On Prophetic Preaching: A Statement

“As a prophetic presence, this church has the obligation to name and denounce the idols before which people bow, to identify the power of sin present in social structures, and to advocate in hope with poor and powerless people. When religious or secular structures, ideologies, or authorities claim to be absolute, this church says, ‘We must obey God rather than any human authority’ (Acts 5:29). With Martin Luther, this church understands that to rebuke those in authority through God’s Word spoken publicly, boldly and honestly is not seditious but “a praiseworthy, noble, and particularly great service to God.’”

So says Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective, the first ELCA Social Statement, passed in 1991. Our confessional witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ has always included a political dimension. The Reformation would have been very different if Luther had not been protected by a politician, Elector Frederick the Wise, following his refusal to recant at the Diet of Worms. Luther regularly exhorted the nobility of his day to provide for the people entrusted to their care, regularly providing private counsel and public statements on the issues of his day. The church and the state being accountable to each other and to God from their respective realms of authority has been a mainstay of Lutheran theology and practice for over 500 years. 

Many people have said a lot of things about Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon yesterday at the National Cathedral. While Bishop Budde is not sworn to the same confessional teachings as I am, being a minister of the Anglican communion, I found her words to be exactly the thing to which the ELCA committed itself over 30 years ago: a bold, honest, public rebuke of those in authority, an act of advocacy on behalf of those who have neither the power nor the means to offer that word themselves. I applaud her courage and I gladly join her in exhorting those in authority, regardless of their party, faith, or any other affiliation, to realize that their words, principles, and policies will affect more than their supporters, and that they have a duty and responsibility to all of the children of God that have been entrusted to their care.