanctions the basic polity set up in our church, and we foresee only evil results in any change of the polity under which our church has been so signally blessed for more than a century.”^[1] In 1969, nevertheless, the Synod at Denver changed that basic polity by allowing women to exercise the franchise in congregational or synodical assemblies,^[2] and the evil results foreseen have ensued in many places. The Synod has already experienced female presidents of congregations and female vicars.^[3]

The Denver resolution (2-17) was a strange one. It commends two contradictory studies on the question of woman’s suffrage, one of which, the 1956 report mentioned above, obviously undermines the resolution itself. It further negates itself by permitting congregations to alter their polity with respect to woman’s place in the church, provided that such alteration not allow women to “exercise authority over men.”^[4] Such a sweeping proviso, however, eliminates woman suffrage in congregational and synodical assemblies, since voting is obviously an exercise of authority (except in the pseudo-elections of Communist countries) and since congregational and synodical assemblies, equally obviously, exercise authority over men. (It may be noted, by the way, that Denver Resolution 2-17 is in no way a doctrinal resolution requiring some special form of dissent, since it leaves the practice of woman suffrage as an option.)^[5] The author must admit, to be sure, that he favoured the resolution concerned at the convention in Denver, considering woman suffrage a necessary concession to the spirit of the times. His witness of the evil results of this arrangement, however, has driven him back to a thorough study of the matter in the light of the Word of God. The time has come for others in the Synod to reconsider their stance in the same light.
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to Genesis 2 and the Order of Creation established by God.
(a.) Woman was created from man and for man and is, therefore, by nature subordinate to man,^[6] vv. 18-23: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’” Woman suffrage, on the contrary, gives woman an authority equal to man and so overthrows the natural order. By the “natural order” or the “Order of Creation” is meant the relationship in which the various creatures of God stand to each other on the basis of their creation by Him, while the “Order of Redemption” refers to the relationship in which the various creatures of God stand to each other on the basis of their redemption by Him, that is, within the Church of Christ. Note that one’s position in the Order of Creation is not abolished by incorporation into Christ and His church; rather one’s position in the Order of Creation is thereby hallowed as one’s position in the Order of Redemption. Thus, in I Corinthians 7:7-20, Paul urges Jews not to try to become Gentiles and Gentiles not to try to become Jews, but rather that “every one lead the life which the Lord has assigned to him, and in which God has called him” (v. 17) and that “every one should remain in the state in which he was called” (v. 20). Our Lord Himself, indeed, directs His followers to the original pattern of the natural order as a pure expression of God’s will and the ideal form of Christian conduct; in Matthew 19:3-8 Christ warns His disciples against divorce on the grounds that “in the beginning it was not so.” The Order of Creation, then, so far from being alien to the church, ought to be more manifest there than anywhere else. For this reason one must reject the exegesis of those who use Galatians 3:28 to show that woman possesses an authority equal to man in the church. This notion confuses spiritual unity with identity of roles. Children, after all, are one with adults in Christ Jesus, but it does not follow that children have an authority equal to adults in the church.

(b.) Woman was created as an assistant (‘ēzer) to man and by nature, therefore, possesses less authority than man. vv. 18, 20: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’. . . The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him.” Woman suffrage, on the contrary, again gives woman an authority equal to man and so overthrows the natural order. Some may object that the word ‘ēzer is also applied to God (e.g., Ps. 70:5, “Thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not tarry!”). No one would argue that God possesses less authority than man because He is called man’s helper, and so some might question why we argue in this manner with respect to woman. We must observe, however, that woman, unlike God, is not man’s assistant by a simple act of her will; although, of course, the Christian woman delights in her position. The point here is that woman was created as man’s assistant par excellence; assisting man is her special role in the scheme of the universe. Thus, although the Lord is the Christian’s shield (Ps. 28:7) and is not under the Christian’s authority, yet a metal plate which is specifically made as a shield for a Christian is under his authority. So too one who is specifically made as a helper for man is under his authority.
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to Genesis 3 and the Order of Creation established by God.
(a.) Woman fell into sin when Satan deceived her into seeking a place in the natural order higher than that allocated to her by God, and man yielded himself to sin when he acceded to woman’s exercise of authority over him, vv. 6, 17: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. . . And to Adam God said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.’” Woman suffrage, on the other hand, allows woman to exercise authority over man, thus overthrowing the natural order. For any vote which determines or is capable of determining a certain course of action is, by nature, an exercise of authority; suffrage in any group implies the exercise of authority unless the vote granted to a person is purely advisory. A woman exercises authority over men every time that her vote contributes to the passage or defeat of some measure on which some men voted the opposite way. A woman likewise exercises authority over men every time that her vote contributes to the passage or defeat of a measure which requires action to be carried out by men who act as the executive personnel of the group in question. A congregational assembly in almost every measure adopted prescribes some course of action to be taken by the pastor, male teachers, or officers of the congregation (e.g., holding a certain number of services each week, purchasing equipment, etc.), so that a woman, by voting in the assembly, continually exercises authority over men.

(b.) The Order of Creation established by God is that the husband is to rule over the wife, v. 16: “Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Woman suffrage, on the other hand, gives the wife an authority equal to the husband and so overthrows the natural order. Some might object that this rule of the husband over the wife is not part of the Order of Creation because it comes into existence only as part of God’s curse on mankind in response to the fall into sin. Such is not the case, however. The subordination of woman to man in general and of the wife to the husband in particular existed even in paradise. The reason that it is mentioned in the curse on the woman is this: Her special role of assistant to man formerly brought only blissful satisfaction to woman, but now sin would render even it liable to abuse, problems, and pain. It is the same with woman’s other main role in life, the raising of children. Woman would have borne children in paradise, but now she would do so in pain because of her sin (3:16a). It is the same with man’s work too. He was created to work (2:15), but now, by virtue of his sin and God’s curse, his work would be difficult, burdensome, and of itself futile (3:17-19).
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to Isaiah 3.
It is as shameful for woman to rule over man as for children to oppress adults, v. 12: “My people—children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your leaders mislead you, and confuse the course of your paths.” Woman suffrage, on the contrary, allows woman to rule over man.
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to I Corinthians 11 and the Orders of Creation and Redemption established by God.
(a.) Man is the head (kephalé) of woman just as Christ is the head of man, v. 3: “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” Therefore, just as it would be reprehensible to give man an authority equal to Christ, so is it reprehensible to give woman an authority equal to man (as woman suffrage does). Some might wonder how the apostle can call God the head of Christ and so give the Father greater authority than the Son. The reason is that Paul is referring to Christ according His human nature; compare chapter 15:28. Some have objected to the citation of I Corinthians 11 as proof of the proper relationship between man and woman in the church. Their rationale is that even the most conservative pastors and churches now apparently allow women to worship without veils (or hats), even though Paul demands in this chapter that women wear them as a sign of man’s authority over woman. If Paul’s command as to the sign of male authority is dispensible (sic), argue the objectors, then so too is his assertion of male authority itself. This reasoning is, however, quite unsound. In the first place, even the most conservative pastors and congregations can stray from some points of God’s Word, but that does not give us a free hand to throw out other points, especially more important ones. Secondly, the word “veil” occurs in the English translations of I Corinthians 11, but not in the original Greek. The covering with which Paul tells a woman to cover herself in worship as a sign of male authority is defined in verse 15 as her hair.

(b.) Paul reiterates thesis 1(a), namely, that woman was created from man and for man, vv. 8-9: “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” The same conclusion follows as was enunciated at thesis 1(a), namely, that woman is by nature subordinate to man.
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to I Corinthians 14.
(a.) Woman ought to be subject to man (hupotassesthai) in the churches, vv. 33b-34: “As in all the churches of the saints, . . . the women should be subordinate, as even the law says.” Woman suffrage, on the contrary, gives woman an authority equal to man in the churches. Now, some students of Scripture refer the word ecclesiai (“churches”) in this verse to all congregational assemblies, whether they be convened for the purpose of worship or for the purpose of business. For in Acts 15:22, certainly, the word ecclesia is used to denote an assembly convoked for the purpose of deliberation and decision, rather than worship. In this case, the application of the verse to the question of woman suffrage would be direct. Other students, however, refer the word ecclesiai to congregational assemblies in the apostolic church at which both worship and business were conducted, on the grounds that the New Testament authors do not distinguish between various kinds of assemblies of the church and that Paul uses similar terminology for a meeting at which business is conducted, I Corinthians 5:4, and for one at which worship is conducted, I Corinthians 14:26. In this case, the application of verse 34 to the question of woman suffrage would still be a direct one, even if churches now hold separate meetings for the purposes of worship and business respectively. Perhaps most exegetes, however, prefer a third option, that the direct reference of the word ecclesiai is to those meetings of the church in particular which are convened for the purposes of worship, since Paul is mainly discussing the proper conduct of worship in this chapter. In this case, verse 34 still applies to the question of woman suffrage in an indirect, nevertheless very real, sense. For if woman must be subject to man in worship assemblies, she must also be subject to him in such assemblies as determine the nature, time, place, leadership, conduct, and other circumstances of such worship assemblies. Paul, indeed, is here commanding the Corinthians to follow in the practice of woman’s subjection the established custom of the other Christian churches, vv. 33, 36. And it is clear from Acts 1:16, where Peter uses the word andres (a word used only of males), that when in what we should call “business matters” the earliest New Testament church took action, only the men voted. Like the other verses cited in these theses, then, the verse under discussion, whether directly or indirectly, precludes woman from voting in any ecclesiastical institution possessing authority over men—worship assemblies, congregational business assemblies, synodical assemblies and commissions, etc.

(b.) Woman is forbidden even to speak (lalein) in the churches, vv. 33b-35: “As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home.† For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” Thus, it follows a minori ad maius that woman is also forbidden to vote in the churches, since then, as now, suffrage in a certain group constituted a greater degree of authority than the mere right to speak. Evidently even the immature Corinthian congregation did not go to the extreme of instituting woman suffrage. But if it be shameful for a woman to speak in the churches, v. 35, how much more shameful it is for her to vote there. Note that the verb lalein embraces all forms of individual verbal expression—preaching, reading a Scripture lesson, leading a prayer, conducting the liturgy, giving a testimony, etc.—but does not include corporate participation in liturgy and singing. This stricture, moreover, for the same reasons as enunciated above, applies to all ecclesiastical institutions possessing authority over men—worship assemblies, congregational business assemblies, synodical assemblies and commissions, etc.—but not to women’s organizations, classes for children, etc.^[7] Note also that the Apostle describes the principle of the silent submissiveness of women in the churches as a command of the Lord, v. 37; part and parcel of the word of God, v. 36; and a clear statement of the law, that is, the Old Testament, v. 34.
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to Ephesians 5 and the Order of Redemption.
(a.) The wife ought to be subject (hupotassesthai) to the husband in everything, just as the church is subject to Christ her Lord, vv. 22, 24: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. . . As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.” Therefore, just as it would be reprehensible to give the church an authority equal to Christ, so it is reprehensible to give the wife an authority equal to the husband (as woman suffrage does).

(b.) The husband is the head (kephalé) of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, v. 23: “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour.” The same conclusion follows as in thesis 6(a), namely, that just as it would be reprehensible to give the church an authority equal to Christ, so it is reprehensible to give the wife an authority equal to the husband (as woman suffrage does).
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to Colossians 3 and the Order of Redemption.
The wife ought to be subject (hupotassesthai) to the husband, v. 18: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Woman suffrage, on the contrary, again gives the wife an authority equal to the husband. Note that the Apostle describes the principle enunciated here as “fitting in the Lord”; it definitely obtains within the Order of Redemption.
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to I Timothy 2 and the Order of Creation.
(a.) Woman ought to remain in silence (en hēsuchia) in the church, vv. 11, 12: “Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.” The same conclusion follows as in thesis 5(b), namely, that woman is also forbidden to vote in all ecclesiastical institutions possessing authority over men. The raising of children, on the other hand, including their education in the church, is the special province of woman, 2:15.

(b.) Woman must not be permitted to exercise authority (authentein) over man, v. 12: “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men”; whereas woman suffrage does, in fact, give woman an authority over man. (Refer back to thesis 2(a) for elaboration of this point.) Note that the verb authentein in this passage, contrary to some translations, applies not merely to certain forms of the exercise of authority—such as abuse of authority, domineering, lording it over someone—but to any exercise of authority. Any restriction of the full connotation of the word in this passage is devoid of exegetical warrant. Woman’s exercise of authority over man cannot be abused; it is already an abuse in and of itself.

(c.) Paul reiterates thesis 1(a), namely, that woman was created from man and for man, v. 13: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve.” The same conclusion follows as was previously enunciated, namely, that woman is by nature subordinate to man.

(d.) Paul reiterates thesis 2(a), namely, that woman fell into sin when Satan deceived her into seeking a place in the natural order higher than that allocated to her by God, and man yielded himself to sin when he acceded to woman’s exercise of authority over him, v. 14: “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to Titus 2.
Paul reiterates thesis 7, namely, that the wife ought to be subject (hupotassesthai) to the husband, v. 4-5: “And so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the Word of God may not be discredited.” Note that women who are not submissive discredit the Word of God.
1. Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to 1 Peter 3.
(a.) Peter reiterates thesis 7, namely, that the wife ought to be subject (hupotassesthai) to the husband, vv. 1, 5: “Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behaviour of their wives. . . So once the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves and were submissive to their husbands.”

(b.) The wife ought to obey the husband and consider him lord, following the example of Sarah and the other holy women of the Old Testament Church, vv. 5, 6: “So once the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves and were submissive to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are now her children if you do right and let nothing terrify you.” Woman suffrage, on the contrary, again gives the wife an authority equal to the husband.

Conclusion

Woman suffrage in the church is contrary to at least ten clear testimonies of the Word of God and to the Order of Creation established by God from the beginning and hallowed as the Order of Redemption by the atoning blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. For woman was created from man and for man, as an assistant to man, to live under man’s authority; and she is redeemed to fulfill this same role as fully as is possible in a world corrupted by sin. Man sins, therefore, when he gives woman an authority equal to or over him, and the woman who assumes such a role denies what she really is by nature and by grace. The correct understanding of the respective responsibilities of the two sexes in the church is not a doctrine necessary to salvation, but it is a doctrine of great import to the body of Christ. Men and women who try to fill roles of their own invention, misunderstanding or ignoring the roles assigned to them by God, cannot expect to experience as full a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in their midst as if they were satisfied to be what they are. Wanting to make themselves what God has not made them, they waste much spiritual energy by attempting to swim against the stream. Quite understandably, then, the warming rays of the Divine Countenance beam more abundantly on those men and women who see themselves as they really are in the mirror of God’s Word and see clearly their distinct roles in God’s Orders of Creation and Redemption. Wanting to be ever more fully what God has made them, they are at peace with themselves and with the God who created and redeemed them.

[1] Proceedings of the Forty-Third Regular Convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (St. Louis, 1956), p. 569.

[2] Proceedings of the Forty-Eighth Regular Convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (St. Louis, 1969), pp. 88-89.

[3] Judicius, “Women in Authority,” The Springfielder, XL, pp. 136-137.

[4] Proceedings of the Forty-Eighth Regular Convention, p. 88.

[5] Ibid. We may also note that the later Resolution 2-27 states that the Synod “has not found it necessary to disavow any of its doctrinal statements and does not today.” Proceedings of the Forty-Eighth Regular Convention, p. 91. Resolution 2-17, however, presumably abrogates the pertinent Resolutions of the Synod at St. Louis in 1938, at Houston in 1953, and at St. Paul in 1956. The Synod at Denver, therefore, clearly did not consider Resolution 2-17 a doctrinal one.

[6] The word “subordinate” here in no way suggests inferiority. It is important to understand that these theses use the word “subordinate” in the strict sense only, that is, “lesser in rank.” The author rejects any idea that woman is morally or spiritually inferior to man. Nor does he mean to imply that woman is intellectually or physically inferior. There is no question, indeed, that some women are morally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically superior to some men, but this is not the point under consideration. To illustrate with an analogy from military life, a certain colonel may be more virtuous, more intelligent, and more fit than his commanding general; yet he is still subordinate to the general.

[7] Congregational officers ought, however, to announce ahead of time matters of business which are due to appear on the agenda of congregational assemblies in order to allow women to express their feelings to their husbands, fathers, brothers, elders, or pastors. For it is especially important in this individualistic day that the church foster the proper view of each family as a distinct unit represented by its men—whether they be the husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, brothers-in-law, or sons-in-laws of the women and children of the family. If a woman has no male relative to relay her ideas to the voters’ assembly, then it is the duty of the pastor and elders to act as her brothers in Christ by representing her views to the other men in the family of God. And women who wish to present a formal case on a certain measure to a voters’ assembly possess the privilege of doing so in writing. Indeed, congregational and synodical assemblies and commissions should be readier to seek out the counsel of such women as are especially qualified to advise them on the particular questions with which they deal; woman can provide such expert counsel to an authoritative ecclesiastical group, once again, either in writing or through an individual member of the group.
Luther Was Not a Proto-Liberal, and It’s a Good Thing

April 4th, 2023
In presenting this liberated PDF, Old Lutherans wishes to state for the record that the author of the featured content is in no way affiliated with this site, its authors, or the opinions and content which are featured, published, and/or promoted herein.

“Luther and Liberalism: A Tale of Two Tales (Or, A Lutheran Showdown Worth Having)^[1]“

By Korey D. Maas, M.Div, Ph.D

CTQ, Vol. 83:3-4, July/October 2019

When originally asked if I might speak to this Symposium on some subject concerning Luther’s theology, I replied that I might indeed be interested in addressing what has come to be called his “political theology.” Almost immediately, however, I began to question the wisdom of doing so. Not only because, as Harro Höpfl has rightly noted, it is “impossible to give … a brief summary of his political theology,”^[2] but also because, as the cliché has it, politics and theology are the two subjects one ought to avoid in polite company. Addressing both at the same time, then, seems doubly unwise. Yet despite contentious, perhaps even unanswerable questions concerning the nature and relevance of Luther’s political theology, I do take small comfort in the conviction that, precisely because such questions are contentious, they remain incredibly important—perhaps especially so in our own context and at this particular juncture of the American experiment, which only coincidentally overlaps with an important anniversary of the Reformation.

Before turning to Luther himself, however, I would like, by way of introduction, to summarize a debate taking place among some Roman Catholics, as it might helpfully highlight the sorts of questions and concerns with which Lutherans ought also to be more intentionally wrestling. Perhaps the most useful entrée to this debate is a much-discussed essay written two years ago by Notre Dame political theorist Patrick Deneen, titled “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching.”^[3] The showdown in question is not the frequently covered contest between so-called liberal and conservative Catholics, but between two factions of what most would colloquially call conservatives. The one is united, according to Deneen, by a shared belief that there is “no fundamental contradiction between liberal democracy and Catholicism,”^[4] that they are not only compatible but in fact mutually beneficial.

This line of thought will undoubtedly be familiar to you, as it has been on prominent display in recent debates about the contraceptive mandate, public accommodation of gay and transgender individuals, and similar controversies. In all cases, the unsurprising response of those affected has been an appeal to that very important aspect of America’s own liberal democracy: the constitutional protection of religion’s free exercise. Perhaps more surprising and more interesting, though, are those narratives which have attempted to portray religious liberty and freedom of conscience as having always and everywhere been constitutive of Catholicism. Writing in First Things, for example, George Weigel characterized the 1648 Peace of Westphalia—which brought to an end the Reformation-era “wars of religion,” and is often identified as having birthed the modern idea of the nation state—as having reversed a policy of religious toleration stretching back nearly two millennia to Constantine’s Edict of Milan. As such, he offers, it was, “in fact, the West’s first modern experiment in the totalitarian coercion of consciences.”^[5] More officially, by way of inaugurating the now annual “Fortnight for Freedom,” the US Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement on “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” lauding Catholics for having been pioneer defenders of religious liberty and freedom of conscience (without, of course, highlighting a history of inquisitions, heresy trials, European Crusades, or Catholic confessional states).^[6]

On the other side of Deneen’s showdown worth watching is what he dubs “radical Catholicism,” which “rejects the view that Catholicism and liberal democracy are fundamentally compatible.” It is, he notes, “wary of the basic premises of liberal government” because “liberalism is constituted by a substantive set of philosophical commitments that are deeply contrary to the basic beliefs of Catholicism.” Therefore, and most pointedly: “Because America was founded as a liberal nation, ‘radical’ Catholicism tends to view America as a deeply flawed project,” the philosophical commitments of its founding “leading inexorably to civilizational catastrophe.”^[7]

Now, to be sure, this is not likely what most American Catholics are hearing from their pulpits, but neither is it novel or necessarily fringe. If one of the central principles of liberalism, for example, is a religious liberty such as that codified in a separation of church and state, it must be admitted that this is not, contrary to Weigel, a long-held or “basic” Catholic belief. It was a principle explicitly rejected as “absolutely false” and “a most pernicious error” by popes as recently as the twentieth century.^[8] In the previous century’s Syllabus of Errors was reiterated the traditional proposition that “the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.”^[9] The Second Vatican Council notwithstanding, a number of contemporary Catholic scholars understand such proclamations to remain prescriptive. Indeed, King’s College London philosopher Thomas Pink, among others, has argued with some persuasive force that the careful wording of Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae does not—and cannot— reverse the traditional Catholic teaching of both popes and councils that the state is obligated to act, when circumstances allow, as the “police department of the Church.”^[10] Journalist John Zmirak recounts visiting a small Catholic college and conversing with a student who very excitedly explained to him this interpretation: “‘So that means the Pope has the right to throw any Lutheran in jail?’, I asked skeptically. ‘I know, right?’ he said, beaming a smile.”^[11]

And so we come, at last, to the Lutherans. But what does any of this have to do with Luther himself? As will have become obvious, the Catholic showdown worth watching is a showdown over the very legitimacy of what Deneen calls “liberal democracy” and “the basic premises of liberal government.”^[12] As I hope is also obvious, by “liberal” Deneen does not simply have in view the Obama administration or the readership of Mother Jones; he uses the term in its more traditional sense, to encompass virtually the whole of the modern western understanding of the origins, nature, and purpose of our political life—and its relation to religion—as articulated most influentially by seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke. As such, “liberal” might be understood simply as a synonym for “modern.” What this has to do with Luther, then, concerns the relation of Luther to the rise of liberalism, or the origins of western modernity.

This is a long-debated question, perhaps most famously engaged in the early twentieth century by Ernst Troeltsch and Karl Holl.^[13] I will touch briefly on the Troeltsch thesis in a bit, but it now approaches consensus that it did not prevail in that debate. And perhaps it could not have been expected to, as by that time Holl’s portrayal of Luther as “the pivotal figure for the emergence of modernity” had a good deal of momentum behind it.^[14] As early as the eighteenth century, Luther was being hailed as “a veritable guardian angel for the rights of reason, humanity, and Christian liberty of conscience.”^[15] In the nineteenth century, Heinrich Geffcken could claim that “it remains an everlasting title to glory of the Reformation that political liberty…first became possible through its principles.”^[16] An early twentieth-century work called The Political Theories of Martin Luther concluded by insisting that “we must recognize in Luther not merely a prophet, or a forerunner, but the founder of the modern theory of the state.”^[17] Later in that century, Gerhard Ebeling offered that “in the long history of the concept of conscience, since the days of classical antiquity, the phrase ‘freedom of conscience’ appears first … in Luther.”^[18] And recently Joseph Loconte wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “The European states endured a long season of religious violence and political absolutism, drenching much of the continent in blood, until Luther’s vision of human freedom quickened the conscience of the West. In this sense, whatever our religious beliefs, we are all Protestants now.”^[19]

I will forego comment on that conclusion, but would like to point out that when he is not writing opinion pieces, Loconte’s research interest is not Martin Luther, but John Locke.^[20] This is worth noting because, just as Locke is widely regarded as the “father of liberalism,” it is regularly asserted that “Locke’s political philosophy is grounded in Martin Luther’s.”^[21] It is tempting to brush aside such claims by pointing out that Luther as a theologian, and an exegete more especially, simply did not develop or embrace a “political philosophy.” And there is of course something to this. But we should also be willing to acknowledge that this was not exactly Luther’s own opinion. Instead, he would proclaim—more than once—that before his own writing “no one knew anything about temporal government, whence it came, what its office and work were,”^[22] and that “not since the time of the apostles have the temporal sword and temporal government been so clearly described or so highly praised as by me.”^[23]

Moreover, when he does “clearly describe” temporal government, he regularly does so in what can sound astonishingly like Lockean terms. To note only some of the most obvious examples: As Locke will do in his Second Treatise of Government, Luther would insist that “temporal government has laws which extend no further than to life and property and external affairs.”^[24] Therefore, as Locke would do in his published A Letter concerning Toleration, Luther counseled that temporal authorities should “let men believe this or that as they are able and willing,” in part because, just as Locke would argue, it is “impossible to command or compel anyone by force to believe.”^[25] Finally, and despite his early and firm rejection of any right of resistance, Luther, like Locke, would eventually acknowledge and advocate a right to resist even duly elected authorities.^[26] In this light, it is perhaps not surprising that contemporary scholars regularly conclude that it is “largely right to argue for a connection between Protestant theology and the emergence of political liberalism.”^[27]

Now, if one appreciates the advantages of political liberalism, with its emphases on individual rights, religious liberty, free markets, and governments contracted of, by, and for the people, there is a great temptation at this point to wax Whiggish and give three cheers to Luther for getting the ball rolling. And so it is precisely at this point that we might want to pause and consider whether doing so is warranted. I want to suggest three reasons why it may not be. The first is simply that, especially for committed Lutherans, such a triumphalist narrative smacks of the very “theology of glory” that Luther himself denounced. A second is that, among those who do embrace a triumphalist account of liberalism, plenty have argued that its origins are better traced to Catholic—or Reformed, or Enlightenment—thinkers and institutions.^[28] The particular reason for hesitation I would like to emphasize, however, is that precisely the same Luther-to-liberalism story told by liberalism’s loudest cheerleaders is told also by its most vociferous detractors.

The most recent example, with which many of you will be familiar, is Brad Gregory’s 2012 tome, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society.^[29] Its thesis, greatly expanding on Sheldon Wolin’s evaluation of Luther’s thought as “ominously modern,”^[30] has been summed up succinctly: “Protestants created the modern world; Brad saw it and it was not good.”^[31] The teleological history of the liberal narrative remains, but it is, as Victoria Kahn observes, a teleology in reverse.^[32] Or, in Mark Lilla’s more memorable characterization, “Its method is an inverted Whiggism—a Whiggism for depressives”^[33]—for depressives because, from the vantage point of modernity critics such as Gregory, the world wrought by liberalism can only be cause for depression. It is constituted, he notes, by

a hyperpluralism of divergent secular and religious truth claims[,] … individuals pursuing their desires whatever they happen to be[,] … Highly bureaucratized sovereign states wield[ing] a monopoly of public power[,] … The hegemonic cultural glue […of…] all-pervasive capitalism and consumerism… There is no shared, substantive common good, nor are there any realistic prospects for devising one.^[34]

And we eventually arrived at this point because Luther’s doctrine of sola scriptura could lead only to irresolvable doctrinal disagreements, which ineluctably led to war, which led to the creation of confessional states, which led to more wars. Modern liberalism was born to cope with these conflicts. But the price was high: it required the institutionalization of toleration as the highest moral virtue. … It thus left … us to sink ever deeper into the confusing, unsatisfying, hyper-pluralistic, consumer-driven, dogmatically relativistic world of today.^[35] And that, as Lilla wryly summarizes Gregory’s book, is “how we got from Wittenberg to Wal-Mart.”^[36] That is also why Alasdair MacIntyre, a great influence not only on Gregory but on all the “radical” Catholics with whom we began, would conclude that “only by going back before the fall—before Luther—can modernity be healed.”^[37]

Now, without endorsing nostalgia for a golden age that never was, we can certainly acknowledge that all is not well in the modern West. If individual rights are understood to include, for example, a right to murder the unborn, if capitalism inevitably cultivates a consumerism driven by—and stirring up—our basest passions, and if religious liberty increasingly means a liberation from religion and any public influence it might have, then perhaps liberalism is not all it was cracked up to be. Whatever our ultimate assessment of liberalism, however, the fact remains that from the eighteenth century into the twenty-first, some of the most dominant narratives of both its proponents and opponents tend to begin with Luther. And, with respect to Luther, the only alternative narrative given much attention is that popularized especially by Troeltsch, echoed in the Marxist historians, and culminating in what is still sometimes called the “Shirer thesis.” That is, rather than being a progenitor of liberalism, Luther—in reaction to the Peasants’ Revolt, for instance—undermined it (in the words of Friedrich Engels) “as no bootlicker of absolute monarchy had ever been able,”^[38] and so encouraged the kind of illiberal authoritarianism issuing eventually in the Third Reich.^[39]

What we have on the table, then, are three interpretive and evaluative options. Characterized with gross simplicity, they are as follows:
1. Luther was a proto-liberal, and that’s a good thing.
2. Luther was a proto-liberal, and that’s a bad thing.
3. Luther was not a proto-liberal, and that’s a bad thing.
If for no other reason than symmetry, though, a fourth option deserves to be in the mix, which is that Luther was not a proto-liberal, and that’s a good thing. So far as I am aware, however, no one is setting forth in any serious or sustained fashion the argument that (to revise Deneen) “liberalism is constituted by a substantive set of philosophical commitments that are deeply contrary to the basic beliefs of Lutheranism,” and therefore we ought to be “wary of [its] basic premises.”^[40] Perhaps it is an argument that cannot convincingly be made. Or perhaps it can be, but we have so accommodated ourselves to liberal modernity that we would rather not entertain it too seriously. That it is not currently being made, however, means that there is at present no “Lutheran Showdown Worth Watching.” But I leave you with the suggestion that it is a showdown very much worth having.

[1] The present essay is a version of remarks presented as the keynote address for the Thirty-Ninth Annual Symposium on the Lutheran Confessions at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, on January 21, 2016. I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. David Scaer and the Symposium organizers for their kind invitation.

[2] Harro Höpfl, “Introduction,” in Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, ed. Harro Höpfl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), xxii.

[3] Patrick J. Deneen, “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching,” The American Conservative, February 6, 2014, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/2014/02/06/a-catholic-showdownworth-watching/.

[4] Deneen, “A Catholic Showdown.”

[5] George Weigel, “The ‘Edict of Milan,’ 1,700 Years Later,” First Things, June 26, 2013, http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2013/06/the-ldquoedict-of-milanrdquo-years-later.

[6] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty” (Washington, D.C.: USCCB, 2012).

[7] Deneen, “A Catholic Showdown.”

[8] Pope Pius X, Vehementer Nos (February 11, 1906), § 3.

[9] Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors (December 8, 1864), § 77.

[10] See, e.g., Thomas Pink, “The Right to Religious Liberty and the Coercion of Belief,” in Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis, ed. John Keown and Robert P. George (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 427–442. The characterization of the medieval state as the “police department of the Church” derives from John Neville Figgis, Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 1414–1625 (Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1999), 8, but is also accepted, e.g., by William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 84.

[11] John Zmirak, “Illiberal Catholicism,” Aleteia, December 31, 2013, http://aleteia.org/2013/12/31/illiberal-catholicism/.

[12] Deneen, “A Catholic Showdown.”

[13] Cf., e.g., Ernst Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress: A Historical Study of the Relation of Protestantism to the Modern World, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1912), and Karl Holl, The Cultural Significance of the Reformation, trans. Karl Hertz, Barbara Hertz, and John Lichtblau (New York: Meridian, 1959).

[14] As Holl’s thesis is summarized by Hans J. Hillerbrand, “The Legacy of Martin Luther,” in The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 236.

[15] Friedrich Germanus Lüdke, Über Toleranz und Geistesfreiheit (Berlin, 1774), 204; quoted in Hillerbrand, “The Legacy of Martin Luther,” 234.

[16] Heinrich Geffcken, Church and State: Their Relations Historically Developed, 2 vols., trans. Edward Fairfax Taylor (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1877), 1:309.

[17] Luther Hess Waring, The Political Theories of Martin Luther (Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1910), 278.

[18] Gerhard Ebeling, “Zum Gegensatz von Luther-Enthusiasmus und Luther-Fremdheit in der Neuzeit,” in Lutherstudien, vol. 3 (Tubingen: Mohr, 1989), 385.

[19] Joseph Loconte, “When Luther Shook Up Christianity,” The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-luther-shook-up-christianity-1446159795.

[20] See Joseph Loconte, God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014).

[21] Charles D. Arthur and Philip A. Michelbach, “He Jumbles Heaven and Earth Together: John Locke, Martin Luther, and Political Theology,” unpublished paper presented at the 2009 National Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association (Chicago, Illinois), 2.

[22] Martin Luther, “On War against the Turk” (1529): vol. 46, p. 163, in Luther’s Works, American Edition, vols. 1–30, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955–76); vols. 31–55, ed. Helmut Lehmann (Philadelphia/Minneapolis: Muhlenberg/Fortress, 1957– 86); vols. 56–82, ed. Christopher Boyd Brown and Benjamin T. G. Mayes (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009–), hereafter AE.

[23] Luther, “Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved” (1526), AE 46:95.

[24] Luther, “Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed” (1523), AE 45:105.

[25] Luther, “Temporal Authority,” AE 45:108, 107.

[26] See, e.g., the brief summary of Luther’s development on this question in W. D. J. Cargill Thompson, The Political Thought of Martin Luther, ed. Philip Broadhead (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1984), 102–103.

[27] Brad Littlejohn, “The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed, Pt. 1,” Political Theology Today, October 25, 2012, http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/kingdoms-guide-perplexed-pt1/.

[28] For an example of the Catholic narrative, see e.g., Thomas E. Woods Jr., How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2005).

[29] Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).

[30] Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), 194.

[31] William Storrar, “Blame It on Scotus,” Commonweal 139, no. 12 (2012): 24.

[32] Victoria Kahn, “Get Over It,” The Immanent Frame, September 16, 2013, http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/09/16/get-over-it/.

[33] Mark Lilla, “Blame It on the Reformation,” The New Republic, September 14, 2012, https://newrepublic.com/article/107211/wittenberg-wal-mart.

[34] Gregory, The Unintended Reformation, 377.

[35] Lilla, “Blame It on the Reformation.”

[36] Lilla, “Blame It on the Reformation.”

[37] As summarized by Joshua Mitchell, “Luther and Hobbes on the Question: Who Was Moses, Who Was Christ?” The Journal of Politics 53, no. 3 (1991): 681.

[38] Friedrich Engels, “The Peasant War in Germany,” in Marx & Engels on Religion (New York: Schocken Books, 1964), 108.

[39] See, e.g., Uwe Siemon-Netto’s treatment of this narrative in The Fabricated Luther: The Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth (St. Louis: Concordia, 1995).

[40] Deneen, “A Catholic Showdown.

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