FREE STATE:
Lutheranism, Political Liberty, and the U.S.Constitution
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n Germany in the 1840s, some of the absolute rulers had the bright idea of bringing the Lutherans and the Reformed into a single state church. Creating this happy ecumenical union meant, of course, that the Lutherans had to compromise their theology on so-called little points such as Holy Communion. As was the habit of German absolute rulers, especially the most enlightened and ecumenical ones, they brutally suppressed the Lutherans who objected, throwing many pastors into dungeons. H I G H E R
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Thus began a vast migration of the hardcore Lutherans from Germany to America and elsewhere. These Lutherans, who would rather leave their homes and families than compromise their faith, became the founders of what would become the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. (This is why to this day, the LCMS, as well as the Wisconsin Synod and groups with a similar heritage, are so leery of ecumenical unions and doctrinal compromise.) One of the earliest groups of Lutheran immigrants found themselves in the wilderness of nearly-unsettled Wisconsin. They cut down trees for
room to grow their crops and used the logs to build their homes and their church. They exulted in their new freedoms and loved their new country. They named their settlement Freistadt, that is, “Free State.” Lutherans came in droves to take advantage of America’s constitutional liberties, but did Lutheranism play a role in America’s founding? Yes, indeed, though not as you might expect. Even though the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms forbids the Church from meddling in politics and casts a skeptical eye on political revolutions, without the Lutheran Reformation, America’s Constitution would literally be unthinkable. The Two Kingdoms under One King Lutherans do not believe in establishing a theocracy or in making the Bible the law of the land. They do not believe that America is God’s chosen nation, or that only Christians should rule, or that the Church should establish a Christian republic. Some Christians talk that way but never Lutherans. Lutheran political teachings are summed up in the doctrine of the two kingdoms, which is connected to the distinction between Law and Gospel. God governs His spiritual kingdom by means of His Word, which brings people to faith through the power of the Gospel of Christ, calls them into the
