Render unto Caesar and unto God
                      A Lutheran View of Church and State
               A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church
               Relations of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod
                                September 1995
                           Section 1: Prolog-Part II


                                   CONTENTS

 Prolog: The American Crisis
 I. God and Caesar Revisited
	A. What the Bible Says
	B. The Church: From Persecuted to Persecuting
	C. The Protestant Reformation
	D. Holy War and Religious Toleration
	E. The American "Experiment"
	F. Is There a Moral to This Story?
 II. A Lutheran Two-Kingdom Perspective
	A. Interpretive Models of Church and State
	B. Luther and the Lutheran Confessions
	C American Lutherans and the Missouri Synod
	D Is There Really a Lutheran Perspective?
 III. Practicing What We Preach
	A. The Failure of Two Extremes
	B. Moral Authority without Political Partisanship
	C. For Example
 Epilog: "Who Speaks for the Church?"
 
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 Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
 copyrighted 1946, 1952, (c) 1971, 1973. Used by permission.
 
 The quotations from the Lutheran Confessions in this publication are from
 _The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Ev. Lutheran Church_, ed. by
 Theodore G. Tappert, Fortress Press (c) 1959.
 Used by permission of the publisher.
 
 
 
                     _RENDER UNTO CAESAR. . .AND UNTO GOD_
                     _A Lutheran View of Church and State_
 
 
 _PROLOG: THE AMERICAN CRISIS_
 
 This study is designed to examine historic Christian teaching regarding
 Christians and government and to propose constructive ways in which
 American Lutherans can participate in the creation of an appropriate
 public philosophy and a viable American democracy.
 
 The evidence of serious problems in the relationship between Americans
 and their government is all around us. In fact, sociologist James Davison
 Hunter has argued that these problems reflect an underlying "culture war":
 
	America is in the midst of a culture war that has had and will
	continue to have reverberations not only within public policy
	but within the lives of ordinary Americans everywhere.
 
	I define cultural conflict very simply as political and social
	hostility rooted in different systems of moral understanding.
	The end to which these hostilities tend is the domination of
	one cultural and moral ethos over all others. Let it be clear,
	the principles and ideals that mark these competing systems
	of moral understanding are by no means trifling but always
	have a character of ultimacy to them. They are not merely
	attitudes that can change on a whim but basic commitments
	and beliefs that provide a source of identity, purpose, and
	togetherness for the people who live by them. It is for
	precisely this reason that political action rooted in these
	principles and ideals tends to be so passionate.[1]
 
 What is new about this, argues Hunter, is that in the past American
 politics took place within a generally _biblical_ framework while today
 that frame work is self-consciously _secular_. As a result, according to
 Hunter, "the older agreements have unraveled. The divisions of political
 consequence today are. . .the result of differing worldviews." What is at
 stake, he concludes, are "our most fundamental and cherished assumptions
 about how to order our lives--our own lives and our lives together in this
 society. Our most fundamental ideas about who we are as Americans are
 now at odds."[2]
 
 Os Guinness also believes that a deep-seated cultural upheaval is now
 occurring in America, and he calls it "A Crisis of the Mandate of Heaven":
 
	The reason for this sober examination is that, despite its
	historic political and economic triumphs, the American
	republic is entering its own time of reckoning, an hour of truth
	that will not be delayed. It is nearing the climax of a
	generation-long cultural revolution, or crisis of cultural
	authority, Under the impact of modernity, the beliefs, ideals,
	and traditions that have been central to Americans and to
	American democracy--whether religious, such as Jewish and
	Christian beliefs, or civic, such as Americanism--are losing
	their compelling cultural power. This crisis is not a crisis of
	legitimacy, like that of the Soviet Union, but a crisis of
	vitality that goes to the heart of America's character and
	strength. It therefore threatens to pose questions not only for
	America's continuing success and world domination, but for
	the vitality of democracy in America itself.[3]
 
 Like Hunter, Guinness aims to navigate between the two extremes of the
 culture war: the "reimposers" (who merely want to reimpose traditional
 Evangelical Protestant hegemony) and the "removers" (who simply want to
 cleanse Christian faith completely from American public life).[4] For
 Guinness and Hunter the goal is not reimposing or removing Christianity
 but creating common ground in the public square.
 
 Because, as Guinness notes, "Democratic liberty. . .is neither self-derived
 nor self-sustaining''[5] and because American democracy has been closely
 associated with biblical principles of liberty and justice, Christians have
 an important stake in America's cultural crisis. More is involved here than
 religion, narrowly defined. At stake is the matter of a public philosophy
 that both promotes religious liberty and draws its strength from it. Yet
 such a widely-shared public philosophy is not even on the horizon. Thus,
 its creation is both a challenge and question mark for thoughtful
 Christians.
 
 These challenges are not entirely new. Problems in the relationship
 between Christianity and the civil government have existed throughout
 American history. In fact, they have existed throughout the history of the
 church and can even be traced throughout the Bible. Of course, this study
 cannot possibly hope to resolve one of the most enduring problems of
 human history, but it can do several important things:
 
	_First_, it can help us to understand better the history of
	church and government and our own place, as American
	Lutheran Christians, in that history (as George Santayana
	wrote in _The Life of Reason_, "Those who cannot remember
	the past are condemned to repeat it"[6]).
 
	_Second_, it can help us to identify strengths and weaknesses
	in the ways that previous generations of God's people have
	dealt with the problem of church and state, so that we can be
	more informed participants in our contemporary cultural
	debate.
 
	_Third_, it can help us to appreciate how the proper
	distinction between Law and Gospel, as well as the distinction
	between the two kingdoms, prevents us from confusing the
	duties of citizenship with the righteousness of faith.
 
	_Finally_, it also can help us to participate in the important
	duties of citizenship with greater freedom and confidence.
 
 The first section of this study will provide a very brief survey of the
 history of church and state, including what the Bible says. This survey
 will focus particularly on those elements of the story that are a part of
 the direct lineal history of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. The
 second section will interpret the history of church and state according to
 the Lutheran Confessions and the Synod's doctrinal commitments. The
 third section will provide contemporary practical applications of this
 confessional Lutheran perspective.
 
 
 _I. GOD AND CAESAR REVISITED_
 
 In this first section we will review the long, almost tortuous history
 Christians and government. This history will illustrate the extremes, both
 domination of the church by the state and domination of the state by
 church, as well as the persistent difficulties that Christians have had
 finding a more balanced relationship between church and state. This
 history will also illustrate the Christian roots of the American
 democratic experiment as well as America's current struggles to maintain
 both religious and political liberty in a pluralistic modern world.
 
 _A. WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS_
 
 The problems of church and state are relatively recent. Through most of
 recorded history they were problems of church and empire or kingdom. In
 contrast to modern states, where power is quite abstract and bureaucratic
 the governments of ancient empires were personal and often authoritarian.
 The emperor (such as the Roman Caesar) or king was in direct personal
 control of the government and, as the absolute authority in many
 societies, royal word was law. Indeed, the kings and queens frequently
 exercised tremendous powers of life and death that they often were
 considered gods.[7]
 
 It is important to begin our study, therefore, by observing that the Bible
 makes a fundamental distinction between divine and human authority.
 While from the beginning humans have wanted to be like God and to play
 god, the Bible persistently proclaims only one God who is sovereign over
 everything and everyone:
 
	Remember this and consider, recall it to mind, you
	transgressors. . .for I am God, and there is no other; I am God,
	and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning
	and from ancient times things not done saying, "My counsel
	shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose." 
	(Is. 46:8-10)
 
	For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on
	earth--as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"--yet
	for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things
	and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through
	whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor. 8:5-6)
 
 Above the empires and states of history stands one everlasting divine
 authority to whom all are accountable even kings and queens, presidents
 and dictators. And so, while kings and empires pass from the scene, the
 church continues to proclaim God's divine authority. As Arthur Cleveland
 Coxe once penned it:
 
	O where are kings and empires now
	Of old that went and came?
	But, Lord, thy Church is praying yet,
	A thousand years the same.[8]
 
 Just as basic and enduring as this teaching of the Bible regarding God's
 sovereignty, however, is the conflict (even war) between the one true God
 and pretentious earthly authorities. There was, for instance, the contest
 with the Egyptian Pharaoh over the release of the Israelite slaves (Ex. 5:2,
 "But Pharaoh said, 'Who is the LORD, that I should heed his voice and let
 Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover I will not let Israel go'").
 There was also the deadly confrontation with Sennacherib, king of Assyria
 (2 Chron. 32:17, "And [the king] wrote letters to cast contempt on the LORD
 the God of Israel and to speak against him, saying, 'Like the gods of the
 nations of the lands who have not delivered their people from my hands, so
 the God of Hezekiah will not deliver his people from my hand'"). Indeed, the
 Old Testament overflows with illustrations of conflict between God and
 earthly rulers who had illusions of sovereignty.
 
 Not all instances of Old Testament conflict were between God and pagan
 governments, however, for even the kings of Israel became corrupt and
 moved God to battle against them. This happened already with Saul, the
 first king of Israel, when the Lord tore the kingdom out of his hands and
 gave it to David (1 Sam. 28:16-19). It happened as well to King Solomon
 who, although he was Israel's wisest king, did not always put his wisdom
 into practice:
 
	And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had
	turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had
	appeared to him twice, and had commanded him. . .that he
	should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the
	LORD commanded. Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, "Since
	this has been your mind and you have not kept my covenant and
	my statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear
	the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant." (1 Kings
	11:9-11)
 
 It happened, in fact, with many of the kings of Judah and with most of the
 kings of Israel. Thus, the rebellious northern kingdom of Israel was
 conquered by Assyria (2 Kings 17:7-23). When the southern kingdom of
 promise, Judah, was conquered decades later by Babylon, this also was
 because Judah's leaders were at war with God (2 Chron. 36:15-21 and Lam.
 4:11-13).
 
 In view of this persistently rebellious behavior by earthly emperors and
 kings, we can understand why God forewarned His people that having an
 earthly king would be burdensome. Although God granted Israel's request
 for a king (and, indeed, blessed them graciously through the Davidic royal
 line from which Jesus came), He spoke sobering words about the
 persistent abuse of royal power:
 
	So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who
	were asking a king from him. He said, "These will be the ways
	of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and
	appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run
	before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself
	commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some
	to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his
	implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will
	take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He
	will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive
	orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth
	of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers
	and to his servants. He will take your menservants and
	maidservants, and the best of your cattle and your asses, and
	put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and
	you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out
	because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but
	the LORD will not answer you in that day." (1 Sam. 8:10-18)
	
 Lord Acton reflected this assessment of earthly rulers in a letter to
 Bishop Creighton in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power
 corrupt absolutely."[9] Therefore, even in God's own "holy nation" (Ex.
 19:6), civil government was a mixed blessing. The king could promote the
 common good (Psalm 45) and also could perpetrate injustice (Jer.
 22:13-17). The king could be extolled as God's chosen instrument (Psalm
 2) and also I condemned as a shepherd who scattered and destroyed the
 sheep of God's pasture Jer. 23:1-2).
 
 Indeed, it was this marked contrast between the theoretical goodness of
 the kings as God's chosen ones and their rebelliousness as sinful human
 beings that fed the yearning for a great king (the Messiah) who was to
 come. In the face of so many dashed hopes and tragic experiences with
 their kings, God's people yearned for that "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty
 God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" who would reign "upon the throne
 of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with
 justice and with righteousness" (Is. 9:6-7).
 
 When the exiles returned from captivity in Babylon after 70 years, the
 hopes for a messianic king grew more intense. Yet even after the
 Maccabees led a successful revolution against the Greeks in 163 BC
 (celebrated in the Jewish feast of Hanukkah), no descendant of King David
 ruled over God's people. When the Romans conquered Palestine and the
 Jewish people were forced to submit to their harsh rule, messianic
 expectations reached a feverish pitch.
 
 And so it was that the Messiah, when He came, found Himself embroiled in
 dangerous political conflict. Our Lord Jesus Christ was the Davidic
 messianic king; yet, the Romans controlled Palestine and had installed
 their own puppet king, Herod. What would Jesus do? A few of Jesus'
 disciples were political revolutionaries and many of Jesus' enemies
 feared that Jesus would lead an ill-fated political revolution
 (John11:47-48). Eventually, Jesus would be executed as a political
 revolutionary (Mark 15:26 records the posted charge of treason against
 him: "the King of the Jews''),[10] in spite of the fact that the Roman
 governor, Pontius Pilate, knew Jesus to be innocent of that charge (Luke
 23:13-14).
 
 But why _should_ the Messiah be innocent of such a charge? The people,
 after all, expected their "messiah" to be a powerful deliverer like Moses,
 who had led Israel out from Egypt. They expected a great king like David,
 who had established Jerusalem as his capital city through military force.
 They expected a conqueror like Judas Maccabeus, who had entered
 Jerusalem triumphantly to the shouts of "Hosanna!" and the waving of palm
 branches (1 Macc. 13:51). So, why did Jesus not lead a political revolution
 against the Romans-a hated, idolatrous government-in order to establish
 God's kingdom on earth? Why should Jesus not have become the "military
 messiah" that so many Jews expected?
 
 We now can see clearly that _Jesus came to die_--the very Lamb of God
 who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29; 3:14-17). But there is
 more. Jesus also redefined popular expectations regarding the messianic
 kingdom:
 
	Pilate entered the praetorium again and called Jesus, and said
	to him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do
	you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you
	about me?" Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and
	the chief priests have handed you over to me, what have you
	done?" Jesus answered, "My kingship is not of this world, if my
	kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I
	might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not
	from the world." Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus
	answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and
	for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the
	truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." John
	18:33-37)
 
 The New Testament proclaims to us that the crucified and risen Jesus is
 indeed a _king_: "He [God] has delivered us from the dominion of darkness
 and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have
 redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Col. 1:13-14). However, the New
 Testament teaches that Jesus reigns through the power of the Holy Spirit
 in the baptizing and teaching of His church:
 
	And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and
	on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples
	of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
	the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
	that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to
	the close of the age." (Matt. 28:18-20)
 
 Thus, the rule of King Jesus is spiritual and not temporal.
 
 The relationship between divine and human authority for God's people is,
 therefore, much more sophisticated in the New Testament than in the Old.
 By refusing merely to reconstitute the Old Testament rule of God over His
 people through an early king, Jesus demonstrated, first of all, that His
 kingdom is more universal than any earthly kingdom. The kingdom of our
 Lord Jesus is open to Jew and Gentile alike through faith. Second, Jesus
 demonstrated that the Old Testament kingdom was only shadow of the
 reality that is found in His church (Col. 2:15-17). Thus, the Apostle Peter
 takes the language used by God at Mount Sinai regarding Old Testament
 Israel (Ex. 19:5-6) and applies it to the New Testament church: "But you
 are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" 
 (1 Peter 2:9). Third, Jesus also demonstrated that the great power is not
 temporal force but the power of the Gospel and of faith. Against such
 power, all defenses give way: "On this rock I will build my church, and the
 powers of death shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).
 
 Finally, Jesus demonstrated that even a pagan state deserves respect for
 its God-given role in preserving and enhancing human life. In response to a
 dangerous "trick question" about paying taxes to Caesar, Jesus not only
 called for submission to God by everyone created in God's image (including
 Caesar), He also explicitly endorsed the payment of Roman taxes by those
 engaged in Roman commerce: "Render therefore to Caesar the things that
 are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matt. 22:21).[11]
 
 For the New Testament, then, the church is a kingdom and its king
 exercises real power. Therefore, even when early Christians met the same
 fate as their Lord, it was with our Lord's own confidence that God was
 still in control (John 19:11; Luke 23:46; Acts 7:55-60). Nevertheless, in
 this New Testament understanding of the church as Christ's kingdom, the
 Christian's relationship to civil governments has a fundamental
 ambivalence. On the one hand, even a pagan civil government is God's
 servant and should be respected (see, e.g., Rom. 13:1-7 and Matt.
 22:15-22). On the other hand, there are always clear limits to obedience,
 for Christians must "obey God rather than men" (Acts 4:18-20 and
 5:27-29) whenever it is impossible to do both.
 
 There is tension, sometimes even paradox, in this New Testament
 understanding of the relationship between God and Caesar. It means that
 the basic Christian attitude toward all civil government should be
 positive (since God uses civil government to restrain evil and promote the
 common good), even though there are inevitably times when Christians
 must obey God rather than earthly government. It also means that spiritual
 authority must be distinguished clearly from temporal authority, even
 though they are _both_ under the sovereignty of God. There is a carefully
 balanced tension here that, as we shall see, has been very difficult for the
 church to preserve.
 
 
 _B. THE CHURCH: FROM PERSECUTED TO PERSECUTING_
 
 The early church lived in a hostile environment where, in spite of a desire
 to live in peace and harmony with the Roman authorities, Christians were
 subject to periodic and sometimes intense persecutions. This occurred
 despite the fact that, in theory (and with one significant qualification,
 also in practice), the Romans exercised religious toleration:
 
	The policy of the emperors and the senate, so far as it
	concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of
	the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of
	their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed
	in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as
	equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the
	magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not
	only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.[12]
 
 Yet this apparent toleration masked a mandatory demonstration of
 Caesar's _de facto_ sovereignty. The essentially "divine" role sometimes
 played by the Roman Caesar was, in effect, as the ultimate authority for
 life in this world. One could believe nearly anything, so long as one
 submitted to the temporal sovereignty of the Roman emperor:
 
	The Roman authorities were fundamentally tolerant in
	religious matters. Every people of the empire could have its
	own beliefs, and every individual could strive for salvation in
	his own way. No religious community was suppressed so long
	as it fell in with public order. Only the worship of the emperor
	was obligatory on all, for it was grounded on imperial law, and
	the Roman authorities permitted no laxity in matters of law.
	The worship of the emperor was therefore not fundamentally a
	matter of belief, but one of order and discipline.[13]
 
 Unfortunately, this seemingly minimal ritual amounted to deification of
 the civil government and was to the Christian, therefore, simply
 idolatrous.
 
 While early Christians had no desire to upset the civil order (observing the
 dictates of Rom. 13:1-7), they simply could not submit to the emperor in
 this way. First of all, no Christian can acknowledge that all religions are
 equally true, false, or useful, because this violates the very core of clear
 Scriptural teaching (Is. 44:6-11, 24; John 14:6; Acts 4:10-12; Phil.
 2:9-11). Second, Christian faith has many implications for life in this
 world, not only for life in the next (Rom. 12:1-2; 14:7-9; 1 Cor. 5:9-10;
 Gal. 2:20; 5:16-25; Eph.4:17-5:20; Phil. 3:17-21; Col. 1:10-12; 3:1-17; 
 1 Peter 1:13-16). As a result, since Christians are bound to confess that
 Jesus is their Lord also _in this world_, and not only in the next, the early
 Christians simply could not perform the perfunctory ritual required by
 Roman imperial law in which the emperor's divinity (or, more precisely,
 earthly sovereignty) was proclaimed.[l4] Thus, early Christians were
 considered threats to the established social order and, whenever the
 Roman authorities insisted upon the traditional sacrifices, Christians
 were persecuted--sometimes violently.
 
 A revolutionary change in the treatment of Christians occurred when, in
 response to a vision, Constantine vowed to conquer under the sign of the
 cross. After he was victorious and had become Roman emperor,
 Christianity eventually became the officially established religion of his
 empire. While many good things resulted from the unfettered preaching of
 the Gospel under Constantinian rule, it also opened the door to extensive
 corruption of the church's life. Few politically ambitious people had been
 interested in the church when it was persecuted, but that changed quickly
 when it was officially endorsed. Furthermore, the doctrinal debate that
 had always existed to some degree within the church now became a
 political problem for emperors wishing to use the church as a unifying
 cultural force. The result, therefore, was a mixing of spiritual and
 temporal concerns--a confusion of spiritual and temporal authority--
 which was to afflict the church's history ever after.
 
 The greatest expansion of the church's involvement with government came
 with the collapse of the Roman Empire, when the church literally stepped
 in to hold European civilization together. The great church father
 Augustine had approved of using civil power in service to the church by a
 ruler who was a Christian, but nevertheless refused to make such an
 exercise of civil power a _proper_ concern of the church. Theologians and
 popes after Augustine were not so careful. The medieval church became
 preoccupied with its legal and ecclesiastical structure. There were
 never-ending battles with emperors and kings regarding issues of
 jurisdiction and sovereignty, with popes using the spiritual power of
 excommunication to force the political compliance of civil rulers. One of
 the most dramatic moments in the history of the western church came
 when the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV knelt in the snow at Canossa in
 1077. The pope had prohibited lay control over the placing of clergy in the
 church (particularly the investiture of bishops) and, by securing the
 forgiveness of Pope Gregory VII, the emperor was also securing the
 imperial power that had been jeopardized by his excommunication.
 
 The high-water mark of papal power probably was achieved by Innocent III
 (1198-1216), who considered himself set between God and man, lower
 than God but higher than man, judging all and being judged by no one.
 Innocent III intervened in the imperial election of 1202, forced a
 humiliating oath of loyalty from King John of England in 1213, and made
 both the inquisition and the crusades effective weapons against internal
 religious dissent. Indeed, Innocent III and his successors waged so
 effective a campaign against the Holy Roman emperors, who unwisely
 attempted to dominate southern Italy and Sicily, that Germany was left
 politically fragmented until the 19th century.
 
 With the revival of Roman law and Aristotelian philosophy in the 12th
 century, however, also came attempts to limit the power of the pope.
 French attempts to subordinate the power of Pope Boniface VIII
 (1294-1303) to that of King Philip IV triggered one of the most serious
 confrontations of church and state in the Middle Ages, from which the
 papacy (forced to move to Avignon, France) never really recovered. The
 secular ruler, it was argued, received his authority from the citizenry as a
 whole, rather than from the church. The teaching of Marsilius of Padua (ca
 1290-1343) also challenged traditional support for the papacy. Marsilius
 saw authority invested by God in the _people_ who, in turn, empowered
 the king to rule their temporal lives and the pope to direct their spiritual
 lives.
 
 The most serious medieval attempt to limit papal power was "conciliar
 theory," which provided religious and legal justifications for the
 independent power of church councils. When the Council of Constance met
 between 1414 and 1417, a schism had existed in the church for 36 year
 There were three duly elected popes--one in Rome, one in Avignon, an one
 in Pisa--each supported by his own college of cardinals and politic allies.
 After months of bickering, the council passed a resolution declaring
 _itself_ to be the supreme authority within the church. While this
 assertion conciliar power was short-lived (almost half a century), it did
 constitute genuine experiment in representative church government.
 Calvinists later "appealed directly to Constance and its more radical
 successor, the Council of Basel, as models of the people's right to enforce
 standards of conduct on both religious and political leaders." Indeed, a
 political lesson later was to be drawn from this ecclesiastical crisis:
 "Lower magistrates and parliaments, mindful of the welfare of the larger
 political community, should resist rulers whose tyranny posed a danger to
 the body politic." [15]
 
 The conciliar theory of church government involved two fundamental
 distinctions. First, there was a distinction between that church headed by
 the Roman pope and the universal church headed only by Christ. Second,
 there was a distinction between the letter of church law and its spirit, or
 true intention, which was always to serve good and not evil. Conciliar
 theorists, and Protestant reformers after them, often appealed to
 fairness, justice and equity when arguing against specific actions of the
 pope. Popes were to feed the sheep and not run them over a cliff. Thus,
 papal injunctions could be evaluated according to the common benefit of
 all.[16]
 
 While the Roman papacy emerged from the turmoil surrounding the Council
 of Constance with the upper hand, it was a hollow triumph. The popes had
 to deal realistically with the rising power of the national monarchies. By
 doing so, however, the papacy itself was viewed increasingly as just
 another temporal power. Its spiritual authority was compromised. As
 abuses and church taxes multiplied, it was hardly surprising that the late
 15th and early 16th centuries saw the development of intense resentment
 against Rome, especially in Germany. And it was, in fact, in Germany that
 the raging fire of reformation was ignited.
 
 
 C.THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION
 
	Luther is reported once to have said: 
 
	I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did
	nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends
	Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no
	prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing;
	the Word did everything.[17]
 
 Luther's faith in God's Word did not mean, however, that there was no
 political dimension to the working out of God's purpose or that Luther
 devoted no time to politics.
 
 The spark that ignited the Protestant Reformation was Luther's posting of
 95 theses against indulgences on the door of the Wittenberg castle church.
 The recently invented printing press, however, quickly made Luther's
 academic debate a matter of public controversy. Within four years,
 spurred by enormous popular response, Luther proceeded from the more
 narrow matter of indulgences to a wholesale reformation of the doctrine
 and practice of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, while Luther may have
 concentrated on the church, the fate of that reformation depended largely
 on princely politics within the Holy Roman Empire. Indeed, Luther's very
 survival depended on the protection given him by his prince, Elector
 Frederick of Saxony.
 
 That Luther was not burned at the stake as John Hus had been 100 years
 previously (although Luther seems to have expected it) was due to the fact
 that Frederick did not enforce the condemnation of Luther in the Edict of
 Worms (May 26,1521). Instead, he secreted Luther in the Wartburg castle.
 The Saxon Elector's resistance to pope and emperor seems to have been
 grounded in two principles. First, he apparently regarded the Edict of
 Worms as unconstitutional:
 
	It had been drafted by Imperial councilors as early as 8 May,
	but its presentation was delayed until so many princes had
	departed from Worms that it was passed only by a rump Diet.
	Some of the most powerful princes of the empire challenged
	its legality and held themselves not to be bound by its terms.
	From 1521 there was an energetic campaign to have it
	rescinded. . . . The failure of the Edict of Worms was largely
	the failure of German political authorities to enforce it.[18]
 
 Second, influenced by the Renaissance ideal of the Christian prince,
 Frederick simply would not defer all judgment on theological questions to
 the church:
 
	What is remarkable is Frederick's readiness to assume
	responsibility. He refused to allow the case to pass to Rome.
	He sought the opinion of Erasmus. The latter's declaration that
	Luther had only sinned against the privileges of the papacy and
	of monks must have strengthened his resolve. Later, Frederick
	attacked the burning of Luther's books and remarked that
	Luther himself had protested that he would do everything
	'consistent with the name of Christian.' Frederick was
	determined to be the judge of this. . . . In short, Frederick chose
	to judge what was true or false in matters of doctrine. Later
	he was happy to propose the standard by which others should
	judge. He called this the office of a Christian prince.[l9]
	
 One of the major political realities of the Protestant Reformation was the
 new readiness of civil authorities to adjudicate ecclesiastical questions.
 
 Because of military threats from the Turks and other distractions,
 Emperor Charles V did not seriously address this resistance to the Edict
 of Worms until after the Protestant movements had grown enormously
 even though he turned his attention to it in earnest in 1530 (at the Diet of
 Augsburg), Charles did not actually take military action against the
 Protestants until after Luther's death in 1546. It was a delay Charles
 regretted deeply at the end of his life.
 
 At first, at the 1524 Diet of Nuremberg, the German princes sought a
 Council of the German church, but the 1526 Recess of Speyer allowed each
 sovereign to regulate religion "as the laws of the empire and the Word of
 God allowed." This ambiguous provision seemed to establish a "right of
 Reformation" in the law of the empire, and some German princes used it
 exactly that way to support the Reformation. It also became a useful tool
 for those towns seeking independence from the empire. In general, then,
 the success of religious reform depended upon how far princes and
 autonomous Imperial cities were willing and able to go in support of
 it.[20] "The Reformation was directed primarily at religious rather than
 political concerns," writes Robert Wuthnow. "But in an age when states
 and religion were so closely intertwined, the Reformation necessarily
 carried broad political implications and could survive only by receiving
 some sort of official sanction."[21] While these civil authorities were
 generally quite sincere in their subscription to Reformation teaching, it is
 also true that their actions were a continuation of socio-political trends
 from the Middle Ages--both a drive for wider social control by
 magistrates and a desire to subordinate the clergy to secular jurisdiction.
 
 The Reformation had upset the balance of power in the Holy Roman Empire
 and the princes took advantage of the political conflicts aroused by the
 Reformation to form new bonds between spiritual and temporal authority
 in Germany. While Luther and the other German reformers had no intention
 of subordinating the church to civil authorities, the practical measures of
 reform depended upon the German princes. As a result, the princes became
 the heads of their territorial churches and enlisted those ecclesiastical
 resources in support of their territorial interests.
 
 The process of state control was spurred by the German Peasants' Revolt.
 By 1525, the reforming work of Luther and Zwingli had spawned many
 variations, some of which were quite radical, even revolutionary. Most of
 these radical reformers were distressed at what they perceived to be a
 lack of moral improvement in society as a result of the work of Luther and
 Zwingli. They defended free will in religion and resisted any linking
 together of church and state. When Swabian peasants met in February of
 1525, they summarized their grievances in 12 articles. These articles
 were aimed at religious and secular leaders alike, who disposed of both
 property and people in an authoritarian manner. The peasants cited and
 appealed to Luther, who responded with An Admonition to Peace:
 
	This, then, is a great and dangerous matter. It concerns both
	the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. If this
	rebellion were to continue and get the upper hand, both
	kingdoms would be destroyed and there would be neither
	worldly government nor word of God, which would ultimately
	result in the permanent destruction of all Germany.[22]
 
 When the peasants nevertheless took up arms in defense of their "Gospel,
 Luther strongly supported the princes in their ruthless suppression of the
 rebellion:
 
	For rebellion is not just simple murder; it is like a great fire,
	which attacks and devastates a whole land. Thus rebellion
	brings with it a land filled with murder and bloodshed; it
	makes widows and orphans, and turns everything upside down,
	like the worst disaster. Therefore let everyone who can, smite,
	slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing
	can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel. It is
	just as when one must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him,
	he will strike you, and a whole land with you.[23]
 
 As a result, Lutheranism never again appealed as much to the social
 reformers as it had between 1517 and 1525.
 
 After this Peasants' Revolt, the princes realized that religious radicalism
 linked to social radicalism was a prescription for disaster. The resolved,
 therefore, with Luther's cooperation, to more aggressively manage the
 reforms. The Saxon church visitation of 1527 was ground breaking in that
 it was the basis for a type of institutionalized reform that had once been
 explicitly envisioned previously by any of the reformers.[24] Luther
 acquiesced to this assertion of authority by the princes and called them
 "emergency bishops"--although Luther later had misgivings about this
 when he realized how similarly Protestant princes and Catholic bishops
 could abuse their authority.[25] Thus, from a church/state standpoint, the
 Protestant Reformation was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there was
 a genuine renewal of the church, thanks to the often courageous acts of
 civil authorities; on the other hand, there was increasing control of the
 Protestant church by princes, towns[26] and national monarchies.[27]
 
 The issue of civil disobedience to the Holy Roman emperor was critical to
 the outcome of the Reformation. In Switzerland, where the autonomy of
 cities, and even democracy, was already well established, such resistance
 could be more easily accepted. For Luther, however, the idea of civil
 disobedience presented serious difficulties. At first, Luther had
 subscribed only to passive resistance and a confession of the truth, while
 submitting to the presumably fatal consequences of disobedience. When
 his life and liberty were at stake following the Edict of Worms in 1521,
 Luther counseled his prince not to resist the emperor forcibly. During the
 Peasants' Revolt of 1525, Luther was adamant in asserting that
 "Christians do not fight for themselves with sword and musket, but with
 the cross and with suffering."[28] Luther also opposed the formation of a
 League of Protestant princes, arguing that only God has the right to punish
 tyrants. As late as 1530, Luther was still opposing military resistance to
 the emperor.
 
 But 1530 was the high-water mark of Luther's refusal to countenance such
 military resistance. When Luther, Melanchthon, and Jonas were summoned
 to a meeting with the prince's lawyers at Torgau in October of 1530 there
 was a long and stormy conversation. Luther finally allowed for the
 possibility that the constitution of the empire might permit resistance
 the emperor by princes if the emperor were attacking them solely on the
 basis of religion.[29] It may have seemed to Luther a small concession; it
 was not long, however, before the princes were actively preparing for war
 with the emperor. By 1536, Luther completely accepted the necessity of
 this military resistance and his mature position is reflected in the
 Magdeburg Confession of 1550, where so-called "lesser magistrates" are
 under divine obligation to defend themselves and those in their charge
 from unjust persecution by a higher authority.[30]
 
 
 _D. HOLY WAR AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION_
 
 Once Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had turned in earnest to eradicating
 Protestantism, it did not take long for religious conflict to become
 military conflict. The outcome of the Schmalkaldic War of 1546-47 was a
 defeat for the Protestants. Finally victorious in Germany, Charles V dieted
 the terms of peace at the Diet of Augsburg in 1548. The so-called
 Augsburg "Interim"--it was only temporary, until the Council of Trent
 could meet--made some concessions to Protestants (such as allowing
 marriage of priests and communion in both bread and wine) but was
 otherwise unsympathetic to Protestant concerns. None of the wounds in
 Germany were healed. The city of Magdeburg became a bastion of
 continuing Protestant resistance, from which a harsh propaganda
 campaign age the Augsburg "Interim" was unleashed.
 
 Charles V became embroiled in a renewed religious war in 1552, which
 resulted in a collapse so rapid that in 1555 he had to acknowledge defeat
 in the Peace of Augsburg. The terms of that peace were complex and
 eventually resulted in yet another religious war. But for at least 30 years,
 a fragile truce was maintained. Both Catholics and those who subscribed
 to Augsburg Confession of 1530 were guaranteed full personal and legal
 security. Princely sovereignty over religion was recognized on the basis
 where there is one ruler, there should be only one religion. Thus, the
 freedom to embrace Lutheranism or Catholicism was granted only to the
 individual estates of the empire but not to every German--and even that
 recognition did not extend to Calvinists or to the Anabaptists. Calvinist
 princes, therefore, remained a destabilizing element in Germany and
 eventually set out to shatter the fragile compromise by the end of the
 16th century.
 
 The period from 1555 to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1618 was
 one of the longest periods of peace in German history. But the war, when it
 came, was one of the most destructive in German history. It was a
 struggle between the estates and the monarchy in the Holy Roman Empire
 that set fire to all of Germany and involved the European continent.[31]
 
 Actually a series of four wars (the Bohemian, the Danish, the Swedish, and
 the French), the Thirty Years' War left Germany (which was the
 battleground for the European armies) devastated. After 30 years of war
 much of Germany lay in ruins, the fields untilled, the forests untended, the
 towns devastated, their crafts and industries destroyed. One-third of the
 population had died either in battle or from plague, malnutrition, or
 similar war-related catastrophes.
 
 The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 turned out to be a confirmation of the
 long-scorned Peace of Augsburg--only this time the Calvinists were also
 explicitly included. Once again, the sovereignty of territorial princes was
 affirmed. While some efforts were made to guarantee individual liberty of
 conscience to Catholics living in Protestant states, and vice versa, most
 Germans accepted the creed of their ruler. After 1648, the northern half
 of the Holy Roman Empire was for the most part solidly Lutheran and the
 southern half quite solidly Catholic, with important pockets of Calvinism
 along the Rhine. Anabaptists and members of other sects, however,
 continued to suffer persecution and thousands of them emigrated to
 America.
 
 While the war had, in fact, been fought largely over matters other than
 religion, one outcome of the devastating conflict was widespread
 revulsion at the notion of religious war (a revulsion that has persisted and
 had noticeable consequences well into our own time). The Peace of
 Westphalia ended the wars of religion in central Europe. The philosophers
 and kings of the succeeding Age of Enlightenment looked back on them as
 models of how not to conduct warfare. What followed, for two centuries
 (until our own), was a more controlled style of warfare with armies
 professional enough to reduce the plundering and pillaging, and objectives
 limited enough to reduce the bloodshed.
 
 The Peace of Westphalia also clarified the right of the territorial princes
 to determine the religion of their states. The ruler was not permitted to
 impose a religious faith on his subjects but only to regulate public
 religion in his territory. For the first time, the door was open to those
 rulers who wanted to practice a policy of religious toleration. Indeed, the
 devastating Thirty Years' War had led many to think that political and
 social stability in Germany would require transcending religious
 differences and, among the highest classes of society, a great deal of
 skepticism about the truth of traditional religion crept in as a result of
 the war.
 
 Germany at the opening of the 18th century was partitioned, entangled and
 confused. The Holy Roman Empire still existed in name, and at its head
 there was still an emperor, but the individual states were everything and
 the empire was nothing. Everywhere in Germany, the princes emerged a
 absolute rulers. For more than a century after 1648, Germany stagnated as
 a political absolutism evolved, including an exacting administration,
 dependence on a standing army, and oppressive bondage of the peasants. It
 was in this climate that Prussia rose to prominence among the German
 states. Exploiting divisions among the European great powers, Prussia
 began a steady expansion by means of its large and powerful army. In
 addition to this army, however, Prussia also had the solid support of its
 Protestant church.
 
 Since the 16th century, Lutheranism had been the predominant religion in
 Brandenburg and East Prussia. In 1613, however, John Sigismund the
 Elector of Brandenburg, converted from Lutheranism to Calvinism. In doing
 so, he announced that he would not make use of his right to impose his
 religion upon his subjects and, indeed, that all would enjoy religious
 freedom--highly unusual in an age of religious intolerance. From then on
 Brandenburg-Prussia became a haven for people fleeing religious
 oppression. Much of the rise and success of Prussia as a great power was
 due its ability to attract talented subjects from other European states.
 
 The Calvinist rulers of Prussia, the Hohenzollern dynasty, may not exactly
 have imposed their religion on their subjects, but they were very
 interested in improving the relations between Lutherans and Calvinist
 They looked upon theological controversy as harmful and sought to prevent
 it. In 1664, the Great Elector Frederick William demanded a signed
 declaration from all ministers in Brandenburg-Prussia that they would use
 moderation in the discussion of controversial subjects, not identify the
 adversaries by name, and lay aside the Formula of Concord. Strong
 Lutheran resistance forced a relaxation of the policy, but the handwriting
 was on the wall.
 
 Permitting no church government independent of the state, the
 Hohenzollerns sought to mold the teachings of the Protestant church
 through control of church appointments. As agents of the state, Protestant
 clergy were to carry out the orders of the ruler faithfully and
 unquestioningly, so as to assist in strengthening and consolidating the
 Prussian state. By the end of the 18th century, theological differences
 between the Lutheran and Reformed churches had been downplayed so
 persistently that there seemed to be little serious opposition to a union of
 the two. The reorganization and merger of the Lutheran and Reformed
 churches began in 1808 but it was not until 1817 that a formal union of
 the two was effected.
 
 After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Prussia emerged as a greatly
 enlarged German state. Within 55 years, Prussia would complete the
 monumental task of unifying Germany under its headship. The government
 believed that such unity could be better strengthened by a centrally
 administered and confessionally united Protestant state church. The
 Prussian king, Frederick William III, made his own contribution by
 drafting a new communion liturgy (_Agende_) in 1822. While the king
 denied that congregations would be forced to use the new rite, the
 government exerted strong pressure to make the clergy conform and most
 Lutheran clergy in Prussia were simply unwilling to jeopardize their
 appointments. By 1830, "the king could congratulate himself upon the fact
 that the liturgy had been accepted throughout the greater part of his
 realm."[32] The pockets of strong opposition, mainly in Silesia, were met
 with force, as the government largely ignored any public outcry against
 the "Union" liturgy. The controversy was eventually settled by compromise
 one unacceptable mainly to the so-called "Old Lutherans" who, in search of
 religious freedom, helped to create, support, and populate the Missouri
 Synod in America.
 
 
 _E. THE AMERICAN "EXPERIMENT"_
 
 The America created in 1776 and 1789 was unique, a risky endeavor in
 which the government was shackled with checks and balances so that the
 people might be free. It was an "experiment" grounded in the Founding
 Fathers' understanding of the liberty and equality that God Himself
 intended for humankind. America was, as Lincoln said in his address at
 Gettysburg (1863), "a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to
 the proposition that all men are created equal." As a result, according to
 Richard John Neuhaus, "America is not a fact of nature but a product of
 human decision. It is a nation on purpose and by purpose." Thus, while all
 citizens may confront questions about why their own nations exist, for
 Americans the questions are particularly acute. And they are even more
 acute today because so many of the old answers no longer satisfy:
 
	Who today, apart from some politicians on ritual occasions,
	says that America is embarked upon a providentially guided
	errand into the wilderness? Lincoln declared that "we shall
	nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth." What
	is lost today--meanly or otherwise--is the belief that
	America is in any way the bearer of a universal hope.
 
 Neuhaus suggests that part of the reason that we have lost confidence in
 the old answers is that they were unabashedly moral, even religious.[33]
 
 At the time of the American Revolution, at least 75 percent of the
 population of the colonies had grown up in families exposed to some form
 of Puritanism. Crucial to Puritanism was its concept of the covenant, a,
 agreement that placed obligations on both parties. The Puritans believed
 that when God called individuals to salvation, He also placed
 responsibilities, duties on their shoulders. The Puritans' Massachusetts
 Bay colon was a Geneva-style Calvinist theocracy without religious
 toleration. Th Bible was the source and norm for both ecclesiastical and
 civil law. However, weakened by internal conflicts, the "half-way
 covenant," and the British Parliament's Act of Toleration in 1693, the
 Puritans' vision of Christian Commonwealth did not thrive in America as
 it had in medieval Europe. America was shaped, from the beginning, by a
 strong dose of individual freedom--in religion as well as in politics. Yet,
 the notion a covenant--of accountability as well as of blessing--in the
 American view of God has been an enduring notion. The Puritan notion that
 America was blessed to be a shining city upon a hill with an evangelical
 mission to the world is with us still.
 
 Many historians agree that the foundation for the American revolution was
 laid by a spiritual Great Awakening, begun by Jonathan Edwards 1734 and
 carried forward by George Whitefield up and down the Atlantic coast. In
 this revival, Americans came to believe that their evangelical mission
 first required political independence:
 
	But it was the evangelical New Lights of the interior, viewing
	nationhood as the essential first step in God's plan for
	America, who rallied the farmers, mechanics, and small-town
	merchants whose participation was to prove crucial in the
	struggle for independence. "What do we mean by the American
	Revolution?" John Adams asked long afterward. "Do we mean
	the American war? The Revolution was effected before the
	war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of
	the people; a change in their religious sentiments. . . ." The
	change in sentiments that Adams recalled was rooted in the
	Great Awakening, in the dawn of a new conviction that
	America, like ancient Israel, was a God chosen nation,
	destined, as Edwards wrote, to begin the glorious work that in
	God's good time would "renew the world of mankind."[34]
 
 For many American colonists, the pursuit of political liberty was literally
 a crusade.
 
 As crucial as the Puritan roots of the American experiment, however, was
 the early and persistent experience of ethnic and religious diversity. The
 first "engines" of American pluralism were the middle colonies (New York,
 Pennsylvania, and Maryland), where most of the world's existing
 Protestant groups were represented. Such diversity required that political
 and social unity be based on persuasion, so that "Americans had to invent
 what Europeans inherited: a sense of solidarity, a repertoire of national
 symbols, a quickening of political passions."[35] From the beginning,
 according to Os Guinness, "pluralism with all its opportunities and
 challenges has been at the heart of 'the first new nation'--so much so that
 the American experiment can be viewed as a national embodiment of
 pluralism and persuasion as much as it is of freedom."[36] The only
 alternative to such consent, as the Civil War demonstrated, is force.
 
 It was in Virginia that the distinctly American notion of religious
 freedom was formulated. It was Virginia's state constitution, drafted in
 1776, that first proposed a bill of rights guaranteeing that "all men are
 equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates
 of conscience, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian
 forbearance, love and charity toward the other."[37] The goal was not to
 limit Christianity, but to provide for a greater free exercise of it.
 
 Later, the authors of religious liberty in Virginia, particularly Madison and
 Jefferson, liked to trace their ideas to ancient philosophers and the
 European Enlightenment, but "the core tradition from which the Virginia
 liberals drew most of their social ideas was that initiated in England
 during the previous century by John Locke"[38] and Locke was
 self-consciously Christian. Locke believed that both church and society
 receive their meaning and direction from God's purpose and design,
 although each in distinctly different ways. The church was a voluntary
 society in which the primary considerations are spiritual and moral. The
 civil government, on the other hand, was designed to advance the material
 interests of humanity. The legitimate interests of church and state
 overlapped in concern for moral actions, but Locke did not think that, in a
 well-ordered society, church and state would necessarily conflict.
 
 Locke's views seem to have been widely shared by the founders of the
 American republic. It is part of the paradox of America, as an experiment
 that Christianity should be so closely allied to the American way of life
 while so explicitly separated from state support:
 
	The founders were determined that the federal government
	should not become involved with sponsorship or institutional
	support of any religion. To this end they enacted the
	establishment clause. But sponsorship or institutional support
	is not the same thing as acknowledging the dependence of civil
	society, as of all life, on transcendent direction. The founders'
	belief in the wisdom of placing civil society within a
	framework of religious values formed part of their reason for
	enacting the free exercise clause. The First Amendment is no
	more neutral on the general value of religion than it is on the
	general value of the free exchange of ideas or an independent
	press.[39]
 
 Thus, both those who argue that America was conceived as secular and
 those who argue that Christianity was in fact the religion of the state
 overstate their arguments.[40]
 
 At first, some of the states continued to have established state
 churches,[41] although this quickly faded in the new republic. While most
 American citizens believed that Christianity was essential to the success
 of American system, there was strong resistance to defining that
 Christian in terms of any particular creed. George Washington was a
 conscientious churchman who nevertheless had little interest in doctrinal
 disputes. Alexander Hamilton strongly believed that religion was a
 necessary foundation for society, yet rejected the idea that the
 constitution should even mention God. Thomas Jefferson, in a well-known
 letter to the Connecticut Baptists in 1802, described the First
 Amendment[42] as "building a wall of separation between church and
 state" so that no American could be accountable to government for his
 faith or worship. Thus, the founders the American constitutional republic
 proposed, somewhat paradoxically, that "functional separation between
 church end state should be maintained without threatening the support and
 guidance received by republican government from religion."[43] They
 believed that religious liberty was good because it aided genuine
 Christianity; most believed that in a free society Christian truth would
 prevail. Viewing the First Amendment as a leveling or relativizing of all
 religions would have been unthinkable for them.[44]
 
 Religion, therefore, has been an integral part of the American way of life.
 While it presents us now with many difficult problems, as yet unresolved,
 the founders of our country were not neutral about religion. The First
 Amendment "no more made America a secular state than its anti-trust
 legislation made it a socialist state."[45] What the Amendment was
 designed to do was to create a level playing field with fair competition.
 Regarding religion, the government was to be _benevolently_ neutral.
 
 As a result, America has long been a haven for those seeking religious
 freedom. Jews and Catholics, in particular, have embraced America--and
 that in spite of the nation's rather Protestant history. It was also to
 America that many Germans came seeking free exercise of their
 confessional Lutheranism, and they also quickly embraced the virtues of
 the new land. Indeed, C.F.W. Walther considered America a place where
 Luther's Law-Gospel distinction between spiritual and temporal authority
 could finally be realized.[46] The Missouri Synod convention of 1851
 actually authorized a purely political journal (to promote support for the
 American political system among German Lutheran immigrants), and
 Walther traveled all the way to eastern Ontario through winter
 snowstorms to secure its first editor.[47]
 
 One of the most remarkable characteristics of American history is that
 here such intense religious convictions have caused so little internal
 strife. Alexis de Tocqueville's traveling companion in the early 19th
 century marveled at "how a lively and sincere faith can get on with such a
 perfect toleration; how one can have equal respect for religions whose
 dogmas differ."[48] Yet, after the Civil War, with the demise of the
 "states' right. approach to the Constitution and the adoption of the
 Fourteenth Amendment,[49] as well as with increasing pluralism and
 modernization, church-state conflicts did begin to emerge with greater
 frequency and intensity.
 
 One major test of the principle of free exercise of religion was Mormon
 polygamy. In 1878, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that polygamy was
 prohibited in the United States not on the basis of sectarian religion, but
 on the basis of Western moral tradition: "Congress deprived of all
 legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free reach actions
 which were in violation of social duties or subversive good order."[50]
 This notion of the founders, that the will of "nature's God could be clearly
 discerned and was consistent with the traditions of western Christendom,
 remained alive and well in America well into the 20th century.
 
 Beginning in the 1920s, however, and continuing to the present, Supreme
 Court has attempted with great difficulty to chart a mediating course
 between competing moral and religious values by broadly construing the
 right to pursue one's religion (including non-Christian, even atheistic,
 religious views) under the First Amendment as well as the Fourteenth,
 while at the same time broadly construing the establishment clause of the
 First Amendment, so as to consider almost all government support for
 religion inadmissible. By the 1980s, the Court--along with American
 people generally--had a deeply divided mind: In 1980, Court ruled 5-4 that
 a Kentucky law ordering the posting of the Commandments in public school
 rooms was unconstitutional, while 1981 the Court refused to hear an
 appeal of a lower Court decision favor of religious Christmas decorations
 in South Dakota public schools. In the ensuing years, these thorny issues
 have continued to occupy the Court's attention.
 
 
 _F. IS THERE A MORAL TO THIS STORY?_
 
 Having followed the long and complicated story of Christians and
 government this far, the reader may well be asking, "So, what is the
 point? What is to be learned?" While it is always difficult to draw
 absolute conclusions from complex historical developments, it is
 nevertheless often helpful to make some generalizations.
 
 First of all, there is a persistent human tendency to blur the distinction
 between church and state, a tendency that has also afflicted Christians
 throughout the history of the church. At times this has resulted in a
 tyranny of the state, at other times in a tyranny of the church. It is a
 danger that must be diligently monitored by Christians.
 
 Second, Christianity points to a higher authority to which the state is
 ultimately accountable and thus introduced checks and balances on the
 state's age-old tendency toward _de facto_ sovereignty.[51] One positive
 aspect of all the medieval conflict between the church and civil rulers--
 and its enduring significance for Americans as heirs of western European
 civilization--was that "the state was stripped of its age-old religious
 aura and its overriding claims on the loyalties of men were balanced and
 curtailed by a rival authority."[52] In other words, it was precisely in the
 medieval crucible of conflict between civil and religious authorities that
 the political freedoms we have come to take for granted were forged.
 
 Third, the New Testament understanding of the messianic kingdom as
 spiritual denies any civil government (even when run by Christians) the
 sanction of Christ. Therefore, ironically, Christianity has been a
 secularizing force. Through the conflicts of the Middle Ages and the
 Reformation era religious wars, an understanding of the state emerged
 that did not require the promotion of Christianity in order to promote the
 common good. This idea came to expression in America, where free
 exercise of religion stands in deliberate tension with nonestablishment.
 Christians must resist the temptation to resolve America's church-state
 problems by attempting to make the state "Christian."
 
 Fourth, while appreciating how secularization of the state has contributed
 to religious freedom, we must not understand such freedom as something
 purely private. Nonestablishment serves free exercise. A government that
 refuses the freedom to make one's religious case and present one's
 religious views in the public square is on the road to tyranny. The
 American experiment depends quite explicitly, however uncomfortably on
 the free _exercise_ of religion.
 
 Finally, while there are currently many profound, seeming intractable,
 problems with the American system, the history of the church has
 illustrated the general failure of religious war (of force) for resolving the
 enduring problem of church and state. The religious liberty of rights
 responsibilities, and respect, to which America gave birth, is a public
 philosophy grounded in persuasion and voluntary consent.[53]
 
 In an age that many are now calling post-Christian, as well as
 post-modern, it is not at all clear how the ongoing controversy over
 religion in American public life will be resolved. What is clear, however,
 is that in America the responsibility for resolving it belongs to each
 citizen, for in America the government is, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg,
 "of the people, by the people, for the people."
 
 
                   _II. A LUTHERAN TWO-KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE_
 
 In this second section, we will examine briefly how Lutherans have
 interpreted the relationship between church and state.[54] We will also
 see how the proper relationship between church and state has become a
 matter of controversy and debate among American Lutherans in this
 century.
 
 
 _A. INTERPRETIVE MODELS OF CHURCH AND STATE_
 
 The history of church and state may seem chaotic, particularly if one
 includes the many details omitted here. Yet there also have been a number
 of attempts to search for constants and generalizations-especially with
 the rise of the social sciences in the 19th century. These generalizations
 and constants are based upon interpretive models. While models cannot
 perfectly convey reality in its totality, their value lies in the way that
 they omit elements of reality in order to enhance our understanding of
 reality--they simplify what is in fact complex.[55]
 
 Most scholars (whether they are secular social theorists or theologians)
 use models, often without realizing it. They commonly make general
 statements about particulars without being aware of the theoretical
 assumptions that permit them to move from the study of isolated "facts"
 to generalized conclusions. Very often, hotly debated general assertions in
 theology or the social sciences derive from fundamentally different
 assumptions about interpretive models. Careful study of those
 assumptions can help immensely to clarify a hotly contested argument.
 
 In 1951, H. Richard Niebuhr published _Christ and Culture_, in which he
 provided five interpretive models by which we might better understand
 the history of the Christian church and civil government. For Niebuhr these
 are the typical answers that Christians have given to the enduring problem
 of Christ and culture: "Christ _against_ Culture," "The Christ _of_
 Culture," "Christ _above_ Culture," "Christ and Culture _in Paradox_," and
 "Christ the _Transformer_ of Culture."
 
 Niebuhr's first model, "Christ against Culture," is an uncompromising
 defense of Christ's authority for the Christian. Articulated early in the
 church's history, this model grows naturally from Scriptural teaching that
 Christ is Lord of all. Its most vociferous advocate was Tertullian, who
 urged Christians to shun political life: "As those in whom all ardor in the
 pursuit of honor and glory is dead, we have no pressing inducement to take
 part in your public meetings; nor is there aught more entirely foreign to us
 than affairs of state."[56] Some Amish and Mennonite groups also
 demonstrate this anticultural approach. While this model obviously
 reflects the Lordship of Christ, it overemphasizes the purity of the
 Christian community and underemphasizes the honorable, God-designed
 functions of civil government.
 
 Niebuhr's second model, "The Christ of Culture," presents Jesus Christ as
 the fulfillment of the hopes and aspirations of society. Gone is the tension
 between Christ and culture; in its place are the "Christianized" processes
 of civilization itself. This model was appealing to many in the early
 church who interpreted Christ in terms of Graeco-Roman culture. It also
 appealed to Abelard during the Middle Ages and liberal Protestants in the
 19th century. The strength of this model is the God-designed role that
 human culture plays in mediating Christian faith, primarily through
 language. Its profound weakness is the loss of any tension (indeed, any
 real distinction whatsoever) between society and the church.
 
 The three remaining models lie between the two extremes represented by
 the previous models. While each represents a different emphasis, they all
 share the conviction that some tension must be maintained--that both
 Christ and culture have legitimate, although different, claims upon the
 Christian. The third model, "Christ above Culture," synthesizes Christ and
 culture so that while Christ "neither arises out of culture nor contributes
 directly to it, "He is "the fulfillment of cultural aspirations and the
 restorer of the institutions of true society."[57] This was the Christian
 Commonwealth of Thomas Aquinas and the medieval church. Its strength is
 the way that both Christ and culture are made to serve one unified divine
 purpose. Its weakness is the extent to which this unity often must be
 imposed forcefully on a resistant culture, with the Gospel of Christ as
 prime casualty.
 
 Niebuhr's fourth model, "Christ and Culture in Paradox," is the model that
 best preserves and safeguards the Biblical tension. This model
 acknowledges that humans do not encounter in God a simple unity, that the
 God of grace and mercy is also a God of judgment and wrath (Is. 45:7). This
 seemingly paradoxical bonding of wrath and mercy is a major theme in the
 letters of Paul and in the writings of Martin Luther. The strength of this
 view is its realistic portrayal of the Christian's actual struggles to
 "render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the
 things that are God's." Its most pronounced weakness, as we shall see, has
 been a persistent passivity toward government, since government is
 acknowledged in its own right as God's servant and is not expected to
 perform any Gospel-based church functions.
 
 Niebuhr's fifth model, "Christ the Transformer of Culture," also has a
 hopeful attitude toward the potential of human culture to serve Christ.
 Where Christ and culture in paradox tend to maintain a largely negative
 view of the role of civil government, the "conversionists" see potential
 that can be developed only under the redeeming Lordship of Christ and the
 sanctifying work of the Spirit. In this view, there is an emphasis on
 overcoming and overturning the consequences of the fall into sin and
 judgment. This model draws from themes in the gospel of John and is
 found in the work of Augustine and Calvin who, more than Luther, look for
 "the present permeation of all life by the gospel."[58] Its strength is the
 unity of God's purpose and its weakness, again, is that this unity must
 often be imposed.
 
 Niebuhr acknowledged that his five models are "partly artificial," since "a
 type is always something of a construct," but he also believed that they
 have "the advantage of calling to attention the continuity and significance
 of the great _motifs_ that appear and reappear in the long wrestling of
 Christians with their enduring problem."[59] Their value in this study is
 primarily the way they highlight for us the different interpretations of
 church and state that Christians have utilized over the centuries, as well
 as the strengths and weaknesses of each model.
 
 It may be tempting to think that one can synthesize these models, culling
 only the best from each and leaving the flaws behind. But the fact remains
 that there are some choices that need to be made when interpreting church
 and state, and there are some profoundly different implications that
 result from the different choices. We proceed now to a closer examination
 of the model, with its implications, that has been utilized by Lutherans.
 
 
 _B. LUTHER AND THE LUTHERAN CONFESSIONS_
 
 What is here called a "Lutheran Two-Kingdom Perspective" was labeled
 "Christ and Culture in Paradox" by Niebuhr. The so-called "doctrine of the
 two kingdoms" is one of the treasures of our confessional; Lutheran
 heritage, a framework for understanding God's total activity in the world
 that has its origin in the distinction of the Law from the Gospel. Even so,
 we should note that the shorthand expression "doctrine of the two
 kingdoms" is of relatively recent vintage, having arisen in the Luther
 scholarship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
 
 Luther himself sometimes spoke of God's rule in the "three orders" (the
 home, the state, and the church), and at other times of His rule in the "two
 kingdoms" or "two governments." Unless we are aware of the context in
 which Luther employs his fluid terminology, we will find it all too easy to
 misrepresent his intentions. A major point to bear in mind is that the
 phrase "two kingdoms" has two completely different meanings in Luther's
 usage. On the one hand, the "two kingdoms" can refer to the warring
 kingdoms of God and Satan respectively. On the other hand, the "two
 kingdoms" can refer to the two governments (of spiritual and temporal
 authority) that God established precisely to thwart Satan's purposes.[60]
 
 Luther's interest in this subject was not philosophical but practical. The
 Lutheran Reformation was running afoul of emperor as well as pope. At the
 same time, some lesser magistrates of the empire wanted to support the
 Reformation. In response to this pressing concern, Luther in 1523 wrote
 _Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed_.[61] In it,
 Luther sought to define the purpose of secular authority, its proper limits,
 and the appropriate Christian response to it. Luther began by noting that
 secular authority is grounded in its creation by God. Civil government was
 established to enhance our life in a fallen world. This, for Luther, is not a
 negative function but a very positive one, for it reflects God's gracious
 concern for His creation. Thus, Luther argued that God remained the Lord
 of both secular and spiritual authorities, although ruling by different
 means in each (Law or Gospel). Luther also taught that all Christians live
 in both kingdoms simultaneously, so that both kingdoms must be clearly
 distinguished without being separated.[62]
 
 Luther recognized that there were two kinds of human righteousness.
 Christian, or spiritual, righteousness was rooted in faith created by the
 Holy Spirit. Civil righteousness, on the other hand, was rooted in a
 morality of which all are capable, including non-Christians.[63] Thus,
 human beings are righteous in relation to God only by faith, while they
 may be righteous in relation to one another through law-abiding social
 justice. Christian righteousness is grounded in the Gospel, through which
 the Holy Spirit works to create faith, while civil righteousness is based
 on the Law, which always accuses evildoers (whoever and wherever they
 may be) and rewards those who serve the needs of their neighbor and
 community.[64] In this way, Luther preserved a tension between
 resistance and non-resistance to evil. Either response, motivated by love,
 may be justified, depending upon whether civil or spiritual righteousness
 is at issue:
 
	In this way, then, things are well-balanced, and you satisfy at
	the same time God's kingdom inwardly and the kingdom of the
	world outwardly, at the same time suffer evil and injustice
	and yet punish evil and injustice; at the same time do not
	resist evil and yet resist it. For in the case you consider
	yourself and what is yours, in the other you consider your
	neighbor and what is his.[65]
 
 For Luther, the normative principles of the church are faith and love,
 while the normative principles of the civil order are reason and justice.
 With regard to spiritual righteousness, Luther had a well-known contempt
 for human reason. When it came to civil righteousness, "Luther was quite
 confident that human rationality could and often would find a good set of
 positive laws and upright customs to serve a society--no matter how
 many or few Christians lived in it."[66] Luther was confident that natural
 law would provide human reason all that it required for social justice.
 Social justice, therefore, must be grounded in the Law and human reason
 rather than in the Gospel and faith.[67]
 
 Luther also recognized that temporal authority, with its coercive powers,
 was fundamentally ill-suited for preserving and protecting the Gospel:
 "For [Christ] is a king over Christians and rules by his Holy Spirit alone,
 without law. . .all for this reason, that Christ, without constraint and
 force, without law and sword, was to have a people who would serve him
 willingly."[68] Thus, Luther clearly distinguished between the exercise of
 power that was appropriate to the church and that which was appropriate
 to the state:
 
	We want to make this so clear that everyone will grasp it, and
	that our fine gentlemen, the princes and bishops, will see what
	fools they are when they seek to coerce the people with their
	laws and commandments into believing this or that. . . .
 
	Again you say, "The temporal power is not forcing men to
	believe; it is simply seeing to it externally that no one
	deceives the people by false doctrine; how could heretics
	otherwise be restrained?" Answer: This the bishops should do;
	it is a function entrusted to them and not to the princes.
	Heresy can never be restrained by force. One will have to
	tackle the problem in some other way, for heresy must be
	opposed and dealt with otherwise then with the sword. Here
	God's word must do the fighting. If it does not succeed,
	certainly the temporal power will not succeed either, even if
	it were to drench the world in blood. Heresy is a spiritual
	matter which you cannot hack to pieces with iron.[69]
 
 It has already been indicated that Luther, nevertheless, permitted the
 princes to assume control over the church in Germany. It is
 understandable, then, why C.F.W. Walther might think that Luther's
 two-kingdom theology was most fruitful in America's climate of religious
 freedom.
 
 This Lutheran understanding of the priority of the Gospel and its radical
 distinction from the Law is very different from the Puritan-Reformed
 model of Christ transforming culture. The Reformed stress the equality of
 justification and sanctification, faith and obedience. It is as important
 for the Reformed that all of life be obediently submitted to the Lordship
 of Christ as that people come to a justifying faith in Christ. The
 distinction between church and state in Calvin, for example, does not
 preclude the establishment of a Christian state, since the state too can
 submit to the Word of God. Indeed, with the endorsement of active
 revolution by the Reformed, one has a church "which is summoned to direct
 political intervention of a kind which is in fact alien to Lutheranism."[70]
 For Lutherans, the Reformed approach to the state dangerously confuses
 Law and Gospel:
 
	As long as the Law stands "on the same footing" with the
	Gospel, repentance with absolution, sanctification with
	justification, obedience with faith, it is no longer the doctrine
	of Justification which "alone shows the way to the
	unspeakable treasure and right knowledge of Christ, and alone
	opens the door to the entire bible."[71]
 
 Therefore, the two-kingdom distinction, for Lutherans, does not spring
 from social quietism or flight from the world (although Lutherans have at
 times evidenced both), but from a deep-seated and fundamental desire to
 carefully distinguish the Gospel from the creation-serving purposes of
 civil government. According to the Smalcald Articles, the Gospel is the
 "first and chief article" and "on this article rests all that we teach and
 practice." Therefore, "nothing. . .can be given up or compromised" with
 regard to the Gospel (SA II, 1). And that Gospel is, strictly speaking, the
 forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake, through faith alone. Measuring a
 "true faith" by obedience to the Law--or by how "transforming" that faith
 has been in the civil realm--compromises the true Gospel.[72]
 
 This was clearest, perhaps, in Luther's unpopular, but highly principled,
 reaction to the Peasants' Revolt of 1525. Echoing fundamental themes
 such as the two kingdoms and temporal versus spiritual power, but above
 all emphasizing the proper distinction between Law and Gospel, Luther
 tells the peasants that their claim to "teach and live according to the
 gospel is not true." "Not one of [your] articles teaches anything of the
 gospel," he writes. "Rather, everything is aimed at obtaining freedom for
 your person and for your property. To sum it up, everything is concerned
 with worldly and temporal matters."[73] Luther recognized that some of
 the peasants' published complaints "are so fair and just" as to ruin the
 reputation of the princes and lords. Yet for Luther, such things were
 always to be clearly distinguished from the Gospel.[74]
 
 However, such a radical distinction between Law and Gospel, between
 spiritual and temporal authority, and between Christian righteousness and
 civil righteousness, does not mean that for Luther the Gospel, church, or
 faith have no temporal effects. Indeed, Christians will bring their
 faith-inspired love for the neighbor to all their secular, civil
 responsibilities:
 
	Faith finds its sphere of activities in the horizontal
	relationships which the Creator established as His own means
	of being present through the love of His people. Faith serves
	God by giving spouse and children tender care, the kind of care
	God Himself wants to give them. Faith serves God by
	performing well those economic tasks which feed, clothe, and
	comfort others; faith's service in the economic sphere extends
	to support and help given to fellow workers and to all with
	whom we have contact on the job, in school, as we conduct our
	business and offer our labor. Faith serves God by meeting the
	needs of neighbors and fellow citizens in activities ranging
	from painting the neighbor's fence or mopping up his vomit as
	he lies dying, to participation in the activities of community
	organizations and political parties.[75]
 
 Thus, for Luther, it is _God_ to whom Christians respond in _both_
 kingdoms, and not only in the church, yet in different ways. On the one
 hand, the Christian is grounded in the freedom of the Gospel and exercises
 a faith that justifies apart from works. On the other hand, the Christian is
 also grounded in the earthly constraints of God's work through civil law
 and exercises a faith active in love that seeks social justice.
 
 Yet there are profound limits, for Luther, to what Christian good works
 can accomplish, and the church must not become preoccupied with
 transforming the civil order. In Luther's way of thinking, Christians are
 called to operate within different expressions of the emergency orders,
 which vary in their cultural and social particularities. Christian faith can
 illumine reason. Love can temper justice. But these transforming virtues
 cannot create a Christian politics or Christian economics.[76] Good works,
 for Luther, are done freely by Christians in their daily lives and are not
 under the control of the church. We are dealing here with the privilege and
 duty of the individual Christian's vocation.
 
 Luther's two-kingdom ethic was incorporated within the Augsburg
 Confession. Article XVI, titled "Civil Government," states:
 
	It is taught among us that all government in the world and all
	established rule and laws were instituted and ordained by God
	for the sake of good order, and that Christians may without sin
	occupy civil offices or serve as princes and judges, render
	decisions and pass sentence according to imperial and other
	existing laws, punish evildoers with the sword, engage in just
	wars, serve as soldiers, buy and sell, take required oaths,
	possess property, be married, etc.
 
	Condemned here are the Anabaptists who teach that none of the
	things indicated above is Christian.
 
	Also condemned are those who teach that Christian perfection
	requires the forsaking of house and home, wife and child, and
	the renunciation of such activities as are mentioned above.
	Actually, true perfection consists alone of proper fear of God
	and real faith in God, for the Gospel does not teach an outward
	and temporal but an inward and eternal mode of existence and
	righteousness of the heart. The Gospel does not overthrow civil
	authority, the state, and marriage but requires that all these
	be kept as true orders of God and that everyone, each according
	to his own calling, manifest Christian love and genuine good
	works in his station of life. Accordingly Christians are obliged
	to be subject to civil authority and obey its commands and
	laws in all that can be done without sin. But when commands
	of the civil authority cannot be obeyed without sin, we must
	obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). (AC XVI, 1-7)
 
 In this brief article there are five of Luther's major themes: first, the
 recognition of divine approval of the civil realm; second, the implication
 that the earthly welfare of people is a legitimate concern of Christians;
 third, that the civil realm should be governed by reason, justice, and
 concern for the common good; fourth, that a Christian is called to
 responsibilities in the civil realm; and, fifth, that there is a danger in
 perfectionistic notions of Christian spirituality--as if the fallen world
 were unworthy of serious Christian concern or as if the transformation of
 the world were required of faith.[77]
 
 Article XXVIII, "The Power of Bishops," also addresses the two kingdoms:
 
	Many and various things have been written in former times
	about the power of bishops, and some have improperly confused
	the power of bishops with the temporal sword. Out of this
	careless confusion many serious wars, tumults, and uprisings
	have resulted because the bishops, under the pretext of the
	power given them by Christ,. . .have also presumed to set up
	and depose kings and emperors according to their pleasure. . . .
	
	Our teachers assert that according to the Gospel the power of
	keys or the power of bishops is a power and command of God to
	preach the Gospel, to forgive and retain sins, and to administer
	and distribute the sacraments. . . .
 
	This power of keys or of bishops is used and exercised only by
	teaching and preaching the Word of God and by administering
	the sacraments. . . . Inasmuch as the power of the church or of
	bishops bestows eternal gifts and is used and exercised only
	through the office of preaching, it does not interfere at all
	with government or temporal authority. Temporal authority is
	concerned with matters altogether different from the Gospel.
	Temporal power does not protect the soul, but with the sword
	and physical penalties it protects body and goods from the
	power of others.
 
	Therefore, the two authorities, the spiritual and the temporal,
	are not to be mingled or confused, for the spiritual power has
	its commission to preach the Gospel and administer the
	sacraments. Hence it should not invade the function of the
	other, should not set up and depose kings, should not annul
	temporal laws or undermine obedience to government, should
	not make or prescribe to the temporal power laws concerning
	worldly matters. (AC XXVIII, 1-14)
 
 Several more of Luther's major themes are also evident here: first, that
 the power of the church is the power of Word and sacraments, which is the
 power to forgive sins exercised publicly through the pastoral office;
 second, that the church does not, and must not pretend to, have temporal
 authority by interfering in government or prescribing legislation; and
 third, that the chief function of civil authorities is to protect human life
 and liberty from the power of others.
 
 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 political 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 introduce any new laws about the civil estate, but
	commands us to obey the existing laws, whether they were
	formulated by heathen or by others, and in this obedience to
	practice love. (Ap XVI, 2-3)[78]
 
 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 to
	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).
 
 
 _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 possible I have
 stood between both parties, and I could not have done otherwise, for I have
 had no vocation to meddle in political controversy."[79] This did not mean
 that Lutherans could not support the Revolution, however. To the contrary,
 even Henry's son Peter Muhlenberg exchanged his clerical 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
 impassioned as any other Americans over issues that concerned 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
 conscious 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,
 Lutherans were also uncomfortable with the requirement that church
 bodies participate directly in social reform."[80]
 
 Responding to Walter Rauschenbusch's sharp criticism of this Lutheran
 "social quietism," the president of the General Council, T.E. Schmauk,
 wrote:
 
	We do believe in a 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.[81]
 
 While most mainline denominational members of the Federal Council of
 Churches had by 1915 established committees or boards to handle
 corporate social concerns, Lutherans had not done so. The General Synod,
 however, and the Augustana Synod did begin to move in the direction of
 political advocacy on the matter of temperance between 1866 and
 1917,[82] 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 together 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, represented
 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 Synodical Conference. 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.''[83] 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 relations 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 presenting
 the united testimony of Lutherans to the world.''[84] 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
 distributed huge quantities of literature, and operated with a (then
 phenomenal) 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
 Public 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.[85] 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 have steadily evolved toward full participation
 in American public life.
 
 Much of the impetus for greater involvement with American government 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.[86] In 1946 the ULCA created a new position of secretary for social
 action with its Board of Social Missions. The American Lutheran Church
 also renamed its Board of Christian Charities the Board for Christian
 Social Action in 1948, although the ALC remained more resistant to direct
 social action than did the ULCA.
 
 In 1957, the ULCA published a symposium in three volumes, _Christian
 Social Responsibility_, based on six years of work by 14 of its pastors,
 church executives, and theology professors. The symposium contained an
 essay by a young instructor at the ULCA seminary in Philadelphia, William
 H. Lazareth, who would play a crucial role in shaping his church body's
 theology of social ministry.[87] Lazareth's contribution, "Christian Faith
 and Culture," was a careful exposition of the two-kingdom ethic that
 faithfully reproduced the sometimes subtle nuances of Luther's
 thought.[58] But Lazareth also sounded a theme that was relatively new to
 American Lutherans, although quite familiar to the Reformed:
 
	Sin corrupts social structures as well as individual hearts; so
	also must ,they be judged and redeemed. We must strive to
	reconstruct our society simultaneously from within--by
	transforming individual citizens--as well as from without--by
	reforming institutional structures so as to permit the
	conversion of the unsaved and to encourage the stewardship of
	the reborn.[89]
 
 While Lazareth carefully developed this theme within Lutheran
 conceptualities, it was still a significant shift in approach.
 
 Another noteworthy shift in the traditional Lutheran approach can be seen
 in the essay on "Christian Faith and the Political Order" by T.A. Kantonen:
 
	It is for the church to make clear what belongs to Caesar and
	what belongs to God, to give Caesar what belongs to him but
	not what belongs to God, to act as vigilant watchman and
	critic over the state to see that it remains the state and
	nothing more, performing its true functions but not
	transgressing its limits. . . . Although the church itself cannot
	legislate for non-Christians, it has a vital stake in all
	legislation pertaining to human welfare, in such issues as
	clearing slums, [ceding the hungry, settling refugees,
	protecting children, providing for the sick and the aged,
	conserving health, and promoting peace.[90]
 
 Here Kantonen writes of the "church" ambiguously, so that it is not clear
 whether the church's "vital stake" as well as its role as "watchman and
 critic" was to be fulfilled individually by Christians through their
 vocations and political associations or corporately by church bodies
 through their national conventions and executive staff.
 
 It is quite clear that the symposium on Christian Social Responsibility
 was designed to lay a foundation for direct social action by the ULCA. This
 was explicit in Lazareth's booklet _A Theology of Politics_ (1960), in
 which he spoke of the church or one of its official agencies proclaiming
 the general norms and guidelines of Christian political ethics in order to
 provide judgment and guidance for those responsible under God for the
 peace, justice, and freedom of the world. Although Lazareth did not intend
 for this to involve partisan politics, his work did ensure that the ways and
 means for the corporate expression of social concern were well-rooted in
 the Luther an Church in America (LCA) already at its formation in
 1962.[91]
 
 During the 1960s, the national mood favored social reform to a degree not
 seen since the administration of Franklin Roosevelt during the Great
 Depression. The Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty, followed
 later in the decade by the Vietnam War, were the major social concerns. In
 February 1966, the LCA's Board of Social Ministry adopted a brief
 statement drafted by Lazareth, "Social Ministry: Biblical and Theological
 Perspectives." In it, Lazareth went even further than he had in 1960 to
 speak of the "imperative for Christians, both privately and corporately, as
 citizens and churchmen, to join hands with all men of good will in working
 together for the common good of humanity." With the same ambiguous use
 of "church" as that of Kantonen, Lazareth wrote explicitly of institutional
 advocacy: "In an age of corporate decision-making, the public witness of
 official representatives of the church can be particularly effective
 expressing and reinforcing the ethical judgments of the Christian
 community." This argument presumed, on reasonable grounds, that the
 church could devise a satisfactory mechanism of producing corporate
 judgment that institutional advocacy was a successful political tool, and
 that this was necessitated by our "age of corporate decision-making"--all
 of which had in fact been a matter of considerable debate.[92]
 
 The American Lutheran Church of 1960 also had a process of policy
 development on social issues although only one of the four merging bodies
 that created it had a history of developing national church positions. The
 "old" ALC (1930) had on occasion developed statements addressed to
 members of the church to aid in the development of their own thinking and
 as a basis for their individual actions as citizens. But, speaking directly
 to government or endorsing specific policy proposals was not part of the
 pattern.[93] Yet, the other three church bodies joining with the ALC had
 serious reservations about even this limited degree of social action. There
 was, as a result, considerably more debate in the ALC than in the LCA over
 the propriety of social statements.
 
 Even so, the ALC did gradually acquire its public voice. In the 27 years of
 the ALC's existence, there was a noticeable "shift from an early emphasis
 on social change through individual action to a later emphasis on the need
 for the church collectively to work for change."[94] According to Charles
 Lutz, the last Director of the ALC's Office of Church in Society, the ALC's
 statements can be characterized as "moderate" within the U.S. political
 spectrum, with a "tilt" in the past decade toward the "progressive" side.
 They clearly reflected, argued Lutz, a consensus of those serving on the
 committees that proposed them, and even the conventions that adopted
 them.[95] Whether they also reflected the viewpoint of the total
 membership, he admitted, can be debated.[96]
 
 Lutz acknowledges that advocacy statements have more impact if they are
 supported by voters expressing that same view directly to their
 legislators. And he cautions that "the church's social witness is that part
 of the church's total work on which we as church members will most
 likely disagree."[97] The ambiguity of "church" is clearly evident here also,
 and one wonders what exactly the "church's social witness" is, when it
 may not represent a consensus of the church's members but only a
 particular convention of the church.
 
 With the formation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1988,
 a well-staffed Washington office was created that carried forward the
 advocacy of the ALC and the LCA even more intensively. According to the
 June 1993 issue of _The Lutheran_, published by the ELCA, the following
 political concerns were being actively addressed by the ELCA's Lutheran
 Office of Government Affairs: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,
 expansion of the earned income credit, balanced budget amendments,
 American Indian Religious Freedom Act amendment, aid to Nicaragua,
 Violence Against Women Act of 1993, the Mickey Leland Childhood Hunger
 Relief Act of 1993, the Every Fifth Child Act, Civil Rights Amendments
 Act for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights, opposing the death penalty, and
 expanding the definition of conscientious objection to include objection to
 specific wars.[98] Clearly, this advocacy had moved a long way from
 Lazareth's vision of teaching the state basic ethical principles.[99]
 
 Social ministry in the Missouri Synod was similar to that in other
 American Lutheran church bodies in that Missouri first concentrated on
 social welfare rather than social action. Support for the Social Gospel
 was never strong in the Missouri Synod, yet already in the 1930s there
 was a "growing number of Associated Lutheran Charities adherents who
 were clamoring for a more vital fusion between Lutheran theology and
 Lutheran action on the American scene.''[100] The theological basis for
 this new vision of social ministry was provided by seminary professor
 Richard Caemmerer, beginning with a paper presented in 1938:
 
	In his paper on Lutheran social action, Caemmerer called for a
	fresh appreciation of justifying grace that always motivates
	the individual to a new life expressed in a love for the next
	man, Christian and non-Christian alike. Neither the New
	Testament itself nor the Reformation era provides the
	contemporary church with a blueprint for social action. But
	Caemmerer discerned the need for a revamping and revitalizing
	of the training of ministers and teachers in the Lutheran
	church who will see the proclamation of the Gospel in the
	context of modern human need, and will hold forth that Gospel
	as the power which sways men in the church to live as Christ
	lived in the world.[101]
 
 The Missouri Synod established a Board of Social Welfare in 1950 with
 Henry Wind as the first executive secretary, although funds were not
 appropriated until 1953. Its most significant early activity was service to
 European refugees. Close working ties were established in this work with
 the National Lutheran Council.
 
 In 1965, the Missouri Synod's "Mission Affirmations" described the
 church's mission to the whole man: "Wherever a Christian as God's witness
 encounters the man to whom God sends him, he meets someone whose
 body, soul, and mind are related in one totality. Therefore Christians,
 individually and corporately, prayerfully seek to serve the needs of the
 total man.''[102] This emphasis on corporate as well as individual action
 was elaborated by the Board of Social Ministry for the Synod's 1971
 convention:
 
	We support those programs in public and private sectors that
	seek to eliminate the causes of poverty and hunger; we support
	comprehensive medical care for all; and we support all efforts
	to sensitize legal, social, financial, and educational structures
	to provide justice and fairness for all We call on the church, as
	a corporate entity, to use in responsible ways those channels
	that are open to it to influence other structures and
	institutions such as government, business, and labor, to
	sensitize them to the task of improving the quality of life at
	every level.[103]
 
 This "Blueprint for the '70s" demonstrated that the views on church and
 state then developing among other Lutherans were present also in the
 LCMS.
 
 These views were significantly restrained during the synodical conflicts
 of the 1970s, and the "Social Ministry Blueprint for the Decade Ahead,"
 which was presented to the 1986 Missouri Synod convention, more clearly
 articulated traditional Lutheran teaching. The 1986 Blueprint called for
 careful distinctions between Law and Gospel--decrying their confusion in
 both the Social Gospel and Liberation Theology. It also spoke: primarily of
 _Christians_ working through the political process and warned that "units
 of the Christian community. . .do not often attain consensus on public
 policy issues," so that "no unit of the Christian community can speak for
 all its members on these matters." The focus was on Christians acting
 "individually and collectively. . ._with other like-minded citizens_--
 Christian and non-Christian--to accomplish the changes in social
 regulation and policy to which they are committed."[l04] There was still,
 however, some ambiguity as to how "church" is here defined or understood
 (whether it denoted the sum of individual Christians or corporate
 structures), particularly in one general objective adopted by the Board for
 Social Ministry Services: "Follow the prophetic role in pleading the cause
 to alleviate human need with justice and mercy." This is explained by a
 more specific objective, yet without providing clarity concerning the
 identity of the "church": "Promote advocacy that will encourage and
 support legislative and administrative changes that will provide for
 preservation of life and resources and care for the poor."[l05]
 
 The gradual agreement on social welfare in the mid-20th century among
 the leadership of American Lutheran churches led to frequent co facts and
 cooperation among Lutheran church bodies. A major factor in this
 cooperation was the problem of interface with the new government
 welfare agencies that arose in the 1930s. In Chicago, on Nov. 17, 1936,
 new ground was broken in inter-Lutheran cooperation when the Luther
 Church Charities Committee was formed, representing six synods,
 including the Missouri Synod. The technical term used in the Missouri
 Synod if such a joint effort is "cooperation in externals." Yet those
 supporting the emerging view of social ministry were quick to point out
 that "the welfare ministry itself was by no means an external matter to
 the Christian faith and the life of the church; it was an essential sign of
 the presence of divine grace and the necessary fruit that grew from the
 root of faith."[l06]
 
 After the mergers of 1960 and 1962, which had created the American
 Lutheran Church (ALC) and the Lutheran Church in America (LCA)
 respectively, a new organization of Lutheran cooperation to replace
 National Lutheran Council became operational in 1967. This time the
 Missouri Synod, already cooperating with the National Lutheran Council,
 Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Service Commission, and Lutheran
 Immigration Service, was a member. The new agency was called Lutheran
 Council in the United States of America (LCUSA) and was chartered with
 two main purposes: theological discussion and cooperation specified areas
 of Christian service. All participating bodies were required to take part in
 the theological discussion, but each could choose whether or not to
 participate in other areas of activity. One of those areas of cooperative
 work was the Office of Government Affairs in Washington, D.C.
 
 In 1979, LCUSA adopted a statement on "The Nature of the Church and Its
 Relationship with Government," in which the role of the church in direct
 social action, long promoted by the LCA and also accepted by many in the
 ALC and LCMS, became the policy of LCUSA. The state declared that "God
 also calls the church to be a creative critic of the order, an advocate for
 the needy and distressed, a pioneer in developing and improving services
 through which care is offered and human dignity is enhanced, and a
 supportive voice for the establishment and maintenance of good order,
 justice and concord." The role of the church includes "informing persons
 about, advocating for and speaking publicly on issues and proposals
 related to social justice and human rights." Furthermore, the statement
 declared, "Advocacy on behalf of justice is an integral part of our
 churches' mission."[107]
 
 By the 1980s, with this mandate, LCUSA's Office of Government Affairs
 was actively lobbying on a wide-ranging list of social concerns. Leaders
 of the Missouri Synod became concerned by what they perceived to be an
 increasingly partisan approach to Christian social concern. As a result,
 early in the 1980s, the Missouri Synod withdrew funding and support from
 OGA--although remaining a member of LCUSA itself until it was dissolved
 in 1988.
 
 The Missouri Synod's 1983 convention requested a study by its
 Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) on the relationship
 between church and state, giving special attention to "who speaks for the
 church," "when," and "on what basis."[108] Also in 1983, synodical
 executives (Samuel Nafzger, H. James Boldt, and John Schuelke) prepared a
 "catechism" on proposed tuition tax credit legislation: 
 
	There are times when the Scriptures speak so clearly and
	directly to a particular issue that it is possible and may even
	be necessary for the church to take a corporate stance on it.
	This is the case with respect to such problems as abortion and
	euthanasia. In some cases it may only be possible for the
	church to speak to the morality of a given issue without
	coming out in favor of or opposition to legislation in this area,
	e.g. homosexuality or divorce. In still other cases, sensitive
	questions may arise for public debate concerning which God's
	Word provides even less specific guidance. Even here, however,
	these issues may have important implications for the church
	as an institution, or may have a potential for depriving
	individuals of religious rights or liberties. In these cases it
	may be helpful for the Synod, while recognizing that Lutheran
	Christians equally committed to following God's will as
	revealed in Holy Scripture may come to different conclusions,
	to keep its members informed and offer guidance to them as
	they determine their own positions.[l09]
 
 Clearly, the "catechism" was articulating a considerably more restrained
 approach to social action by the church than that of LCUSA. The emphasis
 was not on developing some sort of common statement in areas where
 Christians may disagree, but on informing and guiding those Christian "as
 they determine their own positions." The "catechism" articulated the more
 traditional Lutheran view.
 
 During 1984, the Missouri Synod's Board of Directors studied and
 discussed establishing an alternative "presence" in Washington. In 1985,
 they authorized a government information services project to assist the
 President and other synodical leaders in acquiring timely information and
 providing liaison on government issues and activities involving the Synod.
 In 1986, a church-state conference was held in Washington, D.C., to
 discuss the establishment of a full-time Office of Government
 Information (OGI) The Board of Directors placed OGI in the President's of
 office in 1987.
 
 Already in 1978 the Missouri Synod's Board of Directors had resolved that,
 for synodical entities, speech directed at government was the
 responsibility of the synodical President. In 1980, this policy had been
 amended to say that, in general, relations and contacts with legislative
 and executive branches of government also should be established through
 the office of thc President. In 1986, this Board of Directors' policy was
 amended again to incorporate the establishment of OGI as a part of the
 Missouri Synod President's office. All official position statements on
 governmental matters by any board, commission, department, or
 administrative unit would now be prepared in consultation with OGI for
 action by the President. This made OGI an advisor to those with
 responsibilities for ministry in the Missouri Synod--not a "lobby" or the
 "voice" of the Missouri Synod. OGI was to gather information, communicate
 it to decision-makers in the Synod (including the Christian citizens in its
 congregations), and advise those, particularly the President, who must
 make decisions about what words and actions are appropriate.
 Occasionally, when the President deemed it appropriate OGI would
 communicate those words and actions also to civil authorities 
 
 The Office of Government Information's work has been limited both by its
 mandate and its funding. Most of its attention has been devoted to the
 Missouri Synod's major concerns in the areas of abortion, family, and
 education. Its principal task has been acquiring information in these areas
 and sharing it with synodical leaders and congregations.
 
 
 _D. IS THERE REALLY A LUTHERAN PERSPECTIVE?_
 
 At the conclusion of this survey of Luther and Lutherans, the reader might
 credibly ask whether there really is a _Lutheran_ view of church and
 state. Clearly, if such a perspective requires widespread agreement among
 Lutherans, it is currently lacking. On the other hand, it is also clear from
 the Lutheran Confessions (and the analysis of theologians such as Niebuhr)
 that there is a distinctively Lutheran emphasis.
 
 The Lutheran perspective is grounded finally in that radical distinction
 between Law and Gospel that both establishes and affirms the distinction
 between church and state. While there is unity in the Lutheran view--
 since God rules in both kingdoms, both church and state--it is also true
 that this unity is and always will be visible only to the eyes of faith.
 Christians cannot, and must not attempt to, force this world to become
 what it can never be, since force will only create the appearance of
 Christ's kingdom and never the substance.
 
 The Lutheran model is, admittedly, complex. Thus, even Lutherans have
 often succumbed to the simplicity of other models--models that resolve
 the tension either by pursuing a more this--worldly kingdom of Christ or
 by ignoring this world's problems. Yet, the difficulty with which Lutherans
 hold to their perspective does not invalidate it. Indeed, the Scripture
 provides ample support for the contention that authentic Christianity is a
 hard teaching, difficult to bear (John 6:60). The issue is not whether
 Lutheran teaching is easy to understand; the issue is whether it properly
 reflects what the Bible says.
 
 The Lutheran perspective is also, admittedly, difficult to apply. Even when
 agreeing, for instance, that the church does not have a Gospel-based
 responsibility to promote the transformation of the civil realm, Lutheran
 theologians and church bodies have disagreed about whether the corporate
 church (and not just the individual Christian) has a Law-based duty to
 teach the state ethical principles. Theologians and church bodies have also
 disagreed about the most prudent and effective means by which the church
 might actually teach those ethical principles in a pluralistic and
 democratic society. The paradoxical tensions of the Lutheran perspective,
 therefore, make its practical application in diverse cultural and political
 systems a challenging task.
 
 As we turn now to the problems of practical application, it is important
 to keep in mind that there is in fact a Lutheran perspective--and that the
 Lutheran theological model can and will make a practical difference.
 Puritan-Reformed Christians really do have a different social agenda than
 do confessional Lutherans, and Lutheran Christians need to be careful of
 uncritical alliances with politically active Reformed Christians.
 
 On the other hand, the reader should also be cautioned to understand that
 American Lutherans are still struggling to apply their theology-created
 and nurtured in a culture of emperors and princes to the challenges of the
 modern American democratic "experiment." It is not surprising that there
 should be changes in thinking as this application progresses, although not
 all such changes finally can be viewed favorably.

        ______________________________________________________________
           Copyright 1996, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Posted by
            permission. This text was converted to ascii format by
         Mark A. French. For personal use only. For permission to use
         this document in any other way, contact Rev. Samuel Nafzger,
             (IC_NAFZGESH@lcms.org) at the Commission on Theology
         and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod.
                 Please direct any comments or suggestions to:
                Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at
                        Concordia Theological Seminary.
                                       
                          E-mail: bob_smith@ctsfw.edu
                                       
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