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Rev. Rich Lusk –
On Antisemitism
Was Martin Luther Antisemitic?
Martin Luther was not anti-Semitic, at least not in the way that term is usually understood. He was anti-false religion. He had scathing things to say about the Jews because he opposed their religious faith, just as he had scathing things to say about the Turks because he opposed their Muslim faith. (Note that in the case of Muslims, Luther identified adherents of a false faith with an ethnic category. He did something similar with the Jews of his day.)
Martin Luther did not operate with modern racial categories at all. He was not a racist in any proper sense of the term. His opposition to the Jews stemmed from their theology and resultant practices, not their genetics or physical lineage. He saw the Jewish religion (Judaism) as a false religion and, because Jews rarely converted in his day, a threat to the Christian society in which he lived.
Luther said many terrible things about the Jews that he should not have said. Some of what he said should be done to Jews was likely hyperbole, and would make even the staunchest theonomist blush (eg, he wanted synagogues burned as an application of Deuteronomy 13), but such rhetoric was not uncommon in Luther’s day. Lutherans in recent generations have rightly condemned much of what Luther said and distanced themselves from it. But it’s important to understand that for Luther, the issue was religion, not race. He should be read along the lines of an old covenant prophet attacking a people who have fallen into idolatry rather than a modern racist bigot who targets people because of physical features.
In his final sermon, Luther said this about the Jewish people: “We want to treat them with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might become converted and would receive the Lord.” This not the attitude of a man opposing a people because of their racial heritage; rather, it is the view of a man opposing a false religion, hoping they will convert to true Christian faith. The very fact that Luther would long for the conversion of the Jews, or even hold it out as a possibility, must be the lens through which we view all his anti-Jewish writings. To put it another way, Luther’s view of the Jews in his day was more like Jeremiah (pronouncing a curse on unrepentant Jews) than Hitler (hating Jews because he sees them as an irredeemable cancer on humanity).
Of course, it would be the Reformed branch of Protestantism that would develop the most hopeful view of the future of the Jewish people. Either through a particular futurist reading of Romans 11:26 or a more generalized postmillennial eschatology, many Reformed Christians came to believe that God will ultimately convert and save the Jewish people. This does not necessitate believing the Jews somehow have a “special” role in God’s economy apart from Christ (the way Dispensationalists do), but it does mean we can trust God will convert them, even as he promises to convert all people groups (Psalm 22:27f).
There’s some confusion over my post below on Luther and the Jews so let me clarify with a biblical analogy.
God commanded the Israelites in Joshua’s day to utterly destroy the Canaanites living in the land of promise. Why did God command the Canaanites’ destruction? Was this genocide? Was the judgment based on race?
No, it was emphatically not genocide and not based on race. God commissioned the annihilation of the Canaanites not because of their genetic lineage but because of their religious faith and practice. Scripture makes that clear in a multitude of ways, so I’ll limit myself to just a few of them.
Consider several factors:
First, God delayed the conquest until the iniquity of the Canaanites reached its full measure. The land could not be conquered in Abraham’s day because the Canaanites did not yet deserve it. They were not yet evil enough to warrant such a severe judgment.
Second, Canaanites could be spared the judgment if they repented and converted to the service of YHWH. Rahab is the paradigm of this – she is a Canaanite who comes to fear YHWH, shows loyalty to his people rather than her own, and then gets incorporated into Israel (and even the messianic line) through marriage. Obviously the possibility of Canaanite salvation and incorporation into Israel would not have been possible if this was genocide. It was more like idolater-cide than genocide.
Third, note that God threatens to bring a Canaanite-like judgment on Israel if they fall into the ways of the Canaanites, serving their gods and adopting their way of life. Israel was not immune to judgment. God is impartial; his judgments do not depend on ethnicity but ethics. He judges people not according to genetic lineage but faithful obedience.
My point is that Luther’s denunciations of the Jews in his day function in a similar way. He does not pronounce judgment on the Jews because of their race, as if he were calling for genocide. His hostility to the Jews stems from what he perceives to be their false religion and the pernicious way of life it produces. Whether or not the Jews posed as much of threat to Christendom as Luther feared is for specialized historians to determine; but reading Luther’s own words carefully shows what the real issue was for him.
I am not trying to justify Luther’s hateful words towards Jews. Much of what he said was irresponsible and inexcusable. But I do think as a matter of historical importance we need to understand what Luther actually said and why he said it. There is way too much sloppy thinking these days about the categories of race, ethnicity, and religion.
On Natural Affection
According to John Calvin, love (including natural affection, or “storge”) is not be limited to one’s family, nation, or race but extends to all who bear God’s image:
“The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits. But scripture here helps us out with an excellent argument when it teaches us that we must not think of man’s real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love.”
In Calvin’s view, when we love our neighbor (whoever he is), we are loving the God whose image he bears.
Some of the fringe right seem to think that appealing to the image of God in all men is a kind of left-leaning cope, a sign that someone is living under the progressive gaze.
But this is actually the teaching of John Calvin: “We are not to look to what men in themselves deserve but to attend to the image of God which exists in all and to which we owe all honor and love.”
The leftward drift and elitism of Big Eva is seen in its commonly held view that love for one’s city is good and love for the world is good, but love for one’s nation is bad.
Ecclesiocentrism
Ecclesiocentrism means both judgment and reformation begin with the house of the Lord (the church).
Ecclesiocentrism is a matter of faith, not sight. The church does not always *look* like the core and central institution in a nation or in history, but she is in God’s sight. Scripture makes this plain.
Both the rise of Western civilization and its decline can best be understood in ecclesiocentric terms. Western civilization is an ecclesiocentric story. Even our great military and political heroes can best be understood in terms of their faith and connection to the church. Faithful churches produce discipled nations. Churches that lose their saltiness produce rotten, corrupt societies.
God blesses or judges societies (including civil rulers) based on their posture towards the church. To paraphrase Genesis 12, God will bless those who bless the church and curse those who curse the church. (Side note: Based on this criteria, I expect good things from the Trump administration. While I have doubts about the quality of Trump’s personal faith in Jesus, there is no question he appreciates conservative/evangelical Christians and very much wants to include us in what’s he is doing – quite the opposite of the other main political party that mocks us and hates us. Trump wants to “bless” faithful Christians and is willing to transact with us, while he seems to have a proper and justified disdain for the liberal church).
Ecclesiocentrism does not mean the church replaces other spheres or usurps their roles. Ecclesiocentrism holds to sphere sovereignty, though it contends the church is the central sphere in certain important ways. While the church does not replace other spheres, the church does have a responsibility to disciple other spheres.
Ecclesiocentrism is not pietism, which confines piety to participation in church activities, or which prioritizes vocations connected to the institutional church. Ecclesiocentrism does not mean that elders are supposed to run civil affairs or even tightly control the lives of church members.
Ecclesiocentrism focuses on the power of liturgy and prayer to shape people and history; it emphasizes preaching and discipline as tools and weapons in the cultural and spiritual battles we are in; it points to the church’s calling as a people who suffer and serve their way to victory and the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Ecclesiocentrism highlights the church’s role as a public, political body, not merely a private, voluntary organization. The church is a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Ecclesiocentrism is rooted in the fact that the church is a divinely built, divinely maintained, and divinely victorious body. Ecclesiocentrism focuses on the promises God has made to the church, the power he has given to the church, and the mission he has assigned to the church.
Ecclesiocentrism does not replace conventional political activism with political prayers; rather it grounds the former in the latter, remembering the words of Jesus, “without me you can do nothing.”
Before Joshua could conquer the land of Canaan militarily, politically, and culturally, Abraham had to conquer it liturgically. Abraham toured the land of Canaan, building altars, places of worship, which laid the foundation for the conquest to come. Liturgy is the basis of dominion. The key to cultural transformation is liturgical reformation.
The fundamental job of the pastor is to prepare his people to face death and the judgment that follows.
America will never be great again without great churches.
More specifically, America will never be great without great churches, singing great hymns and psalms, hearing great biblical sermons, enjoying great fellowship within the body, following the leadership of great elders who truly shepherd the flock wisely, and doing great works of service.
Want to make America great again? Make the church in America great again.
Political Theology
Criteria for Political Theology
Here are my criteria for a political theology:
1. It must incorporate special and general revelation, since biblical law and creational law were designed to work together. Special revelation is the lens through which we interpret nature, but God never intended either form of revelation to stand alone (e.g., special revelation was given even before the fall). The scope of Scripture is comprehensive: all of Scripture is for all of life. But Scripture should be supplemented and complemented (of necessity) with what we glean from nature/natural revelation.
2. It must honor the comprehensive lordship of Christ over all nations and all of life (Psalm 2, etc), with the goal of producing Christendom (Christian civilization) comprised of fully discipled nations (the Great Commission). In a fallen world, the fulfillment of the Great Commission is necessary to the faithful fulfillment of the Creation Mandate.
3. It must respect the central role of the church in history and society, including the church’s mission to disciple the nations.
4. It must honor the legacy of Christendom, including the common law tradition and its offshoot in classical liberalism (while correcting the worst features of classical liberalism). Classical liberalism in its origins reflected both Christian and Enlightenment influences. It eventually became a rival to the gospel and to the church as an alternative ecclesiology/sociology, but it does have some features fully compatible with a biblical political theology that should be preserved.
5. It must respect the role of marriage and family as foundational to fulfilling the creation mandate. Marriage as ordained by God shoud be encouraged and defended. Children should be raised and educated covenantally.
6. It must respect the providential role God has given to nations and empires. National identity is recognized in Scripture which means patriotism (love for one’s fatherland) is good, though like all loves it must be regulated by Scriptural teaching (since nations can also become idols). At the same time, there are global empires in Scripture that operate with some degree of divine sanction, so not every feature of globalism (in the sense of empire, or colonization) is to be rejected in every case.
7. It must respect and protect economic freedom. Markets should be, in principle, both free and limited. To be truly free, markets must operate within a moral framework. Further, markets are not absolute, and can be subordinated to other interests at times, particularly since there is no possibility of genuinely free (and fair) global market at present.
8. It must respect and apply the just war tradition. One of the fundamental functions of civil government is protection of the people. A strong military discourages other nations from being aggressive and thus serves the peace. I’ve thought of different names for this combination of convictions – something like “missional theocracy” or “ecclesiocentric liberalism” but nothing has really stuck. There is more to say — this is only a rough sketch — but any biblical political theology will have to incorporate these features.
A secular (or non-Christian) nation must be basically monoracial because it has no way to create peace between different racial groups. All it can ever envision is racial war and conflict between different groups. Nations that have nothing more than flesh (cf. the Pauline sense of the term) will always produce the works of the flesh. They cannot do otherwise. A nationalism of the flesh has no real options. You cannot make non-Christians of different races get along; non-Christians even of the same race struggle to get along. Racial identity politics is a cope in a multiracial non-Christian nation.
Christian nations have the work of the Spirit in their midst so they have options. Christian nations can learn from the ethnic and racial peace the gospel created in the communities of the early church (eg, Ephesians 2, Acts 13, etc.). Christian nations have a way forward. Christian nations produce a coherent culture into which Christians of other ethnicities and races can be assimilated. This does not mean Christian nations become borderless; it does mean they can be wisely hospitable in ways that non-Christian nations cannot.
America has never been as thoroughly Christian as we should have been but the intensity of our present crisis is largely due widespread apostasy into secularism.
You cannot defeat racial identity politics with more racial identity politics. All racial identity politics can do is produce the nihilism of Nietzsche’s will to power. It will devolve into the all the worst features of democracy that our founding fathers warned us about, including the tyranny of mob rule. Racial identity politics is the politics of anger and resentment; it cannot produce the righteousness of God.
Union with Christ
When you are united to Christ by faith, his righteous status is your righteous status, his vindication is your vindication, his life is your life, his story is your story, his future is your future, his security is your security. You are guilt-free and shame-free in Christ. You have a clean past because of his promise of forgiveness and a glorious future because of his promise to come again.
Federal Vision
Federal Vision debate heating up
Since discussions of the so-called Federal Vision are heating back up, I figured I’d give a quick, short summary of the key emphases of FV:
1. Creation is gift. This means there is no nature/grace dualism in the Bible and no merit theology in the Bible. Everything is grace. Grace is always already there. There was no covenant merit in the Garden of Eden; even if Adam had obeyed God and received further exaltation, he would have been obligated to say “Thank you” to God. This does not mean we cannot make distinctions, eg, common grace vs redemptive grace. But everything is gift. That’s the starting point.
2. Union with Christ is the gospel. This has implications for how we understand imputation (transfer vs shared verdict), ecclesiology (to get the benefits of the head you must be part of his body), and sacraments (since baptism and the Eucharist have to do with union and communion with Christ), etc. There are no benefits apart from union with the Benefactor. We cannot have any of Christ’s redemptive blessings without having Christ himself. Our whole salvation is contained in him. Of course, we are united to Christ by faith alone.
3. The covenant promises mean the children of Christians are Christian and should be treated accordingly. God says, “I will be a God to you and to your children.” The covenant promise determines our children’s identity, how we educate them, how we discipline them, how we nurture them, how we include them in the life of the church. FV was all about the children.
More could be said about liturgy, typology, and other particulars, but these three things are the gist of it, especially against the backdrop of the way Reformed theology is done in America today.
American Church history
Comment on the Great Awakening
One of the great tragedies in American history is that the Second Great awakening almost entirely decimated the public and cultural influence of Calvinism on our nation. Revivalism replaced Scripture with experience/emotion, divine sovereignty with human free will, a high church ecclesiology with the parachurch, liturgy with revivalistic techniques, psalms with silly praise songs, and a properly ordered hierarchy with egalitarianism. America has really never recovered.
Calvinists themselves were somewhat to blame for the shift, especially since their church planting efforts could not keep pace with westward expansion. In the early 19th century, a Methodist revivalist preacher said something like, “We Methodists are lighting the world on fire while the Presbyterians cannot even strike a match.” There was some truth to that.
Evangelicalism was a twentieth century movement that was supposed to correct the anti-intellectualism of fundamentalism and bring greater respectability to the Christian faith. Has it worked out?
Obviously the evangelical movement has lacked courage and conviction, but has it solved the anti-intellectual problem? Mark Noll wrote his book “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” to lament that there was no evangelical mind. In other words, evangelicalism has given us the worst of both worlds. It has not maintained the gritty courage and dogged biblical fidelity that characterized fundamentalism. But it has also failed to develop a robust intellectual culture that could push back against modernity’s rationalism. Instead, evangelicalism has become obsessed with relevance and respectability, which has allowed it to be steered further and further to the left as it chases the Overton Window and tries to look cool and winsome in the eyes of the its cultured despisers.
Christian Living
Our culture needs a much better understanding of emotions.
Only weak people get “triggered.” If you describe yourself as “triggered,” you are advertising your emotional immaturity and instability. Mature people can control their emotional impulses and reactions because they are emotionally resilient. They are not passive towards their emotions; they work to sculpt their emotions into a Christ-like shape. The do not let their emotions run wild; they tame and direct their emotions.
Do you submit to your emotions or to God? Or to put it another way: Do you submit your emotions to God, or let them function autonomously? Either God will rule your life or your emotions will rule your life. Lack of emotional control kills relationships. If you have unregulated emotion, you need to realize you are emotionally vomiting on other people. It’s disgusting. The world will tell you that your feelings should always be validated by others and no one can tell you how to feel; on the contrary, your emotions should be evaluated (rather than validated) and God in his Word has commanded you to feel certain ways in certain situations. Train your feelings to obey God, to bow before his Word. When it’s time to rejoice, rejoice. When it’s time grieve, grieve. That’s what Jesus did.
One of the best gifts you can give your children is being a well-disciplined, emotionally regulated mom or dad. I’ve often paraphrased the gist of Edwin Friedman’s work as “In order to lead, you have to be the calmest person in the room.” This applies to mothering and fathering. Far too many parents lose teachable moments and undermine the effectiveness of parental discipline by not staying emotional controlled when their child is disobedient. If you lose your cool when your child sins, you are the one really in need of discipline. If you are undisciplined, you really cannot effectively discipline your own child. You are going to have to fix yourself first. Good parents are panic-resistant and anxiety-resistant; they parent out of faith, not fear. They can train their children because they have trained themselves.
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
