Muhlenberg How One Pastor Kept Politics out of His Pulpit By Rick Ritchie
You probably don’t often hear Lutheran pastors preaching politics from the pulpit.
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Why not? Lutheran pastors have a long tradition of keeping politics out of the pulpit. This is because the pulpit is the place from which to preach the gospel to sinners. One example of why this is so comes from early American history, from a pastor who has often been called the Father of American Lutheranism: Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. On August 22, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was just a little more than a month old, and war was still raging. Muhlenberg wrote in his journals about being asked to address a battalion in German and English. This request was made at a time when pastors were held in especially high regard as they were often the most— if not only—educated men in their communities. He was invited to give a “word of
admonition,” or, his best moral advice. What was he, as a pastor, to say? Should he tell these American revolutionaries that they are disobedient to God by fighting the British? Or should he pray that their muskets will kill as many British as possible? Most pastors give into the temptation of deciding who is right. Muhlenberg doesn’t, even if his own opinion is not hidden: Since I could not with good conscience refuse, I acceded to their request, for one should in charity be impartial and emulate the heavenly Father, who makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. I have not been charged with the task of investigating and comprehending the matter in controversy, nor is it possible for me to determine which party has the highest and best right, whether the one has a better right
