Article I, Section 2 of the Indiana Constitution reads as follows:
Section 2. All people shall be secured in the natural right to worship ALMIGHTY GOD, according to the dictates of their own consciences.
Scanning the debates, I found some quibbling about whether “secured in” was the appropriate phrase as opposed to something like “possess.” The debate had to do with whether this was just an affirmation of the “notorious principle” that was intended to tie the legislature’s hands in interfering with the freedom of worship or whether the legislature would be required to take some sort of affirmative action to secure the peoples’ right to worship as they might choose.
But, the general principle is pretty clear: people should be left alone to worship as they see fit.
or not!
The obvious caveat here is that when people ‘are secured’ in their right to worship,and certain ones seek to make certain tenets of their worship public policy,should government be obliged to step in to infringe worship for some in order to secure worship for all? And does infringement of worship for some come from only ‘secular government'( as conservative Christians would have us believe) or is religion itself a greater threat to religious worship,or to our right not to worship at all.
The wording of this article, to me, says that the state can have no say in how a person chosses to (or not to) worship God. (Obviously written before there were Hindi, Muslims, etc. in the state). The article says that the state has no say in the church. Likewise, as a pastor, I do not use my office to have a say in the state. I do not tell my congregation how they should vote-only that they should vote! When I speak to my congressman, I speak to him as AJB, not Rev. AJB. Martin Luther stated clearly that Christians live in two kingdoms: that of the “world” and that of “Christ.” Christians are expected to follow the example of Christ. When they are in office (or in the “worldly” kingdom) they are expected to fulfill the duties of that office. (Christians are also supposed to respect those who are in office who do not worship God, or worship other “gods”). Will their Christian values spill over into that public service? Yes. But it should spill over by the way they treat others, and their responsibilites in office; not by grandstanding and using God’s name as a way to coerce or bully others.
Luther is an interesting case. I’m by no means a scholar on the subject, but about a year ago, I read a lengthy book on the Reformation. Part of his motivation — moral conviction aside — was probably the fact that he needed to court the support of various sovereigns who were a little tired of meddling by the Catholic church in their affairs.
Regardless of whether his doctrinal positions were motivated by his needs at the time, the whole Reformation period provides an excellent case study as to why mixing church and state is so toxic. The State has its hands quite full trying to take care of temporal matters without venturing into the spirtual lives of its citizens.
Rev.AJB correctly describes the difference between ELCA (is that still the current alphabet?) Lutherans and, say, Southern Baptists.
Oh, and howdy brother.
You are right about his needs of the time. He did find princes who were tired of the Catholic church meddling in their affairs. They used him, and he used them. However, I do think that Lutheran/Reformation thinking is very much expressed in both the Constitution of the US and of Indiana. (Seperation of church and state). As I was thinking about Luther, I was reminded that both church and state need to hold each other in check in extreme circumstances. When my “hometown boy” Jim Jones decided to spike the kool-aid; the government stepped in. (Actually they stepped in before the spiking…but I think their involvement just sped up what would happen anyway). On the other side of the coin, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor and great 20th century theologian, used his power and influence to make the world aware of the horrors of the Third Reich. (He was also involved in at least one failed assassination attempt on Hitler and was hanged on the day after Easter 1945 for his involvement in that plot). But those are the extremes!
Hey T, bro! ELCA is still correct. The more “conservative” Lutherans-LCMS and WELS may disagree with me.
I’m LCMS Lutheran, and there is a pretty large divide in the church. There is one faction that is focused on being REAL LCMS ™ Lutherans, and then there are the churches that test everything against the Bible rather than tradition.
Some people are “religious” (put their faith in traditions) instead of being Christians (faith in Christ). The “religious” people are the ones that scare me, and are usually the ones that give Christans a bad name.
The funny part is that Christ spoke against religion as much as anything.
The ELCA also has people like that, too. They are the ones who get mad at me whenever I remove the American flag from the sanctuary;)
I think the main current in the LCMS takes the position that “sola scriptura” requires treating scripture as the infallible Word of God and requires its pastors swear unconditional loyalty to the “Book of Concord” as doctrinally normative upon installation to an office.
The ELCA asserts that scripture is “the authoritative source and norm” of belief and practice and that the Book of Concord is to be followed as long as not inconsistent with scripture.
Leaving room to wiggle seems to cut against the grain in Missouri, though they don’t seem intent on requiring lay members to openly embrace these positions. In my experience LCMS Lutherans are strong proponents of separation of Church and State, partly from their history dating back into Germany (some of the founders of the LCMS, I believe, left Germany in protest over the forced union of the Reformed and the German Evangelical (Lutheran) Churches in Prussia). Hence you will see formative documents in LCMS bodies condemning “unionism”, which has nothing to do with labor unions or the United States. For that matter the term “Evangelical”, in a Lutheran context, has very little to do with how the word is used in the contemporary United States.
As an aside, the Book of Concord is a collection of the ecumenical creeds, a series of 16th century confessional statements (most importantly the unaltered Augsburg Confession and its apology), Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms and a few polemical essays by Luther.
Paul-from the ELCA Rite of Ordination: “We also acknowledge the Lutheran Confessions as true witnesses and faithful expositions of the Holy Scriptures.” You are correct in the Biblical view.
This blog must have the most literate group of commenters in the blogosphere.
If there is ever a lull in any conversation about any topic, two Lutherans can switch the topic to divisions within the church and go for hours.
T-True, but I look at that as a “plus” to being a Lutheran. We don’t just “blindly” agree on all things.
T- Just hours? I should think “centuries” would be more accurate.
Acutally, I’m speechless.
An off-the-cuff comment about the division within my church (not one I thought was a overwhelming % “share” of denominations in Indiana) has resulted in several very informative posts about such an obscure topic.
I love the Internet!
Rev. AJB- An interesting, and all to true observation about the difficulty of removing the U.S. flag from sanctuaries. I’ve long supported such removal, and found nothing but agreement on the point from no end of ELCA and LCMS pastors, and even the odd WELS pastor I once knew. All have wanted to remove the flag from the sanctuary, only to be met with resistance from parishoners.
As long as we are into full disclosure around here regarding our favored flavor of Lutheran alphabet soup I’ll say I stand by the Ohio Synod faction within the ALC (a minority German in a Swedish dominated organization).
Paul-Are you sure you’re not thinking about the old LCA? They are the body that merged together between the Augsburg Synod (the Swedes) and the ULCA(mostly Germans). I grew up in an LCA congregation in Richmond that had roots back to the Ohio Synod-and the radical Olive Branch synod before that.
Rev. AJB-
I’m from an ALC background. I wasn’t thinking of the Augsburg Synod but of more recent history, particularly all those North/South Dakotans and Minnesotans in the heartland of the former ALC. I could well be wrong about the history of the Ohio Synod, though I thought it was one of the synods that went into the ALC. I was shooting from the hip on that one, based on my knowledge of an ethnic German congregation in Fort Wayne (St. John). It followed the path of Missouri to Ohio (in 1879, apparently Missouri couldn’t supply a Pastor who spoke the correct dialect of German, or so they say) to the ALC and then to the ELCA.