Walther as Theologian – Part 9:Church and State

Continued from Part 8.  Table of Contents will be in Part 1.

In America, "the land of the sects" as Pieper call it, there is much confusion on the Christian teaching on this subject.  We see today much talk of how the Church should serve the State as with "faith based initiatives", etc.  But Christians need to know what the Bible actually teaches.  And the installment below serves this purpose perfectly.  How I love to sit at the feet of Walther... and Pieper.  I have highlighted a few portions of these installments as I read these again... pure Christian teaching!

Highlighting is my own.  Underlining is in original.

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Footnote # 1 gives what Pieper calls a "weighty utterance" of Walther.  The following striking statement is part of it:

When the government, for instance, licenses sinful amusements, divorces on invalid grounds, the conducting of saloons, a Christian can make no use of this allowance.  The government must allow such things because of the ‘hardness of heart’ of its subjects in order to prevent rebellion, murder, and manslaughter.

I wanted to think that it was wrong where state governments are sanctioning gambling operations.  But I can see now that the "hardness of our hearts" is so strong that even the allowance of gambling can prevent rebellion — people would probably riot if the allowance of gambling was taken away now.  One wonders that the allowance of homosexual "marriages" will be next throughout our land.  Abortions, unrestricted "morning-after pills", Lord, have mercy on us!  Ah, but the world thinks as the Pharisees by rationalizing that God commanded it to be so...

America, do you realize that God bestowed a great blessing through you that the Lutheran Church should be completely independent of the State?

The next Part 10 begins Pieper's summation of Walther's Doctrine of Justification.