Luther on faith & diversity

Lutheran, The, Jul 2003 by Edwards, Mark U

His words, if not all actions, led to openness

I study Martin Luther, a theologian whose deep insight into God's grace through Jesus Christ has convicted my heart and mind. I am also the world's foremost authority on the "unpleasant Luther" who self-righteously attacked and urged violence against those with whom he disagreed-from Roman Catholics to fellow Evangelicals, from Turks to Jews.

Luther stands in good-or is it bad?-company with Christians across history. Taught to love God and serve the neighbor, Christians have instigated great evils in the name of our faith. We slaughtered Jews and Muslims during the medieval Crusades, killed off upward a third of central Europe's population in the 17th century wars of religion, justified slavery well into the 19th century, and nourished over centuries a racial and religious contempt that gave comfort to Western imperialism and the Nazi Holocaust.

Here then is the challenge, illustrated by Luther's profound insight, passionate commitment and, yes, self-righteous nastiness: How can we be passionately committed to the particularities of our faith tradition yet still be humble about our claims and respectful of others who are passionately committed to different traditions?

At the outset let's rule out a self-imposed restriction of our religious passions to our private lives. Although far preferable to religious wars, such a course treats the core of life as if it's a peripheral hobby.

We should also rule out being neither hot nor cold, as the book of Revelation warns us, only to be spit from God's mouth. In Matthew 28 the Risen Lord calls us to proclaim and give witness to a living, embodied, particular tradition. In our case, we are called to give witness to the Lutheran tradition that has claimed our hearts and minds.

Luther himself has a sorry track record in dealing with religious diversity, but his theology, when creatively retrieved, may suggest a better way. Here are some crucial questions-paired with insights from Luther-than can point us in the direction of living faithfully and peacefully in a world of religious diversity that too often erupts in violence.

* It may be that God loves and favors us over others. But is it wise or Christian to presume on this possibility, much less to act on it at the expense or others with whom we disagree?

Lutherans confess that we are sinful and wholly dependent on God's gracious initiative to bring us to faith and right living. We confess that faith can't be coerced. Luther recognized this, saying he will preach faith, "teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion."

*If we believe God has accommodated to our human finitude, on what incorrigible grounds do we declare that God has not accommodated to the limits and needs of others who believe differently than we?

Following Luther, we confess that God accommodated to our finitude by becoming embodied, located and vulnerable in Jesus Christ, who lived among us, was crucified, died and then transcended our humanity by rising from the dead. This divine, embodied accommodation to our need continues through the water of baptism, the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, the Scriptures, and the company of believers called together by the Word of promise.

* As confessors or this perplexing truth or God's self-disclosure, tnis theology or the cross, don't we need to he careful about claiming that God's sell-disclosure is exhausted by the revelation that has convicted our hearts and minds?

Luther taught against the "theologians of glory" of his day "that [only] a person who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross deserves to be called a theologian." Following him we confess that God is found under the opposite of what human reason would expect-God's strength under weakness, God's wisdom under folly, God's victory under the cross.

* Is it arrogance or humility to entertain the possibility that God who is present for us in our faith, is also present for others in some other way?

In discussing God's presence in the sacrament of the altar, Luther insisted "it is one thing if God is present, and another if God is present for you. God is there for you when God adds God's Word and binds God's self, saying, 'Here you are to find me.'"

* Is the hidden God that we Lutherans confess only the God or the whirlwind and the earthquake? Or is it possible that God is hidden from us in some forms but revealed in that form to others?

In his dispute with the Dutch theologian Erasmus over the freedom of the will, Luther wrote: "We have to argue in one way about God or the will of God as preached, revealed, offered, and worshiped, and in another way about God as he is not preached, not revealed, not offered, not worshiped. To the extent, therefore, that God hides himself and wills to be unknown to us, it is no business of ours."

* Are we so certain of the truth for us that we can confidently conclude that it is only others, not ourselves, who are the proud, brave, wise, and holy" who have set themselves against God?