These are slides which accompanied a presentation I made to Easter Lutheran Church in Eagan, MN on October 23, 2018.

1. How does our Christian faith inform our role as citizens?
Characteristically Lutheran leanings in an election season
Mary Hess
Easter Lutheran Church
23 October 2018

2. who I am
• a Roman Catholic laywoman
• a professor of religious ed and practical theology
• a scholar of media culture and religious identity
• a mother of two adult sons, and a partner in a 30 year marriage
• all of these locations constrain and limit what I will share with you

3. does my political affiliation matter?
• yes -- and no
• it matters that I am involved in the processes, but the specific choices I make
are mine and should not determine yours
• I think we need to be present in our shared convictions that engagement with
civic life is a good thing, and thus help other to work through what that might
mean
• my hope for this evening is to set the stage with some ideas, and then leave
lots of room for discussion

4. ground rules for our time together
• respect others (respect each other and the process, don’t shame or blame
others, assume each of us is coming from a good place (honest, genuine),
don’t talk about people who aren’t here)
• be open (be open to others’ stories and realities, be open to partially-formed
ideas, learn from your mistakes, be open to a change of heart and mind)
• listen actively (don’t interrupt, use clarifying not interrogating questions, use
“I” statements, don’t argue; talk about ideas in a civil way—be respectful of
others’ ideas, keep side conversations to a minimum)
• (continued on next slide)
Hypatia Group

5. ground rules (continued)
• take risks (no retribution, hostility, or harassment toward others for taking
risks, discussions stay here, take risks, be authentic, and speak your truth)
• be accountable (participate to the best of your ability, all of us are
responsible for making sure all voices are heard, you are accountable for what
you do and say, hold each other accountable in a civil way, own your part of
the problem or issue, you are accountable for how you use information, be
aware that you may be misinformed or lacking information, you are
responsible for your learning)
• Q-tip (quit taking things too personally!)
Hypatia Group

6. “Graciously justified by faith, we are freed in Christ to live a
“faith active in love” for God’s world and our neighbors by
seeking reconciliation, peace and justice, and caring for
creation. The electoral process is one way we live out
our affirmation of baptism to “serve all people,
following the example of our Lord Jesus,” and “to
strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” For the
church, these efforts must be grounded in the Word of
God, prayer, communal discernment and faithful decision-
making that takes into account the well- being of our most
vulnerable neighbors”
Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton

7. what does that look like? what can it mean in the
world we find ourselves in?

8. it’s not simple, and believing Christians will
disagree about how to do this!

9. the rhetorical triangle
• logos (the logical and factual
elements of persuasion)
• pathos (the emotions and
affective elements of
persuasion)
• ethos (the credibility of the
speaker, and the values of an
audience)

10. how does rhetoric work?
• “we identify with those things that we believe enhance our vitality in the
world, and tend not to see the negative in them” [philoguy]
• “by corollary, we tend to exaggerate the negative in those things we find
threatening, and/or do what we can to ignore them” [philoguy]
• “both of these processes are often largely automatic and
unconscious” [philoguy]
• our actions flow from here…

11. now consider news
media
• funded in the US as an income-
bearing activity
• no longer the “loss leader” for
entertainment divisions
• funding base demands what “gets
eyes,” so anger and anxiety are
privileged economically
• “talking heads” are cheaper to
produce than investigation
• we identify with those who we
perceive as advancing our
interests

12. now think about
religion
• intimate nature of religious
knowing
• telos of religious knowing
(towards an end of eternity)
• religion as shaped by practice
and family and context
• religion embedded in mediated
culture

13. rhetoric in media culture
• when you consider the rhetorical triangle in media culture, you begin to
recognize some basic shifts
• what constitutes authority is shifting (no longer held by church institutions
automatically)
• how we understand authenticity is changing (friendship and feelings take on
a much larger role)
• how we understand agency is complicated (let alone thinking about God’s
agency)

14. flattening of authority structures

15. religious experience no longer looks only like this

16. but also like this

17. and where is God’s agency in all of this?

18. the combination is combustible
• media, news and religion combine in an election year
• pathos and ethos come to dominate
• partisan divides emerge that do not allow for thoughtful engagement
• we retreat into “like-minded” spaces rather than finding ways to ground
ourselves with faith in complexity

19. so what can we do?

21. invite wonder, explore complexity

22. sharing complexity
• amplify contradictions
• widen the lens
• ask questions that get to people’s motivations (What is oversimplified about this
issue? How has this conflict affected your life? What do you think the other side
wants? What’s the question nobody is asking? What do you and your supporters
need to learn about the other side in order to understand them better?)
• listen more, and better — humans need to be heard before they will listen
• expose people to the other tribe (What do you think the other community thinks of
you? What do you think of the other community? What do you want the other
community to know about you? What do you want to know about the other
community?)
• counter confirmation bias
Ripley

23. we can do this with faith!

24. we have to start by refusing to live in only apathy
and/or anger

25. we are called by the specificity of our faith to
engage in voting, it is not something to do lightly or
to forgo — and our faith convictions help us to stay
grounded in doing so, and to stay hopeful in the
midst of the challenges

26. characteristically Lutheran leanings…
• “emphasis on living the distinction between law and
gospel”
• “emphasis on the goodness of embodied and ordinary
life and the way in which the embodied and the ordinary
mediate God’s self-disclosure”
• “emphasis on history with special deference to the
Lutheran Confessions of the sixteenth century and to the
teachings and person of Martin Luther”
Mark Edwards

27. living the distinctions between law and gospel
• “Lutherans, following Luther, confess that human beings are at the same time righteous and
sinful, simul justus et peccator”
• Luther: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly
dutiful servant of all, subject to all”
• “once free from the law by grace through faith, we Christians should voluntarily subject
ourselves to the law for the sake of our neighbor and undertake service to others, not
for any reward that such service might be thought to merit, but out of spontaneous love in
obedience to God”
• “the Christian… lives simultaneously in the kingdom of the world and in the kingdom of
God, simultaneously subject to both the secular government and the spiritual”
• “for the Lutheran human reason is God’s greatest gift, distinguishing humanity from all other
animals”
Mark Edwards

28. these are both/and convictions… they demand a
willingness to live in and with complexity

29. “Understanding that believing Christians are all
equally priests and are called to live out their faith in
loving service to the neighbor through ordinary
occupations, Luther and Lutherans after him have
affirmed and celebrated all aspects of ordinary,
everyday life.”
Mark Edwards

30. “Because of their critical acceptance of the secular
Lutherans need to be particularly sensitive to
boundary conditions where secular reason is prone
to err badly”
Mark Edwards

31. this is precisely the intersection where our current
polarization, as well as an emphasis on emotional
response, can obscure human reason and cause
us to “err badly”

32. “Drawing on Augustine but also various medieval
developments, Luther’s distinction between the “two
kingdoms” attempts to capture aspects of human life
“coram Deo” and “coram mundo,” “before God” and “before
the world.” The “world” includes not only government or
secular authorities but everything else necessary for living in
the world including education and the institutional expression
of the church. … the “world” is also the realm in which
human reason holds sway as “the most important and the
highest in rank among all things….” At its root the distinction
parallels that between gospel and law and aims at ensuring
that the two are not confused.”
Mark Edwards

33. here is where we need to rely on God’s grace
drawing us to our neighbor, and refuse a narrow
understanding of what constitutes “the world”

34. If your religion seems to separate you from those
who are not of your faith, be assured that you don't
understand what you think you believe in!

35. ELCA documents
• 1991: Church in Society
• 1999: Talking Together as Christians about Tough Social Issues
• 1999: Living the Faith: A Lutheran Perspective
• 2013: Voting Rights for All Citizens
• 2018: Civic Participation and Voter Education

36. Web resources for fact-checking
• snopes.com
• politifact.com
• factcheck.org
• NPR’s factcheck

37. “our job is to discern how to make affirmations in a
world of ambiguity, how to deal with uncertainty in
an uncertain world. That involves reliance on God,
not because God resolves our ambiguities into
clear-cut, iron-clad certainties that circumvent our
travails, but because in turning to God we enter a
Way...”
AKM Adams

38. we can do this together…
more resources for voting at the MN Secretary of
State’s Office

39. Q & A

40. citations
Mark Edwards, “Characteristically Lutheran leanings” Dialog, June
20018 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/
10.1111/1540-6385.00099)
Rhetorical triangle image (http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/
rhetoric-overview/the-rhetorical-appeals-rhetorical-triangle/)
news logos (open google search)
book titles and last supper images (open google search)
all other images by mary e. hess
philoguy essay (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/
2008/3/7/14240/33912)
brain image (https://www.networkforgood.com/lesson/brain-science-
behind-online-giving/)
Amanda Ripley, “Complicating the narratives” (https://
thewholestory.solutionsjournalism.org/complicating-the-narratives-
b91ea06ddf63)

41. mhess@luthersem.edu
meh.religioused.org