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Speaking Out

Election 08's 'False Clerics and Schismatic Spirits'

The ubiquity of religion in this campaign season is distinctly un-Lutheran.

Uwe Siemon-Netto | posted 4/02/2008 09:56AM

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Uwe Siemon-Netto, a lifelong journalist, is director of the Center for Lutheran Theology and Public Life at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.

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April (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52

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Isaac C. Rottenberg

Posted: April 05, 2008 5:02 PM

As a survivor of Nazi horrors, this kind of two-kingdom theology frightens me as much as Jeremiah Wright's "ideologization" of the Gospel. The big problem in Germany was not so much Lutheran pastors who hailed Hitler, but a Lutheran quietism that robbed churches of their prophetic voice. What irony to quote the sad case of Paul Althaus, whose theology of "peoplehood" made him sympathetic to the Nazi Blut und Boden heresy and Bonhoeffer who, after his US visit, became a political activist. The Gospel of the Kingdom is indeed not about traffic rules, but it IS -among other things-about such mundane realities as justice. Thank the Lord, tertium datur--as I hope future contributors will point out.

Larry Perrault

Posted: April 04, 2008 3:47 PM

Huckabere of course was talking to a room full of Bible-believing Christians. In other words, to them, he was stating the obvious ideal that The Consitition should specift wgat they believe to be the truth. In fact, it already does. Bit clarification is called for in our perceptual context, as it was with abolition. Still, Huckabee needed to be cognizant of the fact that his words would be recorded, played to the public, and pictured as a call to theovcracy. Therefore, the comment was insufficently careful.

Wally

Posted: April 04, 2008 2:50 PM

This comment is more directed at Matt than at the article. I hope that's OK. Matt, it's not a matter of Luther or the Bible. Perhaps the author set an unintentional trap for you by quoting Luther instead of Jesus, but more than one distinction of Jesus' come to the mind of this Lutheran who happens to agree with much of the article. Challenged on taxes, Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." Asked if he claims to be a king by Pilate, Jesus answers, "My kingdom is not of this world!" So Siemon-Netto's "two kingdoms" distinction not only goes back to Luther, but also to Christ himself. That being said, keeping the two kingdoms separate and knowing what belongs to which kingdom is not necessarily easy, and Lutherans to tend to be [certainly this one is] a bit quietist as history shows. I merely one to point out that Luther's very useful doctrine of the two kingdoms derives from Jesus himself, contrary to your assertion.

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