“The rampant destruction of human and non-human life in a world ruled by the totalitarian dictatorship of money and greed, market and exploitation requires a radical re-orientation towards the biblical message, which also marked the beginning of the Reformation....Our churches, congregations, and individual Christians have often become complacent and complicit with the established status quo and have lost their critical-prophetic power to protest, resist, and change what is occurring. God’s justification by grace has been detached from social justice and thus serves as “useless salt” (Mt 5:13). Because the Reformation legacy has gone astray, we must at the same time return to some of Luther’s thought and legacy, as well as standing decidedly against other things he said and did, if this is to become a kairoitic time of transformation today.”  (preface to the 94 theses)

In other words, if justification remains confined to a personal dimension apart from the wider societal, creation-wde implications, then injustices will continue to have free reign, distorting our most basic elationships: with God, ourselves, one another and the rest of creation.

What is unleashed is a power that cannot remain quiet or passive in the face of unjust systems --- because of how they themselves distort what it means to be human and hold people in captivity both spiritually and materially.  Exposing what is operating today is not only a matter of denouncing and extricating ourselves from it.  We who benefit from “the way things are” -- are too enmeshed in the complexities of this web for a straightforward denunciation of this idolatry to be authentic or persuasive.  We are “in and of” that which we are called to critique.

How then might this become a kairos for embodying a bolder public witness to how aspects of the legacy coming from the 1517 Reformation can make critical and provocative differences in how we engage with pivotal societal challenges today?  How might this provide a much different framework, set of assumptions and values, and fundamental shifts in what has brought about these crises today? 

The 94 theses [identified here by #] and related articles in five books published in the global Radicalizing Reformation project can be especially insightful and helpful, and well as many other written resources and organizing efforts here in North America (too numerous to list here).  The following are suggestive of the public crises among others, that especially need to be engaged. Much more has been written and is being done with regard to each of these, and their implications. We encourage you to let us know of such, as an emerging North American network develops.

1. CREATION in CRISIS:   As the worst drought in California history continues, and dramatic changes in the climate occur not only here but throughout the country and world, the manifold crises in creation cannot be ignored.  People of faith must join with scientific and other activist groups in pursuing what is occurring, such as disparate farmers having to tap into the increasingly depleted groundwater, and working for long-lasting systemic policy changes, such as lessening dependency on fossil fuels.

Following Luther, we pursue these and other strategies out of an expansive sense that all of creation is the abode of God, who is in, with and under all that is created. This is in stark contrast to a sense that creation is a means to the end of unfettered human expansion and profit. God graciously “labors” for the sake of the redemption of all of creation (Romans 8).  Sin is the refusal to accept the limits and responsibility of the place of humans in the whole of creation. (http://www.e-alliance.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/docs/God__Creation_and_Climate_Change.pdf)

Many have devoted considerable attention to expanding this sense of the theological and ethical significance of creation, such as through the Lutherans Restoring Creation network (www.lutheransrestoringcreation.org), and have developed a number of articles, resources and strategies, such as focusing on 2017 becoming a time for “eco-Reformation.”   The crisis here is dire because of the many ways creation is being destroyed --- how human beings are becoming “uncreators” (Cynthia Moe-Lobeda) –  and thus, whether there will even be a future of creation.

However, transforming these matters systematically cannot be done apart from attending to how the reigning economic assumptions and paradigm worsen climate change and the other challenges to God's creation.  This tends to be far more controversial and risky to address – but crucial – because “today the forces of economic growth, monetary expansion, and privatization threaten planetary death” (#22).

2.ECONOMIC DISPARITIES: Probably nowhere in the U.S. are the economic disparities between the rich and the poor greater than in San Franciso and the surrounding area.  The cost of housing is so high that it is increasingly difficult for all but the richest 1% to live in San Francisco; people of lower income and/or of color must move elsewhere (the African American population of that city has now dropped to below 6%). Meanwhile, lying on the sidewalks are scores of people who are homeless, desperately needing what individuals, churches and other non-profit organizations can provide them. Those doing so, ask how systemic changes can be made for the sake of greater equity -- for the sake of “sufficient, sustainability livelihood for all” (http://elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Economic_LifeSS.pdfELCA statement on economic life).

“The Bible establishes a political economy of 'enough for all' based on the sharing of what is given for the common good of all (Exodus 16). The reformers were unanimous in believing that the economy should serve the common good and the specific needs of the neighbor. In our time, we ... call for forms of economic life that build on God’s gifts, protect the commons, and produce and distribute goods and services in ways that are both democratic and ecologically sensitive.” (#16)

“Living at the onset of modern capitalism, Luther engaged in systemic critique. Living at the end of this murderous and suicidal period of human history, we must listen anew to the sources of our faith and join others in ‘putting a spoke in the wheel of the car, when the driver is drunk’” [Bonhoeffer]. (conclusion of 94 theses)

In the 16^th century, the financial practice of using money to make ever more money was rather new. “Usury” was the term attached by Luther to a number of practices of  large-scale economic actors, – “the great powerful arch-thieves” who lived off the neediness of the poor, and in their greediness, destroyed the common good.  In a large number of Luther's writings and sermons, his condemnation of  systemic developments was quite blatant. He condemned  how the “laws” of the market were endangering especially the poor.  “When any economic system and its effects are accepted without question –  when it becomes a 'god-like' power reigning over people, communities and creation – then we face a central issue of faith.” (ELCA economic life statement).

So, today when these forces and systems have become far more powerful, pervasive and blatant  – in their damaging effects on our neighbors, communities, and world – why are Lutherans not saying and doing more publicly on this today?  Doing so would be particularly appropriate and strategic for making the wider public aware of how perspectives going back to Luther do make a difference today. Christians, especially those who stand in Luther's legacy, are called publicly to reject unequivocally the destructive elements of the growing profit economy, and to develop constructive alternatives to such.

3. POLARIZATION: What especially immobilizes politics today, particularly in the US.,  are the heightened polarities between sides – such Republicans vs. Democrats, those on the Right vs. those on the Left. Many polarities are developed on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship (vs. immigrants), U.S. “exceptionalism” (vs. the rest of the world).  Alliances or coalitions across these polarities are rare when this “us vs. them” is so entrenched.  This in part is why effective address of the systemic challenges of climate change and economic inequality is so difficult.

Here we find little help from Luther, because of how he took for granted and actually intensified polarities prevailing then. These were exasperated later (anti-Judaism being only one example).  Those seen and treated as “other” often were cast as opponents in the theological points he made quite polemically --- whether against the Catholic church, Jews, Turks (Muslims), “enthusiasts”, or whoever he viewed as “other.” He sometimes did so to the extent of excusing or justifying the use of violence against them, which Luther's followers subsequently and tragically carried out.  No wonder historic “peace churches” have had such longstanding objections to Lutherans at this point!  Systemic patterns of domination, colonialization, and racism became entrenched, which the current “Black lives matter” movement in the U.S., as well a host of contemporary movements throughout the world have continually exposed.  Polarization has too often led to systemic and vicious outbreaks of violence.

Here radical repentance is needed as we approach 2017.  It is not only the vicious polemics and resulting practices that need to be denounced, but questions need to be raised as to whether the very framework traditionally used to cast central Lutheran theological categories (such as “law vs. gospel”) must be examined and perhaps revised, in light of how Scripture  – especially Paul -- is read today. 

New Testament scholar, Birgitte Kahl, points out that  the antithesis of “Jews versus Christians”embedded a deadly enemy construct into the core of justification theology.  In his letter to the Galatians (so central for Luther) Paul was opposing “law” as embodied in and enforced by the Roman Empire, rather than Jewish law (torah).  At the heart of Paul's theological claim is not a polarity of Jews versus Gentiles, nor any other polarity. His radically new insight is that “in Christ” the dichotomies of the current world order are invalidated, such as hierarchical polarities that juxtapose Self and Other, good and evil, righteous and unrighteous, and, as we might add today, Christians vs. those of another (or no) faith.  These vanish in the radically new practice of becoming “one” with another, rather than one against the Other.  (this is further reflected in theses #59-64, and Kahl's related article). Because of how being “in Christ” was subsequently used in a conquering way over others, the freshness of this Pauline insight was soon lost.

“For Paul, the justice of God implies ...that “in Christ” the polarities and hierarchies of this “present evil world order” (Gal 1:4) have been overcome.  “We” are not what segregates us from the “others” but what interconnects us with them. The human divisions of nation, religion, gender, and class, which constitute the “self” as enemy and rival of the “other,” are removed in baptism “like old garments.” A new praxis of becoming “one” through mutuality and solidarity creates a new form of being human – and a new world (Gal 6:2.15). ... God's justice, the justification of the human being, and human justice are all inseparably connected.” (#59)

In his time, Luther did not pursue this, largely because of his adversarial stance toward all those opposing his reformation efforts. In our time, not only must we denounce the deplorable antagonisms that resulted, but insist that solidarity across such boundaries is at the heart of the Gospel.  It is from such a stance of solidarity, rather than from entrenched and often vicious political polarization that more effective address of today's crises of climate change and economic inequality can occur.