Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 466

Deep cleaning

Our sermon for last Sunday was based on Mark 7:14-23, in which Jesus says that it isn’t what comes from the outside that makes us unclean  but what comes from the inside.  Pastor Douthwaite  first applied this to the Pharisees who were interrogating Jesus and then he started doing that Law & Gospel thing:

We see the same thing in our world today, whenever another shooting happens in a movie theatre or school or college or shopping center. Sometimes there were signs that something was wrong, but often times the news is filled with interviews about how the person seemed so normal, so good, so clean, and how shocking and surprising that such an awful thing could come out of such a good, clean-cut person, who smiles and is so friendly, who loves animals and helps little old ladies across the street.

And then there’s all the uncleanness in our hearts. The uncleanness that comes spewing out when someone cuts you off in traffic, or you don’t get what you want or think you deserve, or when you feel slighted or insulted by someone, the uncleanness that comes out when we know we can do something and get away with it. The thoughts that shouldn’t be there, the murder of someone’s reputation, the pride that wants others to change for me instead of me changing or helping them, the jealousy. The presumption of guilt when it comes to others but the presumption of innocence when it comes to me. The impatience, the condescending, the get out of my way. It’s all in there and more, isn’t it? And while it might surprise the person next to you if they knew all that was percolating in your heart, sometimes if even surprises us what comes out, the shameful sins and impulses deep down.

But Jesus is not surprised. It’s why He came. And not with gloves on, to protect Himself from our sins; but in our flesh and blood. And He came to fill not a bucket, but to fill fonts and chalices and pulpits with His blood to clean us. To clean us from the inside out. That in every baptism, every communion, every sermon and absolution, the Holy Spirit do His cleansing work and wash away the guilt of our sins. All of them. None hidden from His sight or too deep for his cleansing. Sometimes we may wish God didn’t know all our sins, but if He didn’t, how could we know they are all forgiven? But if He knows them, He died for them. If He knows them, He took them upon Himself and paid for them. If He knows them, He forgives them. From the littlest of them to the most shameful of them. All of them. 

For you see, on the cross, the anti-Scribes and Pharisees, the anti-you and me takes place. For there, the One who was completely clean and pure on the inside, the One who knew no sin, the One whose heart percolated only love and life, not only looked like sin, looked like the criminal we are, but became sin. For you. All that’s inside you is outside Christ on the cross, your shame showing His love, that His blood shed there now fill our eyes and ears and mouths and hearts and make you holy. His I forgive you filling us with faith and giving us the deep cleaning that we need. The deep cleaning we can get nowhere else. . . .

But just as we are surprised by the evil that comes out of clean-looking folks, so we are surprised at this truth – that even though this is what we see on the outside, you are clean, you are forgiven, you, dear sinner, are a child of God. That is the truth. That is the truth of our new reality baptized into Christ and His forgiveness. The reversal of Christ’s resurrection now means a reversal for us. A wonderful reversal, that even though we die, yet shall we live. For we are His, bought with a price; bought and cleansed by His blood.

Now satan will do everything He can to make you forget that. To reverse that thinking and make you think that if everything’s good on the outside you must be good on the inside, or that if everything’s bad on the outside you must be bad on the inside. It kind of makes sense. But it’s not the truth. Christ has changed everything for you. . . .

And so we prayed this morning in the Introit: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin . . . Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. We prayed that, we asked for that, for this is the Lord’s work. Only He can do it. Only He can create something out of nothing, can create a child of God from sinners like us. And so we come back here every week to pray for and receive His forgiveness. We go to Him every day to pray for and receive His forgiveness. And He does. Forgiving and cleansing us, restoring us, and renewing us. That baptized into Christ, what is inside Christ may show itself outside of us.

via St. Athanasius Lutheran Church: Pentecost 14 Sermon.

The Democratic National Convention

The Democratic National Convention got underway and on television yesterday in Charlotte, N.C.  I do intend to watch what I can, but I couldn’t tune in last night.  Could anyone report on what transpired?  What themes do you expect to see?  What arguments or what feelings will the Democrats use to keep Americans from concentrating on the usual determining issue, that it’s the economy, stupid?  Are you finding their appeals at least rhetorically effective?

A lexicon of new racist words

One argument we are already hearing is that if you are against President Obama you must be racist.  That’s a powerful subliminal argument, though when it’s made explicit it can get pretty ridiculous.  Thus Democrats are taking umbrage (or pretending to do so) at a raft of seemingly-innocent words that they claim are actually code for racism.  Among them:

angry

Chicago

Constitution

Experienced

Golf

Food stamps

Holding Down the Fort

Kitchen Cabinet

Obamacare

Privileged

Professor

You people

For explanations and quotations see That’s Racist! – Michelle Malkin – National Review Online.

Voting for a Mormon

Christianity Today has a forum in which three different Christian thinkers discuss whether or not a Christian should vote for a Mormon.  I am happy to say that Lutherans are represented this time.  The estimable Mollie Z. Hemingway applies the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms to the issue and does so in a particularly lucid way.  In light of our discussion about the apocryphal “wise Turk” quotation (which she cites as “apocryphal”), she includes another pertinent quotation from Luther that appears to be better attested.  (I’ll try to track down that source.)  She deals with the nonsense that the president is some kind of national pastor and concludes:

Voters should remember that support for any political candidate is support for the exertion of authority in the earthly realm and not leadership in the spiritual realm.

Luther explained that every Christian is a citizen in two kingdoms—a spiritual realm and an earthly realm—but even non-believers are citizens of the earthly kingdom. In one, God’s Word is preached, the sacraments are administered, and sins are forgiven. God works through other means, such as natural laws, physical causes, and history, in the earthly realm.

Luther said that while reason cannot fathom the mind of God, it’s a tool given by God for managing civic affairs. “Christians are not needed for secular authority. Thus it is not necessary for the emperor to be a saint. It is not necessary for him to be a Christian to rule. It is sufficient for the emperor to possess reason,” he wrote.

In the spiritual realm, the gospel—the free forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus—prevails. By contrast, the earthly kingdom runs on compulsion, law, and force. That contrast between gracious forgiveness and law is the reason that, in Luther’s mind, Christians should not seek to put the church in charge of the temporal government or otherwise work through compulsion.

That’s not to say that the two realms must be or are in conflict. In fact, they should serve each other. The spiritual realm informs and supports the civil realm by preaching the gospel. Secular rulers serve the spiritual realm by preventing chaos.

It is entirely possible that in the next few months, the country will have its first Mormon President. No matter which man wins the office, it’s vitally important that Christians understand that his authority is limited to the secular realm and he should not be viewed as a spiritual leader.

via Is There Anything Wrong With Voting for a Mormon … | Christianity Today.

 

The era of black-and-white TV

President Obama dismissed the Republican convention in these terms:

“Despite all the challenges that we face … what they offered over those three days was more often than not an agenda that was better suited for the last century. It was a re-run. We’ve seen it before. You might as well have watched it on a black-and-white TV.”

If only it were!  That was the last time anything was consistently good on television.  That was the golden age of TV, the era of Jack Benny, Gracie Allen, Rod Serling, Edward R. Murrow.

The  Eisenhower administration!  The early Elvis!  Intact families!  Route 66!

I guess the dividing line would be one’s attitude to the counter culture beginning in the late 1960s.  Liberals would generally favor that, I suppose, with Conservatives bemoaning the changes (e.g., the sexual revolution).

Though the era of black-and-white TV was a vibrant, creative, and positive time culturally for America, it was no utopia, with real problems.  For example, the institutionalized racism of the Jim Crow laws.  But compare the early Civil Rights protesters–moral, religious, dignified–with today’s Occupy Wall Street protesters (unfocused, hedonistic, squalid).  And, if you want counter culture, surely the Beatniks, reading existentialist philosophy and listening to jazz, were cooler than the Hippies, tripped out on acid and wearing flowers in their hair.

I wonder if we could date our cultural collapse from the advent of color television.  (The first all-color lineup was in 1966, which would be about right.)

via Obama: RNC fare for ‘black-and-white TV’ – POLITICO.com.

The Washington Nationals

Since I’ve moved out here to the D.C. area I’ve been obeying the baseball anthem that one should “root, root, root for the home team” so I’ve been following the Washington Nationals.  That has been a grim undertaking for the last few years.  But this season they have the best record in baseball!

On the surface, the main difference would appear to be the impact of two young baseball prodigies and #1 draft picks, centerfielder Bryce Harper and, especially, pitcher Stephen Strasburg.  There is, however, much more to it than that, including dramatically improved defense.

Strasburg is a fun pitcher to watch, throwing fastballs approaching 100 mph fastball with pinpoint accuracy, curveballs that are practically unhittable, and confusing changeups that go 87 mph.  But despite his 15-6 record, the Nationals are planning to shut him down on September 12 in the middle of a potential run for the World Series.  They are babying his surgically-reconstructed arm, which he blew out after only a few games when he first came up in 2010.  He had the Tommy John surgery and team officials, following medical advice for someone who has never pitched a full season and wanting to keep him on the roster for a long, long time, decided to limit him to 170 innings.

Those team officials, of course, never dreamed the team would have so much as a shot at the playoffs, so that made sense.  But now, many people are saying, this could be the Nationals’ year.  They may never get this close again.  The kid is still strong.  (In his last start he struck out 10 Cardinals.)  Across the nation on sports talk shows, people are calling the Nationals’ leadership wusses.  This is the time to go all in!  Let Strasburg pitch!

It’s odd that you don’t hear that line of reasoning very much here.  For one thing, Strasburg may not even be the Nationals’ best pitcher.  Gio Gonzalez has more wins (17).  Jordan Zimmerman, through most of the season, has had a lower E.R.A. (under 3).  And the guy who will replace him in the lineup, John Lannan, used to be the Nationals’ number one pitcher, starting on opening day twice.  But the pitching staff is so loaded he had to spend the season up to now in the minor leagues!  Now he’ll be the fifth starter, though once the playoffs begin with their travel days, a four-man rotation is plenty.

I like how the esteemed sportswriter Tom Boswell writes about this:

Sometimes numbers are more eloquent and sadder than words because they are harder to refute. In a weak year among NL powers, the Nats will seldom have a smoother path to a pennant. Look at the pitching hegemony the Nats would have brought to bear in the postseason when all teams use four starters. They’d have four of the top 15 in ERA among all starters in the NL. Only one NL team has more than one such pitcher (the Giants).

Also, the Nats would send out four of the top 15 NL starters in WHIP (walks and hits per inning), as well as four of the top 21 in lowest OPS (on-base-percentage plus slugging).

Finally, the Nats would have an overpowering staff with four of the top nine average-fastball-velocities in the NL. That’s almost insane.

On top of all that, the Nats would finally, if they stay intact, have their best seven hitters at the top of their lineup and their entire seven-deep bullpen all healthy at the same time. All season the Nats have waited for this full complement of top players. All in all, it’s a mighty powerful mixture.

Too bad: After 79 years waiting, we’re left with “might have beens.”

Oh, I’m sorry. I seem to have made a minor mistake in my calculations. The team I have just described is the Nationals without Strasburg.

The four-man rotation, primed for October that I’ve described is Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, Edwin Jackson and Ross Detwiler.

via Strasburg shutdown? Nats can still be a playoff powerhouse – The Washington Post.

Vocation Day reading

Happy Vocation Day!  It was formerly known as Labor Day, but this blog has crusaded to take over this national holiday–day off work, last day of summer vacation, cook-out customs and all–and add it to the church year as a commemoration of the doctrine of vocation.

That topic is a major theme of this blog.  Vocation is more than just the notion that you can do your work to the glory of God.  It has to do not only with how we make our living–though it includes that–but also with our life in our families, our churches, and our cultures.  The doctrine of vocation is filled with specific details and practical guidance.  It is, in short, the theology of the Christian life.

A good activity for Labor Day would be to read up on the doctrine of vocation.  You could read from my two books on the subject– God at Work and Family Vocation–or, if you are in a hurry to get the car loaded, I’ll post a brief article with a sidebar that I wrote on the subject for  Modern Reformation.  Click “continue” to read it.

Our Calling and God’s Glory


Christian’s preoccupied with their families, struggling to make ends meet, living their mundane lives “are all in a state of holiness,” according to Luther, “living holy lives before God.”

 

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned him, and to which God has called him.

1 Corinthians 7:17

“Justification by faith alone” is surely the most important contribution of the Reformation. The second most important, arguably, is the “doctrine of vocation.”

Whereas the doctrine of justification has wide currency, the doctrine of vocation has been all but forgotten. The word vocation can still be heard sometimes, but the concept is generally misunderstood or incompletely understood. The doctrine of vocation is not “occupationalism,” a particular focus upon one’s job. The term means “calling,” but it does not have to do with God’s voice summoning you to do a great work for him. It does not mean serving God by evangelizing on the job. Nor does the doctrine of vocation mean that everyone is a minister, though it is about the priesthood of all believers. It does not even mean doing everything for God’s glory, or doing our very best as a way to glorify God, though it is about God’s glory, at the expense of our own.

The doctrine of vocation is the theology of the Christian life. It solves the much-vexed problems of the relationship between faith and works, Christ and culture, how Christians are to live in the world. Less theoretically, vocation is the key to strong marriages and successful parenting. It contains the Christian perspective on politics and government. It shows the value, as well as the limits, of the secular world. And it shows Christians the meaning of their lives.

The Swedish theologian Einar Billing, in his book Our Calling, noted how our tendency is to look for our religion in the realm of the extraordinary, rather than in the ordinary. (1) In vocation, however, God is hidden even in the mundane activities of our everyday lives. And this is his glory.

Luther’s Doctrine of Vocation

To understand fully the doctrine of vocation, one should begin not with the Puritans-who tended to turn the doctrine of vocation into a work ethic-but with Luther and with Lutherans, from the composers of the Book of Concord to modern theologians such as Billing and Gustaf Wingren. It goes something like this: When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread. And he does. The way he gives us our daily bread is through the vocations of farmers, millers, and bakers. We might add truck drivers, factory workers, bankers, warehouse attendants, and the lady at the checkout counter. Virtually every step of our whole economic system contributes to that piece of toast you had for breakfast. And when you thanked God for the food that he provided, you were right to do so.

God could have chosen to create new human beings to populate the earth out of the dust, as he did with the first man. But instead, he chose to create new life-which, however commonplace, is no less miraculous-by means of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, the vocations of the family.

God protects us through the vocations of earthly government, as detailed in Romans 13. He gives his gifts of healing usually not through out-and-out miracles (though he can) but by means of the medical vocations. He proclaims his word by means of human pastors. He teaches by means of teachers. He creates works of beauty and meaning by means of human artists, whom he has given particular talents.

Many treatments of the doctrine of vocation emphasize what we do, or are supposed to do, in our various callings. This is part of it, as are the various aspects that I outlined above, but it is essential in grasping the magnitude of this teaching to understand first the sense in which vocation is God’s work.

God is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid, said Luther. According to Luther, vocation is a “mask of God.” (2) He is hidden in vocation. We see the milkmaid, or the farmer, or the doctor or pastor or artist. But, looming behind this human mask, God is genuinely present and active in what they do for us.

The sense of God acting in vocation is characteristically Lutheran in the way it emphasizes that God works through physical means. Luther and his followers stress how God has chosen to bestow his spiritual gifts by means of his Word (ink on paper; the sound waves emanating from a pulpit) and Sacrament (water; bread and wine). And he bestows his earthly gifts by means of human vocations.

More broadly, in terms Reformed folk can relate to, vocation is part of God’s providence. God is intimately involved in the governance of his creation in its every detail, and his activity in human labor is a manifestation of how he exercises his providential care.

For a Christian, conscious of vocation as the mask of God, all of life, even the most mundane facets of our existence, become occasions to glorify God. Whenever someone does something for you-brings your meal at a restaurant, cleans up after you, builds your house, preaches a sermon-be grateful for the human beings whom God is using to bless you and praise him for his unmerited gifts. Do you savor your food? Glorify God for the hands that prepared it. Are you moved by a work of art-a piece of music, a novel, a movie? Glorify God who has given such artistic gifts to human beings.

Of course, that vocation is a mask of God means that God also works through you, in your various callings. That God is hidden in what we do is often obscured by our own sinful and selfish motivations. But that does not prevent God from acting.

Faith and Works

Was the farmer who grew the grain that went into that piece of toast I had this morning a Christian? How about the artist whose movie made such a powerful impression? I happen to know that he is not a Christian. How can I glorify God for the work-or farming-of an unbeliever? The doctrine of vocation answers that question. In his governance of the world, God uses those who do not know him, as well as those who do. Every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17). But human beings sin in their vocations and sin against their vocations, resisting and fighting against God’s purpose.

On the surface, there does not seem to be a great deal of difference between a Christian farmer tilling his field and a non-Christian farmer who does essentially the same thing. God can use both to bring forth daily bread, which he, in turn, distributes to Christian and non-Christian alike. But there is a huge difference. The Christian farmer works out of faith, while the non-Christian farmer works out of unbelief.

Luther actually uses two different words for what I have so far been collapsing under the general term vocation: “station” (Stand) and “calling” (Beruf). Non-Christians are given a station in life, a place where God has assigned them. Christians, though, are the ones who hear God’s voice in his Word, so they understand their station in terms of God’s personal “calling.”

God’s Word calls people to faith. This is the Christian’s primary vocation, being a child of God. But God has also stationed that Christian to live a life in the world. The Christian, in faith, now understands his life and what God gives him to do as a calling from the Lord. As contemporary theologian John Pless explains it,

Luther understood that the Christian is genuinely bi-vocational. He is called first through the Gospel to faith in Jesus Christ and he is called to occupy a particular station or place in life. The second sense of this calling embraces all that the Christian does in service to the neighbor not only in a particular occupation but also as a member of the church, a citizen, a spouse, parent, or child, and worker. Here the Christian lives in love toward other human beings and is the instrument by which God does His work in the world. (3)

“We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and the neighbor,” said Luther. “He lives in Christ through faith, and in his neighbor through love.” (4)

The Christian’s relationship to God, for Luther, has nothing to do with our good works, but everything to do with the work of Christ for our behalf. But God, having justified us freely through the Cross of Jesus Christ, calls us back into the world, changed, to love and serve our neighbors.

Luther’s monastic opponents argued that we are saved by our good works, by which they meant rejecting the world, performing spiritual exercises, and by their vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience having nothing to do with “secular” vocations. But Luther denied that such private, isolated piety intended to serve God had anything to do with good works. He would ask, Who are you helping? Good works are not to be done for God. Rather, they must be done for one’s neighbor. God does not need our good works, said Wingren summarizing Luther, but our neighbor does.

If you find yourself in a work by which you accomplish something good for God, or the holy, or yourself, but not for your neighbor alone, then you should know that that work is not a good work. For each one ought to live, speak, act, hear, suffer, and die in love and service for another, even for one’s enemies, a husband for his wife and children, a wife for her husband, children for their parents, servants for their masters, masters for their servants, rulers for their subjects and subjects for their rulers, so that one’s hand, mouth, eye, foot, heart and desire is for others; these are Christian works, good in nature. (5)

We sometimes talk about serving God in our vocations. Luther might take issue with this formulation, if by it we imagine that we are performing great deeds to impress the Lord and if we neglect our families or mistreat our colleagues in doing so. But Jesus himself tells us that what we do-or do not do-for our neighbor in need, we do (or do not do) to him (Matt. 25: 31-46). So when we serve our neighbor, we do serve God, though neither the sheep nor the goats realized whom they were really dealing with. God is hidden in vocation. Christ is hidden in our neighbors.

The Four Estates

As Christians live their ordinary lives, God assigns them certain neighbors to love and calls them to multiple realms of service. These constitute the Christian’s vocations in the world.

Vocations are multiple. Luther spoke of God’s callings in terms of three institutions that God has established, along with a fourth realm of human activity. The doctrine of vocation and the doctrine of the four estates are themes that run throughout Luther’s writings. A particularly succinct treatment can be found in Luther’s Confession of 1528. After criticizing monasticism, by which some think they can merit salvation, Luther contrasts these humanly devised orders with the orders devised by God himself: “But the true holy orders and pious foundations established by God,” Luther writes, “are these three: the priestly office, the family and the civil government.” (6)

All those who are engaged in the pastoral office or the ministry of the Word, are in a good, honest, holy order and station, that is well pleasing to God, as they preach, administer the Sacraments, preside over the poor funds and direct the sextons and other servants who assist in such labors, etc. These are all holy works in God’s sight.

This Luther would term the estate of the church.

Likewise, those who are fathers or mothers, who rule their households well and who beget children for the service of God are also in a truly holy estate, doing a holy work, and members of a holy order. In the same way when children or servants are obedient to their parents or masters, this also is true holiness and those living in such estate are true saints on earth.

This for Luther is the estate of the household. This includes above all the family, which itself contains multiple callings: marriage, parenthood, childhood. This estate also involves the labor by which households make their livings. Luther had in mind what is expressed in the Greek word oikonomia, referring to “the management and the regulation of the resources of the household,” (7) the term from which we derive our word economy. Thus, the estate of the household includes both the family vocations and the vocations of the workplace.

Luther conflates human labor also with the third estate, the state, which includes, more generally, the society and culture:

Similarly princes and overlords, judges, officials and chancellors, clerks, men servants and maids, and all other retainers, as well as all who render the service that is their due, are all in a state of holiness and are living holy lives before God, because these three estates or orders are all included in God’s Word and commandment. Whatever is included in God’s order must be holy, for God’s Word is holy and hallows all it touches and all it includes.

Medieval Catholicism exalted religious and monastic orders as the way of spiritual perfection. In doing so, the required clerical vows-such as celibacy and poverty-in effect denigrated the so-called secular lifestyles of marriage, parenthood, and economic activity. Luther, though, boldly reverses that paradigm. Fathers, mothers, and children; servants, maids, clerks, and rulers-these are the true holy orders.

Christians preoccupied with their families, struggling to make ends meet, living their mundane lives “are all in a state of holiness,” according to Luther, “living holy lives before God.”

And then Luther goes beyond the specific roles God has given us to play in this world to an overarching estate:

Above these three estates and orders is the common order of Christian love, by which we minister not only to those of these three orders but in general to everyone who is in need, as when we feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, etc., forgive enemies, pray for all men on earth, suffer all kinds of evil in our earthly life, etc.

Here is another of Luther’s great phrases: “the common order of Christian love.” This is the realm of the Good Samaritan. People of all three orders come together here, ministering to each other and “to everyone who is in need.”

The Priesthood of All Believers

The doctrine of vocation is an integral part of the Reformation teaching of the priesthood of all believers. This does not mean, at least for Luther, that the pastoral office is no longer necessary. Rather, being a pastor is a distinct vocation. God calls certain individuals into the pastoral ministry, and he works through them to give his Word and Sacraments to his flock.

The priesthood of all believers means, among other things, that one does not have to be a pastor or to do pastoral functions in order to be a priest.

John Pless shows how the medieval Roman Catholic view, which considered callings to the religious orders to be the only holy vocation from God, is replicated in American evangelicalism:

Medieval Roman Catholicism presupposed a dichotomy between life in the religious orders and life in ordinary callings. It was assumed that the monastic life guided by the evangelical counsels (i.e., the Sermon on the Mount) provided a more certain path to salvation than secular life regulated by the decalog. American Evangelicalism has spawned what may be referred to as “neo-monasticism.” Like its medieval counterpart, neo-monasticism gives the impression that religious work is more God-pleasing than other tasks and duties associated with life in the world. According to this mindset, the believer who makes an evangelism call, serves on a congregational committee, or reads a lesson in the church service is performing more spiritually significant work than the Christian mother who tends to her children or the Christian who works with integrity in a factory. For the believer, all work is holy because he or she is holy and righteous through faith in Christ.

Similar to neo-monasticism is the neo-clericalism that lurks behind the slogan, “Everyone a minister.” This phrase implies that work is worthwhile only insofar as it resembles the work done by pastors. Lay readers are called “Assisting Ministers” and this practice is advocated on the grounds that it will involve others in the church as though the faithful reception of Christ’s gifts was insufficient. It is no longer enough to think of your daily life and work as your vocation, now it must be called “your ministry.” (8)

Einar Billing made the point that Luther and the Lutherans displaced the monastic spiritual disciplines away from the cloister and into the world, to be practiced in vocation. (9) Celibacy? Be sexually faithful within marriage. Poverty? Struggle to make a living for your family. Obedience? Do what the law and your employer tell you to do. Almsgiving? Be generous to your neighbors. Self-discipline? Steel yourself against the temptations that you will encounter in everyday life.

Priests perform sacrifices. Christ’s sacrifice for our sins was once and for all. We no longer need to repeat that sacrifice, which is taught to happen in the Mass. But Christ’s disciples are called to take up their own crosses and to follow him. His royal priesthood will sacrifice themselves in their callings, as they love and serve their spouses, children, customers, employees, and fellow citizens. “Luther relocated sacrifice,” says Pless. “He removed it from the altar and re-positioned it in the world.” (10)

“The Christian brings his sacrifice as he renders the obedience, offers the service, and proves the love which his work and calling require of him,” writes Vilmos Vatja. “The work of the Christian in his calling becomes a function of his priesthood, his bodily sacrifice. His work in the calling is a work of faith, the worship of the kingdom of the world.” (11)

“You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5). “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). These sacrifices are, precisely, “eucharistic sacrifices”; that is, “sacrifices of thanksgiving” in response to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. (12)

It may seem strange to think that such mundane activities as spending time with your spouse and children, going to work, and taking part in your community are part of your “holy” calling, and that the daily grind can be a “spiritual sacrifice.”

It is not as strange, though, as what currently tears many Christians apart: a “spiritual” life that has little to do with their families, their work, and their cultural life. Many Christians treat other people horribly, including their spouses and children, while cultivating their own personal piety. Many well-intentioned Christians lose themselves in church work and church activities, while neglecting their marriages, their children, and their other callings.

But ordinary life is where God has placed us. The family, the workplace, the local church, the culture, and the public square are where he has called us. Vocation is where sanctification takes place.

True, we sin badly in all of these vocations. Instead of loving and serving our neighbors, we want to be loved and to be served, putting ourselves first. But every Sunday, we can go to be nourished by God’s Word, where we find forgiveness for our vocational sins and are built up in our faith. That faith, in turn, can bear fruit in our daily vocations.

The divorce rate among evangelical Christians, their spiritual escapism, and their cultural invisibility are all symptoms of the loss of vocation. Conversely, recovering vocation can transfigure all of life, suffusing every relationship and every task put before us with the glory of God.

Sidebar

The Family, the Society, and the Church

 

The Family

The family comprises many different vocations. A particular person may have, at the same time, the vocation of being the husband to his wife, a father to his children, and a son to his own parents as long as they are living. Each of these family vocations has a specific-and limited-number of neighbors who are to be loved and served according to the proper responsibilities of each calling.

The vocation of marriage entails just one neighbor. The husband is to love and serve his wife. The wife is to love and serve her husband.

Too often, Christians distort what the Bible teaches about the various vocations by reducing everything to power and authority: who has to obey whom? But, as Jesus teaches, that is the mindset of nonbelievers: “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant” (Mark 10:42-43).

How does each member of the marriage couple serve each other?

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Eph. 5:23-25)

Notice how Christ is hidden in marriage. Wives love and serve their husbands by submitting to him, as to Christ. But this does not mean husbands should “lord it over” their wives. Christ does not relate to his bride the church as a tyrant or dictator. Rather, Christ “gave himself up.” Husbands are to love and serve their wives by giving themselves up for their wives. Both the husband and the wife exercise their royal priesthood by sacrificing their own needs for the other. But in that mutual self-denial, both of their needs are met.

In the vocation of parenthood, the father and mother love and serve their neighbors, namely, their children. And children are to love and serve their parents. In this vocation, too, God is hidden, as the Father and Son are the origins of human fatherhood and human childhood.

The Society

For all of our pretensions of independence, it is clear that God did not create us to be alone. Few people have to kill their own meat, grow their own grain, build their own houses, weave their own clothing, and protect themselves against predators, all alone. Rather, people are interdependent. Human beings always exist in cultures, and this is by God’s design.

That we were born in a particular place and time is part of God’s assignment for each of us. We have a vocation as citizen. Some have a further calling as rulers. Some are subjects. In a democratic republic such as ours, the rulers are themselves subject to the people who elect them, who are therefore simultaneously subjects and rulers.

Romans 13 spells out in explicit detail how God works through the agency of vocation:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. (Rom. 13:1-4)

All authority belongs to God. He, in turn, institutes human authorities and works through them to restrain and to punish the most flagrant external outbreaks of sin, to make societies possible.

Thus, holding governmental offices and positions in the legal system-such as judges, police officers, jailers, and even (according to Luther) executioners-are legitimate vocations for Christians to hold. So too (according to Luther), are the military vocations, those who “bear the sword” in a lawful chain of command.

But rulers are to exercise their God-lent authority in love and service to their neighbors. God calls no one to be a tyrant, the sort who punishes good conduct and rewards wrongdoers. Romans 13 must not be used as a pretext for political quietism. But it leaves no doubt that God himself is present in earthly governments and that he works through human institutions.

The Church

“And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). And these he has placed into the church.

Christ is hidden in his church, present in his Word and Sacraments, so that the church is described as the body of Christ. And it consists of individuals who are utterly different from each other, and yet, like the discrete persons of the Trinity, constitute a profound unity.

If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor. 12:19-27)

The members are called to love and serve each other. The people who perform all of the seemingly mundane tasks in a local church-the musicians, the ushers, the committee members, those who prepare the fellowship dinners-are helping each other, in tangible ways, to worship God.

Callings from God are also mediated. Congregations call pastors. They are to love and serve their congregations by preaching God’s Word-not their own-distributing Christ’s sacraments and giving spiritual care to Christ’s flock. Faithful pastors are channels of God’s work. Christ baptizes and distributes his body and blood through the hands of the pastor, whom he has called to this work.

The typical local church may not seem to be so significant. The members squabble with each other and with their pastor, who, in turn is exasperated with his people. The sermon may be dull, the music poor, and the worship seemingly perfunctory. But behind these insignificant-seeming appearances, where God’s Word is proclaimed faithfully, Christ animates his body.

 

Being on Mars

To get a sense of what it would be like to be on Mars, turning around and taking in the view, check out this 360 degree click-and-drag zoomable panorama from the Mars lander Curiosity.  (For full effect, go to the fullscreen view.)  Click on this link:  MARS Curiosity Rover first Color 360 Panorama – Round the world with panoramas.dk.

Rev. Moon dies

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon died at age 92 in Seoul, Korea.  He founded the Unification Church, a cult that taught that Jesus Christ did not finish his work, due to his unfortunate crucifixion, but that a new Messiah from Korea would, about this time, be raised up–the implication being himself–to complete his mission.  Rev. Moon also established a financial empire, including a number of conservative institutions, such as the Washington Times newspaper.  See Rev. Moon, religious and political leader, dies in South Korea at 92 – CNN.com.

I remember back when I was in college, the so-called “Moonies” would host interesting-sounding seminars on topics like world peace and if you were sitting by yourself they would start conversations with you.  They would then invite you to a camp out in the country for more instruction, which led for many people to an initiation into the religion.  That meant raising money for the cause–selling flowers at intersections was a big fund-raiser–but eventually the Rev. Moon would, if you were blessed, pick out a spouse for you, someone you had never met before but you would be married in a mass wedding with hundreds of other couples.

Parents used to hire people to kidnap their children from the Unification Church to “deprogram” them out of the cult.  Now, it seems like it has become more socially acceptable.

Did any of you get sucked into any of this?

Luther’s “wise Turk” quote that he didn’t say

Now that a Mormon is running for president and tends to be favored by Christian conservatives over his Christian liberal opponent, we are hearing more and more that famous quotation from Martin Luther:  “I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than by a foolish Christian.”  The problem is, non one has been able to find that famous quotation in any of the voluminous works of Luther.  It appears that the quotation is apocryphal.  I suspect it may have originated as an attempt to explain the implications of Luther’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, as in, “Luther would have rather been ruled by a wise Turk. . .” which then was recalled as “Luther said he would rather have been. . . .”  At any rate, I would love to identify the earliest occurrence of that quotation in print.  (If any of you could help with that, I would be very grateful.)

Anyway, despite his reputation as a political fatalist, Luther had quite a bit to say about foolish Christian rulers (just ask Henry VIII).  And he had a lot to say about the threat of being ruled by Turks, wise or otherwise, as the Ottoman Empire was then engaged in a major invasion of Europe, an Islamic jihad of conquest that had taken over much of Europe and that was finally turned back at the gates of Viennain 1529.

Anyway, the frequent commenter on this blog with the nom de plume of Carl Vehse has researched these issues.  Back in 2007 I posted what he put together on this blog, which, unfortunately, was when it was a sub-blog with World Magazine and so is no longer accessible.  So I think it’s time to post it again.  Carl has updated and tweaked the original article, which I post with his permission:

The Wise Turk quote

An August 26, 2012, updated version of an article located at http://web.archive.org/web/2007123115...

In his January, 1997 editorial in First Things, “Under the Shadow,” Richard Neuhaus pointed out that despite the efforts he and others have made to show that Martin Luther never said, “I would rather be ruled by a wise Turk than by a foolish Christian” or anything like it (even in German), the alleged quote seems to crop up in articles, sermons, blogs, interviews, and even in testimony before a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The year 2012 is an election year and there are non-Christians on the presidential ballot. Thus political editorials in Christian magazines and websites, as well as the fifth-column media, are bound to repeatedly trot out this hackneyed phrase, misattributed to Martin Luther. Let’s be clear. The “wise Turk” quote is an urban legend, an old wives’ tale, just like the oft-repeated fairy tales that Luther threw an inkwell at the devil (or vice versa), or invented the Christmas tree, or that Billy Graham referred to Lutherans (or the Lutheran Church, or the Missouri Synod) as “a sleeping giant.”

This article is yet another Sisyphean attempt to drive a spike through this urban legend non-quote, and specifically to address the erroneous claim that the alleged quote is a loose paraphrase of the following excerpt from Martin Luther’s “An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation“:

“It is said that there is no better temporal rule anywhere than among the Turks, who have neither spiritual nor temporal law, but only their Koran; and we must confess that there is no more shameful rule than among us, with our spiritual and temporal law, so that there is no estate which lives according to the light of nature, still less according to Holy Scripture.”

As will be shown below the urban legend quote has absolutely nothing to do with this quoted excerpt from “An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility” and any such claimed paraphrase is quite unlikely to have been even loosely uttered (in German or Latin) by Dr. Luther elsewhere. The key points, as they should be for all phrases bandied about as being uttered by (or paraphrased from) Luther, are context, context, context.

First, some historical context – since posting his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, Luther’s simpatico with the pope had gone noticeably downhill. The year 1520 was a busy watershed. In June, Luther attacked the papacy in his “On the Papacy in Rome,” a reply to the Franciscan Augustin von Alveld, who advocated papal supremacy. Luther then nails the pope as the Antichrist in his three famous letters later that year:

“An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation”

“ The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and

“ On Christian Liberty

In the meantime, a papal bull, “Exsurge Domine” was issued on June 15 and announced by Johann Eck in Meissen during September, giving Luther 4 months to recant or face excommunication. Luther responded by burning the papal bull in a bonfire on December 10. Pope Leo X then excommunicated Luther on January 3, 1521, in the bull, “Decet Romanum Pontificem.”

Second, “An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility” was written in June, 1520, to describe what Luther saw as the distressing conditions of the German nation under the pope and the reforms needed for correction. It has nothing to do with whether the Turks were preferable rulers to Romanist politicians. Here’s a brief outline of “An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility”:

I. THE THREE WALLS OF THE ROMANISTS

Romanists claim they are above the temporal law

Romanists claim only they may interpret Scripture

Romanists claim only the pope can call a council (to decide controversies)

II. ABUSES TO BE DISCUSSED IN COUNCILS

Romanists taxed the Germans under the guise of raising money to defend against the Turks (Islamists), but they spend it on themselves

Romanists use their canon laws to steal from the German people as much as possible.

Romanists are draining German churches and the German people of all the wealth and resources German princes and nobles need to defend the people and support the churches.

III. PROPOSALS FOR REFORM

German princes, nobles, and cities should stop giving money to Romanists and resist them.

The Germans should reform all the evils coming from the pope (the Antichrist) and Rome

1. In the practices within the German churches

2. In education and the German universities concerning

dropping the use of certain books of Aristotle

the teaching of languages, mathematics, and history (Luther gives that over to the specialists)

the teaching of medicine (Luther leaves that to the physicians)

the teaching of law (jurists)

the teaching of theology

The princes and nobles should recognize that God has given the Roman Empire to the Germans

1. Throughout history God has tossed empires to and fro

2. The pope had taken over the Roman Empire dishonestly for his own evil purpose

3. Using the wiles of the papal tyrant, God has now given the German nation control of the Roman Empire

4. This Empire should now be ruled by the Christian princes of Germany to rescue liberty, and to show the Romans, for once, what it is that German nation has received from God.

5. There is still many sinful and corrupt practices in Germany that the Christian leaders in Germany need to correct

Luther concludes his Letter: “God give us all a Christian mind, and especially to the Christian nobility of the German nation a right spiritual courage to do the best that can be done for the poor Church. Amen.”

Third, the irrelevance of the urban legend to the quoted excerpt from the “Open Letter to the Christian Nobility” can be seen by looking at the entire paragraph from the section of the Letter that appears in the section III.B.ii.d according to the Letter’s outline above.

“Since, then, the pope and his followers have suspended the whole canon law, and since they pay no heed to it, but regard their own wanton will as a law exalting them above all the world, we should follow their example and for our part also reject these books. Why should we waste our time studying them? We could never discover the whole arbitrary will of the pope, which has now become the canon law. The canon law has arisen in the devil’s name, let it fall in the name of God, and let there be no more doctores decretorum [doctors of canon law] in the world, but only doctores scrinii papalis, that is, “hypocrites of the pope”! It is said that there is no better temporal rule anywhere than among the Turks, who have neither spiritual nor temporal law, but only their Koran; and we must confess that there is no more shameful rule than among us, with our spiritual and temporal law, so that there is no estate which lives according to the light of nature, still less according to Holy Scripture.” [Emphasis added]

In this paragraph Luther charges that it is a waste of time to study canon law in the German university, since the Romanists make up their own laws as they go along. At the end of the paragraph Luther brings up in the quoted excerpt (“It is said…”) the form of Turkish (Islamist) rule, which depends only on the Koran, and compares it to the absolutely shameful mess of Romanist made-up canon laws (“spiritual laws”) and imperial laws (“temporal laws”) under which the poor Germans are now subjected.

Here Luther does not confirm he agreed with “it is said,” or that the Turks should rule in place of the pope. Luther doesn’t mean that the nobles and princes should consider appointing a Muslim or two to govern Germany. The statement serves to direct attention to the points Luther wanted to make in his subsequent paragraphs and in what he had been alluding to in the many previous paragraphs.

If I say, “It is said that Luther threw an inkwell at the devil,” or “It is said that, as a child, George Washington chopped down a cherry tree,” or “It is said that a cat has nine lives”, no one should assume (like some mistakenly have with Luther’s “It is said…”) that such a statement is true, or I believe it to be true, or I’m actually promoting it as the truth… or at least one should suspend judgment on what they think is meant until the context of what is said in any such statement is heard and understood.

The last phrase, “so that there is no estate which lives according to the light of nature, still less according to Holy Scripture,” must include both the Turkish government as well as the Romish rule Luther has castigated throughout his Letter. No one can seriously think Luther is claiming here that estates ruled by Turks according to the Koran are living according to the Holy Scriptures.

Rather than indicating a preference for rule by “wise Turks”, Luther mocks being ruled under the pope and his Romanist followers. Luther’s statement is analogous to cynically claiming, “It is said that there would be no better President than Benedict Arnold, rather than, we must confess, the shameful mess of the current politician in the Oval Office.” That Luther here was only being sarcastic is further confirmed by reading the paragraphs that follow, in which Luther indicates his real preference that “Holy Scriptures and good rulers would be law enough.”

“It seems just to me that territorial laws and territorial customs should take precedence of the general imperial laws, and the imperial laws be used only in case of necessity. Would to God that as every land has its own peculiar character, so it were ruled by its own brief laws, as the lands were ruled before these imperial laws were invented, and many lands are still ruled without them!”

And later in his Letter Luther states:

“…it [is] His will that this empire be ruled by the Christian princes of Germany, regardless whether the pope stole it, or got it by robbery, or made it anew. It is all God’s ordering, which came to pass before we knew of it.”

Not much room for (Islamic) Turkish rule (wise or other) here!!

It is therefore foolishness to rip this single sentence of Luther from its true context, isolate it from any of points Luther was actually discussing in his “Open Letter to the Christian Nobility”, and attempt to dress it up as a fabled quote or disguise it as even a very loose paraphrase”. Luther’s Two Kingdom theology certainly doesn’t need any assistance from such vaudevillian antics.

Fourth – Does the fabled quote still seem somehow Luther-esque?! Is one still claiming that Luther would not object to letting Turks take over and rule?!? So were some in Luther’s time, as he wrote at the beginning of his “On War Against the Turk” (1528):

“Certain persons have been begging me for the past five years to write about war against the Turks, and encourage our people and stir them up to it, and now that the Turk is actually approaching, my friends are compelling me to do this duty, especially since there are some stupid preachers among us Germans (as I am sorry to hear) who are making the people believe that we ought not and must not fight against the Turks. Some are even so crazy as to say that it is not proper for Christians to bear the temporal sword or to be rulers; also because our German people are such a wild and uncivilized folk that there are some who want the Turk to come and rule. All the blame for this wicked error among the people is laid on Luther and must be called ‘the fruit of my Gospel,’ just as I must bear the blame for the rebellion, and for everything bad that happens anywhere in the world.”

“For the popes had never seriously intended to make war on the Turk, but used the Turkish war as a conjurer’s hat, playing around in it, and robbing Germany of money by means of indulgences, whenever they took the notion. All the world knew it, but now it is forgotten. Thus they condemned my article not because it prevented the Turkish war, but because it tore off this conjurer’s hat and blocked the path along which the money went to Rome… If there had been a general opinion that a serious war was at hand, I could have dressed my article up better and made some distinctions….

“But what moved me most of all was this. They undertook to fight against the Turk under the name of Christ, and taught men and stirred them up to do this, as though our people were an army of Christians against the Turks, who were enemies of Christ; and this is straight against Christ’s doctrine and name. It is against His doctrine, because He says that Christians shall not resist evil, shall not fight or quarrel, not take revenge or insist on rights. It is against His name, because in such an army there are scarcely five Christians, and perhaps worse people in the eyes of God than are the Turks; and yet they would all bear the name of Christ….

“I say this not because I would teach that worldly rulers ought not be Christians, or that a Christian cannot bear the sword and serve God in temporal government. Would God they were all Christians, or that no one could be a prince unless he were a Christian! Things would be better than they now are and the Turk would not be so powerful. But what I would do is keep the callings and offices distinct and apart, so that everyone can see to what he is called, and fulfill the duties of his office faithfully and with the heart, in the service of God.”

Luther also points out the danger of a Turkish (Islamist) government to Christians and the Church, bluntly compares such dangers to those of the pope (the Antichrist), and urges the Church to pray for God’s protection against both evils:

“For although some praise his [the Turk's] government because he allows everyone to believe what he will so long as he remains the temporal lord, yet this praise is not true, for he does not allow Christians to come together in public, and no one can openly confess Christ or preach or teach against Mohammed.

“How can one injure Christ more than with these two things; namely, force and wiles? With force, they prevent preaching and suppress the Word. With wiles, they daily put wicked and dangerous examples before men’s eyes and draw men to them. If we then would not lose our Lord Jesus Christ, His Word and faith, we must pray against the Turks as against other enemies of our salvation and of all good. Nay, as we pray against the devil himself….”

“But as the pope is Antichrist, so the Turk is the very devil. The prayer of Christendom is against both. Both shall go down to hell, even though it may take the Last Day to send them there; and I hope it will not be long.”

Regarding those Christians who would foolishly claim they “would rather be ruled by a wise Turk,” Luther chastises them and warns their pastors to show them their sin:

“Moreover, I hear it said that there are those in Germany who desire the coming of the Turk and his government, because they would rather be under the Turk than under the emperor or princes. It would be hard to fight against the Turk with such people. Against them I have no better advice to give than that pastors and preachers be exhorted to be diligent in their preaching and faithful in instructing such people, pointing out to them the danger they are in and the wrong that they are doing, how they are making themselves partakers of great and numberless sins and loading themselves down with them in the sight of God, if they are found in this opinion. For it is misery enough to be compelled to suffer the Turk as overlord and to endure his government; but willingly to put oneself under it, or to desire it, when one need not and is not compelled – the man who does that ought to be shown the sin he is committing and how terribly he is going on.”

Thus, in his “On War Against the Turk” Luther most clearly states his view on the evils of any government under the Turks (Islamists) and the sin of desiring Turkish rule. Such a view completely opposes the idea that Luther was any more than being sarcastic with the notion “there is no better temporal rule anywhere than among the Turks.” There are indeed many, many more statements of Luther in “On War Against the Turk” that are just as valuable today, both for Europe and the U.S., and those who may think about electing Islamists to public office.

Fifth, as for the part of the urban legend dealing with a “foolish Christian” ruler, Luther also commented elsewhere on having a Christian who lacks wisdom as a ruler. One can look at his “Temporal Authority: To What Extent it Should Be Obeyed,” which Luther wrote in 1523 (before the Peasant War):

“What, then, is a prince to do if he lacks the requisite wisdom and has to be guided by the jurists and the lawbooks? Answer: This is why I said that the princely estate is a perilous one. If he be not wise enough himself to master both his laws and his advisers, then the maxim of Solomon applies, “Woe to the land whose prince is a child” [Eccles. 10:16]. Solomon recognized this too. This is why he despaired of all law-even of that which Moses through God had prescribed for him-and of all his princes and counselors. He turned to God himself and besought him for an understanding heart to govern the people [I Kings 3:9]. A prince must follow this example and proceed in fear; he must depend neither upon the dead books nor living heads, but cling solely to God, and be at him constantly, praying for a right understanding, beyond that of all books and teachers, to rule his subjects wisely. For this reason I know of no law to prescribe for a prince; instead, I will simply instruct his heart and mind on what his attitude should be toward all laws, counsels, judgments, and actions. If he governs himself accordingly, God will surely grant him the ability to carry out all laws, counsels, and actions in a proper and godly way.”

Nowhere in this excerpt has Luther suggested bringing in or preferring a Turk to replace a prince lacking requisite wisdom to govern by himself.

Sixth, regarding suggestions that Luther’s later writings, including his Catechisms, differ in viewpoint from his earlier 1520 writing on the issue of Turkish rule. Such suggestions are without warrant because Luther’s condemnation of the Turks was also in his “On War Against the Turk”, which Luther started on October 9, 1528, and published in January, 1529. His anti-Turkish statements were prophetic in that later, in May 1529, Sultan Suleiman I left Constantinople and reached the Vienna in late September, but the Turks failed in their attempts to conquer the city and left on October 14, after killing all their prisoners. Luther’s Large Catechism had as its basis three series of sermons Luther preached in May, September, and November, 1528 and in March, 1529. He began writing the Catechism in September 1528 and the Large Catechism was published in mid-April, 1529.

That these two documents, written essentially simultaneously, are congruent in their opposition to Turkish rule is evident in Luther’s view of the Turks in “On War Against the Turk” and Luther’s explanation of the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer:

“76] Let this be a very brief explanation and sketch, showing how far this petition extends through all conditions on earth. Of this any one might indeed make a long prayer, and with many words enumerate all the things that are included therein, as that we pray God… 77] Likewise, that He give to emperors, kings, and all estates, and especially to the rulers of our country and to all counselors, magistrates, and officers, wisdom, strength, and success that they may govern well and vanquish the Turks and all enemies…” [Emphasis added]

Following the Turks’ retreat in 1529, Luther published his “Militant Sermon against the Turk,” exhorting the Germans to resist Turkish aggression and to pray against the spread of Islam. Luther also instructs the Christian reader to remain steadfast in the faith in case of capture by the Turk.

In 1541, following the fall of what is now Budapest, Hungary, to the Turks, Luther wrote his “Exhortation to Prayer against the Turk”, which again expressed similar concern about the Islamic menace as he had written previously. Other Lutheran theologians also wrote against the Turks, and, as indicated in Luther’s Large Catechism, prayers to God for protection against the Turks were offered in worship services.

These statements by Martin Luther and their context within the various documents he wrote are more than sufficient to convince reasonable readers that Luther would never have uttered the falsely attributed quote and would never regard as a preferable desire or choice to be ruled by a Turk. The false quote, “I would rather be ruled by a wise Turk than by a stupid Christian,” is not “Luther-esque” and in fact, it is diametrically opposed to the position on which we know from his writings Luther firmly stood.