Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
Confessional Lutherans are not known for our political activism. Or, we're not known for it as part of our corporate church work. We focus on worship, the sacraments, forgiveness of sins and our mercy work. Some church bodies of various political persuasions have aggressive political arms, telling members how to vote on H.R. 1283 or whatever. We're not inclined in that direction.
But we're all in on the religious liberty battles that have reached something of a boiling point with the HHS mandate. The Rev. Matthew Harrison, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod -- the country's second largest Lutheran body and the largest of the confessional Lutheran church bodies here in America, has penned an open letter signed by religious leaders.
He explains why we did this:
"We drafted this letter because there are moments in history where one needs to speak and stand for basic principle," Harrison said. "The time to confess is now. We don't know what tomorrow might bring. We have been too silent as our nation has continued to slip into the morass of relativism."
You may remember that awesome mustache from his testimony in front of Congress on the matter back in February. Anyway, here's how the letter ends:
HHS has mandated that religious institutions, with only a narrow religious exception, must provide access to certain contraceptive benefits, even if the covered medications or procedures are contradictory to their beliefs. We who oppose the application of this mandate to religious institutions include not only the leaders of religious groups morally opposed to contraception, but also leaders of other religious groups that do not share that particular moral conviction.
That we share an opposition to the mandate to religious institutions while disagreeing about specific moral teachings is a crucial fact. Religious freedom is the principle on which we stand. Because of differing understandings of moral and religious author- ity, people of good will can and often do come to different conclusions about moral questions. Yet, even we who hold differing convictions on specific moral issues are united in the conviction that no religious institution should be penalized for refusing to go against its beliefs. The issue is the First Amendment, not specific moral teachings or specific products or services.
The HHS mandate implicitly acknowledged that an incursion into religion is involved in the mandate. However, the narrowness of the proposed exemption is revealing for it applies only to religious organizations that serve or support their own members. In so doing, the government is establishing favored and disfavored religious organizations: a privatized religious organization that serves only itself is exempted from regulation, while one that believes it should also serve the public beyond its membership is denied a religious exemption. The so-called accommodation and the subsequent Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (AN- PRM) do little or nothing to alleviate the problem.
No government should tell religious organizations either what to believe or how to put their beliefs into practice. We indeed hold this to be an unalienable, constitutional right. If freedom of religion is a constitutional value to be protected, then institutions developed by religious groups to implement their core beliefs in education, in care for the sick or suffering, and in other tasks must also be protected. Only by doing so can the free exercise of religion have any meaning. The HHS mandate prevents this free exercise. For the well-being of our country, we oppose the application of the contraceptive mandate to religious institutions and plead for its retraction.
Women religious who have signed include Lutheran deaconesses and a variety of Catholic Superiors from across the country.
Among the others are Leith Anderson, President National Association of Evangelicals; Gary M. Benedict, President The Christian and Missionary Alliance U.S.; The Very Rev. Dr. John A. Jillions, Chancellor Orthodox Church in America; Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York President United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; The Most Blessed Jonah Archbishop of Washington Metropolitan of All American and Canada Orthodox Church in America; Imam Faizul R. Khan Founder and Leader Islamic Society of Washington Area; and Dr. George O. Wood, General Superintendent The General Council of the Assemblies of God.
If you don't see your religious leaders on the list, please send it along to them and encourage them to join the fight for preserving religious liberty.
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Comments:
Dec '10
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
Please educate the ignorant (me). Are there non-Confessional Lutherans?
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
I can't believe I'm about to quote Wikipedia, but it does the job here:
Officially, almost all Lutherans should be "confessional," meaning that there should be no non-Confessional Lutherans. In practice, only the more orthodox or traditional Lutherans use the term.
Jul '10
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
A fairly excellent definition, including as it does that annoying Confessional Lutheran pretension of using a Latin word or tag where an English word would suffice.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses.
May '10
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
Here's what I don't get - why not just lawyer up and fight it out in court? I get the trying to persuade folks in the court of public opinion, but I don't like it. Thurgood Marshall should get more credit for influencing race relations than MLKJr. MLKJr banked on his profile as a religious leader to conduct an extrajudicial campaign, while TM worked within the infrastructure of the law to gain more meaningful and lasting success. If folks feel like their legal rights are being violated, respond legally. Is there a legal defense fund? I'd donate. But this extrajudicial campaign doesn't feel right. Plus, I really doubt an administration that supported the OWS movement will really be moved by a strongly worded letter, but it doesn't sound like the Obama administration is the target audience. Some may see this current issue as a valid opportunity to discuss society's decline into the "morass of relativism," but I think you'll only end up preaching to the choir.
Dec '10
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
Do Lutherans have a sacrament of confession as Roman Catholics do?
Jun '10
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
No.
Jun '10
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
Karen, #4, I agree. I read the post. I agree with the content of the letter. But I just can't see any point in forwarding it to our priests and bishops. This does need to be fought, but what difference will the letter make?
Apr '11
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
It's helpful to know who is on our side. I was excited to see Orthodox names in Mollie's list, and clicked through to the complete list, and was disappointed to see only Russians, not Greeks. If I were making a big donation to the Church about now, that would have a meaningful impact on how it was directed.
Also, it's helpful for the list to grow; it's important that the Catholics not be left to stand alone on this one, and that they are not seen to be.
Of course, it'd be even more helpful if more people appreciated that campaign calls or donations are the most effective way of protecting religious liberty right now.
Aug '10
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
May '11
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
As a Catholic, I appreciate your support Mollie and my Rico friends.
Karen...I think the point of the letter just like the point of the comments we are hearing weekly from the pulpit is to make everyone aware of the overreach of the administration. The unsaid portion of the letter and those comments is that the administration does not deserve our support (vote) if they keep this overreach up.
May '10
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
Dr. Wood used to be my pastor. Kind of strange seeing his name on Ricochet.
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
Not everyone has standing right now for court cases. The LCMS, I believe, is grandfathered in with our insurance policies ... until we change something about them.
Rather than wait a year or two until we're forced into a legal battle, we're doing what we can now.
Waging battle in the court of public opinion is, unfortunately, a key part of the overall strategy to fight back against big government. The case law in this area favors religious liberty advocates but it's certainly no slam dunk -- not at all.
Re: Have Your Religious Leaders Joined The Fight To Preserve Freedom?
Sister
No. · 20 hours ago
That's certainly news to me and my pastor! It has fallen into the same disuse among Lutherans as it has among Catholics, sadly, but we still certainly have it.
It has some differences from the Catholic rite, however. Namely we don't have anything that the penitent does (say this many prayers of this type or what not). You just get forgiven after you confess your sins.
More here.