Mary Zeiss Stange: When it comes to gays, 'What would Luther do?'

In the Augsburg Confession of 1530 (a conciliatory statement of faith intended to unite Lutherans with other Protestants), Luther publicly agreed with other reformers of his day that biblical references that depart from New Testament inclusiveness ”” abstaining from eating pork, for example, or requiring male circumcision ”” not only can but should be set aside. A 21st century Luther would surely recognize that the few biblical proscriptions against “sodomy” ”” shaky in themselves as condemnations of same-sex love and rooted in a worldview vastly different from our own ”” should not bar the loving union of two gay or lesbian persons. Equally, a 21st century Luther would affirm the ordination of such persons, as in line with his theology of the “priesthood of all believers.”

The American church that bears his name will have an opportunity to revisit the question when its Churchwide Assembly (the ELCA’s highest legislative body) convenes Aug. 6-12. Schmeling may yet get a reprieve, should the church revisit what the disciplinary board itself called “bad policy” regarding sexually active gay pastors. The ELCA has until Aug. 15 to act on his case.

Meanwhile, The Episcopal Church USA has until the end of September to respond to the Anglican Communion’s ultimatum. The American bishops have, so far, roundly repudiated the pressure coming from Canterbury. The extent of the potential rift remains to be seen.

One thing seems clear, however. In working through these issues in the months to come, Protestants in both American denominations would best begin by asking, “What would Luther do?”

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Religion News & Commentary, Episcopal Church (TEC), Lutheran, Other Churches, Same-sex blessings, Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion), Theology, Theology: Scripture

29 comments on “Mary Zeiss Stange: When it comes to gays, 'What would Luther do?'

  1. azusa says:

    “What would Luther do?”
    Exactly what we tell him to. Hier stehe ich, er kann nichts anders.

  2. MargaretG says:

    [blockquote] Luther publicly agreed with other reformers of his day that biblical references that depart from New Testament inclusiveness — abstaining from eating pork, for example, or requiring male circumcision — not only can but should be set aside. [/blockquote]

    It is amazing that there is no recognition by the writer that in putting aside the eating of pork and male circumcision, Luther was following the New Testament – not changing it.
    If he went against “the few biblical proscriptions” he would have been changing the faith delivered to him.

  3. Tom Roberts says:

    “roundly repudiated the pressure coming from Canterbury”
    That’s an interesting spin on matters. If anything, there has been a vacuum operating in Canterbury for some months now.

  4. Brian of Maryland says:

    “Equally, a 21st century Luther would affirm the ordination of such persons, as in line with his theology of the “priesthood of all believers.”

    This is simply amazing. Luther had a great deal to say about the family and about marriage. He thought family so important he included it as one of the three “Orders of Creation”, social structures put in place by God to maintain a just and orderly society. He wrote the small catechism as a means for teaching the faith in a home setting. Given the lack of positive biblical support for sodomy AND given his understanding that societies ignore the Orders at their peril, there is simply no way Luther would have made a leap from the Priesthood of all Believers to gay ordination.

    Where are my fellow Lutherans learning this nonsense?

    Maryland Brian

  5. Eric Swensson says:

    There are many errors in this little essay by Mary Zeiss Stange: When it comes to gays, ‘What would Luther do?’ First, the piece ignores the fact that the ELCA appeals hearing defrocked Schmeling last week (July 2 or 3), setting aside the decision of the disciplinary hearing that he not be removed until after the August assembly as they had overstepped their authority. For activists (and Stange’s argument is boilerplate activist) that is an “inconvenient truth.” Ironically, Schmeling and his congregation will ignore it, as did the author and USA Today. There are more errors by Stange. Second, Luther did not write the Augsburg Confession. Third, Luther wrote very positively about marriage, but that was between a man and a woman. Fourth, as far as “the American church that bears his name” there are over 20 of them and the ELCA is the only one which even considers this issue. Fifth, as far as using him and his hermeneutic as “the trump card”, won’t work. Stange’s seems to have Luther reading the NT as a trump card of the OT, but this shows she misunderstands his hermeneutic since he read the Bible as a whole, seeing law and promise in each.

    Altogether this adds up that Stange wanted to use Luther to give authority to her view of the new inclusive view, but she did not make her case. USA today should in fairness have an opposing viewpoint editorial.

  6. Philip Snyder says:

    First, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, I do not care what Luther would do. He is a man, not God incarnate.

    Second, I assume that Luther – who found his reformation within Holy Scripture, would follow Holy Scripture and hold all sex outside of marriage to be sinful. Luther’s views on following the Law come right from the Gospels and Paul’s Epistles – especially Romans and Galatians. From what Scriptural works would this fictional Luther gain his ideas that what Paul wrote in Romans or 1st Corinthians was wrong and needed to be thrown out?

    YBIC,
    Phil Snyder

  7. Daniel Muth says:

    Here’s one more reason to envy my younger brother his having gone into academics instead of putting in his measly four years of college and getting a real job like I did: who wouldn’t want to rub elbows on a daily basis with people like Mary Zeiss Strange? The woman’s an absolute hoot. How would a 21st century Luther think? Silly question: just like her, of course. After all, he opposed the uptight Roman church in his day just like she does in hers. You go, girl – or, whatever. And isn’t it delightful how she can talk, without the faintest hint of irony, about poor sods like Paul and the real-life Luther suffering from the “social prejudices of his time and culture.” However, the line about “sexual orientation” being an invention rather than some great discovery has to be an inadvertent slip-up: I can’t imagine that she really intended to interrupt an otherwise flawless flow of rank silliness. One hopes that the woman some day comes up with something serious to say on the matter. She might be worth hearing. Alas, obviously, this ain’t it.

  8. Jimmy DuPre says:

    Lets look at something he actually did say;
    “May God in his mercy save me from a Christian Church where there are none but saints. I want to be in that little company, and in that church where there are faint hearted and weak people, the sick, and those who are aware of their sin, misery, and feel it, and cry to God without ceasing and sigh unto him for comfort and help; and believe in the forgiveness of sins and suffer persecution for the Word’s sake.”

  9. Dave B says:

    I was wondering how Mary Zeiss Stange’s social and cultural orintation are affecting her world views toward sexuality. With deadly STI, sky high unwed pregnancies resulting in poverty, etc maybe Paul and the other writers of scripture were correct and our social bias is making us unable to see the truth about sexual prohabitons!!!

  10. The Sheepcat says:

    Mary Zeiss Stange’s speculations about a 21st-century Luther are an exercise in rank foolishness; however, the real Luther, in rejecting the authority of sacred tradition, makes an argument that more orthodox Lutherans today might not wish to embrace. (I’m struggling to imagine what “reappraising” or “reasserting” might mean in this context.)

    [url=http://www.mark-shea.com/6.html]Mark Shea[/url] quotes Luther as writing about whether a certain VIP of his day might enter a bigamous marriage:
    [blockquote]I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in such a matter.[/blockquote]

  11. henryleroi says:

    Come on! This drivel couldn’t possibly deserve the effort of a thoughtful response. What would Luther do? He might have a seizure or sumfin. Or he might say (as he once said about the Pope): “Von einem traurigen Arsch kann man keinen froelichen Furz erwarten.”

    Luther was far too serious, pious and thoughtful for a religion that celebrates Gay Pride Day every single day. And he was far too attached to Scripture. Not the sort of guy to be persuaded that the Holy Spirit was doing a new thing re Sodom and Gomorrah or Leviticus 18:22 or all that stuff about “and so a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave unto a woman, one flesh.” (“Darum wird ein Mann Vater und Mutter verlassen und an seinem Weibe hangen, und sie werden sein ein Fleisch.”)

  12. William Tighe says:

    Elves,

    Please permit me to be blunt, for I am speaking nothing other than the historical truth: this Strange women is either a liar or an ignoramus (or both); and from first sentence onwards one can see this, for in it she wrote “In the Augsburg Confession of 1530 (a conciliatory statement of faith intended to unite Lutherans with other Protestants), Luther publicly agreed with other reformers of his day that biblical references that depart from New Testament inclusiveness …”

    Note the parenthetical remark and than consider that

    1. Luther had nothing to do with the Augsburg Confession; it was written by Melanchthon. Luther, in fact, thought it too conciliatory in tone — to Catholics — although he accepted it as theologically acceptable as far as it went.

    2. It was a conciliatory statement, indeed, but one whose purpose was to seek common ground between Lutherans and Catholics, while at the same time justifying Lutheran views on those issues (primarily Justification) on which Lutherans believed the Cahtolic view to be erroneous.

    3. As regards the notion that the CA was intended to “unite Lutherans with other Protestants,” this is an absolute hoot (or piece of mendacity). The article on the Eucharist in the CA was deliberately framed in such a way as to emphasize that the bread and wine really, truly and substantially become Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and as such are truly distributed and truly received by faithful and unfaithful communicants alike. As such, it was rejected alike by the Swiss Reformed (who presented at Augsburg an alternative Confession from the writings of Zwingli) and the followers of Martin Bucer (Calvin’s later guru), who presented the “Tetrapolitan Confession” to distinguish themselves from the Lutherans. When in 1555 profession of the Augsburg Confession became a legal requirement for protestant churches in Germany to recieve toleration, Calvinists sought to shelter under it too, but they always made one exception to it: for its article on the Eucharist (which I have described above) they substituted an alternative article (drawn up by Bucer’s followers in 1540) which was susceptible of both a Lutheran and a Calvinist interpretation. This cut no ice with the Lutherans, who have always repudiated the “variation” as erroneous and deceitful.

    Other commenters on this thread can point out the numerous absurdities and nonsequiturs of this (I use the adjective deliberately) shameful and deceptive article, and have begun to do so, but I would like to ask, who is so Strange as (like this) to wish to air one’s own ignorance in public?

  13. William Tighe says:

    I read the excerpt here, and posted my comment, before reading the article as whole; and I stand by my comments; but this is what I found at the end:

    “Mary Zeiss Stange is a professor of women’s studies and religion at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. She is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.”

    And this nonsense, from a professor?

  14. KAR says:

    And this nonsense, from a professor?

    Dr. Tighe,

    I’m so sorry! I do not hold your trade in contempt because of odd ramblings of professor Strange.

  15. Larry Morse says:

    Well, I have said it before but… why post nonsense, as this clearly is? As someone noted above, this doesn’t deserve a rational response. A raspberry maybe.

    One thing this should remind us of is how far left college faculties commonly are. The polling data here is overwhelming. MY son just graduated from Colby in Maine, so I have had a good chance to examine the fculty thereof. It now costs $44,000/year, but Colby is no different from The Doctorates in Saratoga, that is, it is filled with woolyminded liberals who are fully protected from coming in contact with the real world. $44,000 for this? WE realy have better this to do than ratify this piffle by publlishing it. LM

  16. Cousin Vinnie says:

    The professor is certainly strange, but I think the name is Stange (Stohng-guh).

  17. Eric Swensson says:

    Listen, guys, I am glad this was posted. This is exactly the kind of reasoning that is being taught at our schools and spoken of at our assemblies/conventions. As an ELCA person, I thank the elves becasue we can pick it up on our logs and refute it. Also, I would not call it garbage. As I noted, I was able to rattle off a half dozen errors, but our liberals are not fazed by the unmasking of their errors (might have something to do with idealogy, huh?), so we have to make our case, make our case, make our case until we wear them down.
    The image of Luther as a revisionist would be quite a temptation for a revisionist. She tried it and failed.

  18. Deja Vu says:

    Yes to #17 Eric Swnsson.
    Please do post this sort of thing, especially when it is in a national publication like USA Today.
    We need the opportunity to read the comments that rebut inaccuracies and teach sound theology.
    It also notifies the professors of relevant disciplines on this site so that they can write responding letters to the editor and thus reach the readers of the original piece.

  19. libraryjim says:

    14. KAR wrote:

    [i]And this nonsense, from a professor?

    Dr. Tighe,

    I’m so sorry! I do not hold your trade in contempt because of odd ramblings of professor Strange (sic). [/i]

    Um, Kar, I think he was saying he expected a PROFESSOR to write more informed content than this precisely BECAUSE she [i]is[/i], not denegrating the profession, but in fact, holding it up to higher standards than was represented in the article.

    Jim Elliott

  20. john scholasticus says:

    I’m afraid I know very little about Luther and am grateful for the precise info commentators have provided. Is it possible that the writer has substituted ‘Luther’ for ‘Calvin’? Some weeks ago, a liberal Anglican (with whom of course I agree but whose name escapes me) wrote a piece in ‘The Guardian’ on the homosexuality issue, ‘quoting’ Calvin on it by means of the journalist trick of substituting homosexuality for whatever Calvin was actually talking about. The serious point was that Calvin, in justifying whatever it was he was justifying, appealed to broad principles derivable from scripture against scripture’s condemnation of the particular thing. I hope that’s clear. Perhaps the omniscient WT can help me here.

  21. William Tighe says:

    John Scholasticus,

    I am not aware of the instance concerning which you ask. Possibly it might have concerned usury, for Calvin left a slightly wider leeway — not that it was at all wide — for lending out money at interest than any other Reformer. That’s just a guess, though.

    Btw, I’ll be visiting Jeff Steel 26-29 July.

  22. john scholasticus says:

    #21
    Thanks. It was usury. The writer was Stephen something, somewhere in the NW of England, and it could have been the Church Times rather than the Guardian.

    On the other matter, I shall have to consider my movements with care. Perhaps I’ll shave off my beard or acquire a wig.

  23. robroy says:

    Eric writes, [i]”…but our liberals are not fazed by the unmasking of their errors”.[/i] This is so very true. There was a program in early artificial intelligence days that would ask questions like a psychiatrist and make it sound almost human. But there was a randomness that caused it to fail the Turing test. The essays of the liberals like the above and from KJS are like that, too. Seemingly random strings of quasi-religious prose. Logic does not seem to be too highly valued in those circles.

  24. William Tighe says:

    No, no, spare the beard; they’re so scarce nowadays. Better a wig.

  25. Charles Nightingale says:

    Well, I don’t know where Ms. Stange gets her information about Luther, but its obvious she has never read anything by Fr. Martin. I grew up in LCMS, and if there was one thing besides scripture we were grounded in, it was Martin Luther. I have one thing to say to her: “Horsefeathers!”

  26. Jim the Puritan says:

    [blockquote]Luther publicly agreed with other reformers of his day that biblical references that depart from New Testament inclusiveness — abstaining from eating pork, for example, or requiring male circumcision — not only can but should be set aside. A 21st century Luther would surely recognize that the few biblical proscriptions against “sodomy” — shaky in themselves as condemnations of same-sex love and rooted in a worldview vastly different from our own — should not bar the loving union of two gay or lesbian persons. Equally, a 21st century Luther would affirm the ordination of such persons, as in line with his theology of the “priesthood of all believers.”
    [/blockquote]
    Dear Mary Zeiss Stange:

    Acts 15.

    Read Acts 15.

    Your arguments, together with the other “shellfish” arguments that constantly get trotted out, are answered by Acts 15. They were addressed by the very first Church council. It’s recorded in Acts 15.

    Luther, believing in Scripture, would simply say “Read Acts 15.”

    You would have saved a lot of time trying to concoct this story and its arguments if you had just read Acts 15.

  27. William Witt says:

    The Augsburg Confession lays down the principles to deal with these issues very clearly. Heterosexual marriage is a creation ordinance with a divine command and promise behind it.

    The gospel does not introduce laws about public ordinances, but approves of governments and commands obedience to them. Laws about property [including usury] are matters of public ordinance, not ecclesial law.

  28. john scholasticus says:

    #27
    I think your second para. is a great over-simplification. There are profound tensions in ‘the gospel’s’ orientation towards governments. No to zealotry, render to Caesar, etc., but on the other hand Jesus is Lord, not Caesar, mission to the end of the earth, not empires like Rome which claim power to the ends of the earth, the Christian community (as in ‘Acts’), not ordinary communities. What it boils down to is: violence no, but bypass ordinary political and social structures in such a way as eventually to do away with them. In this way the apolitical is actually profoundly political and profoundly subversive.

  29. Katie My Rib says:

    I agree with those who have pointed out the many errors in Prof Stange’s article. And most certainly her arguments regarding what Luther would think, write or do on the subject of same-sex relationships reveals that she has very little knowledge of Dr. Luther. But I must correct one thing that has been argued here by others. While Philip Melancthon is rightly credited with writing the Augsburg Confession, Dr. Luther was involved with its production. Luther, having been declared an outlaw by the Emperor, could not come to Augsburg with Melancthon and others. However, he was right across the territorial line, hold up in Coburg. Melancthon sent drafts of what he was writing to Luther, who read them and offered his opinions and made suggestions. Luther also agreed with the final product.
    However, Prof. Stange showed that she has absolutely no understanding of the AC’s content, nor of its meaning!