A Theological Perspective on Educational Choice
by Louis T. Almen

This paper seeks to answer three questions. First, why should Lutherans get involved in education issues? Second, what is the basic problem public education is dealing with today? Third, what has changed in American life to lead many to view educational choice that includes private and parochial schools as a positive public policy? In addition, the paper seeks to show how Lutheran education makes a positive contribution not only to understanding and living the faith but also to meeting serious societal problems. Finally, the paper offers seven theologically informed criteria for decision-making on these issues.

A Précis
At a turning point in the history of Western Civilization, Martin Luther gave leadership to the development of universal, state-supported education. Lutheran theology provided the foundations.

In the United States, the common school developed in the 1830s. The common school was based on pillars belonging to the movement known as the Enlightenment.

These pillars have been shaken by the developments of the twentieth century, and the society built on those foundations has begun to crumble. We are at another turning point in history.

The erosion of societal foundations derived from the Enlightenment makes foundations of democracy coming from the Classical and the Judeo-Christian tradition more important. These traditions possess an educational resource with which to deal with current social needs.

A tension has existed from the beginning between a concept of America as a melting pot that creates a unified American Culture and a concept of America as a cultural pluralism held together by commitment to its political charter. During the course of the last half-century, the latter concept has gained the upper hand.

Many contend that educational choice, which represents pluralism in education, should be extended to include private and parochial schools. By this means, they believe, resources for democracy derived from Classical, Jewish, and Christian sources can be made more readily available.

As Lutherans we believe that God is active in building community and that we are called to join in building community by serving in society out of love and witnessing to the Law and the Gospel. Leadership in education of children and youth lays the groundwork for the society of the future and thereby makes a fundamental contribution to building community.

I. The Lutheran Reformation and
Elementary and Secondary Education
Most of the schools in Germany when the Reformation began were cathedral and monastic schools. As the monasteries emptied and ties with the Roman hierarchy were severed, primary and secondary education needed new sponsorship, a broader clientele, and a new curriculum. The new economic activity spurred by entrepreneurship, the idea promoted by some radical reformers that the Holy Spirit was sufficient without instruction, and the general disruption caused by the break with Rome led to sharp declines in the number of schools and in school attendance. Martin Luther and the Reformers at Wittenberg were deeply disturbed by this development and resolved to take the lead in reforming education in Germany.

Luther's first major answer to the crisis in the schools came in a 1524 publication, To The Councilmen Of All Cities In Germany That They Establish And Maintain Christian Schools.1 Public authorities were to assume responsibility for schooling, using monastic endowments where they existed and taxing where required. Furthermore, Luther made it clear that not only the children of the rich but also of the poor should be given educational opportunity, girls as well as boys. In other writings he suggested curricula and encouraged correspondents to use his colleague Philip Melanchthon as a consultant on school reform. In a sermon in 1530, "A Sermon On Keeping Children In School," he forcefully argued for compulsory school attendance.2

Others had advocated school reform earlier and had written much more extensively about it, but it was Luther, the dynamic center of the sixteenth century shift in religious, ecclesiastical, and societal orientation, who was the effective catalyst for educational change. He put the taxing power of the state behind the sponsorship of education. Pushing for universal education, Luther urged parents to send their children to school and advocated compulsory attendance. He liberalized the curriculum and kept humanistic studies in a dialectical relationship with the study of Scripture and doctrine. For these radical changes, Luther is properly called the founder of universal public education.

The recovery of the Gospel message that we are saved by grace received through faith was the basis of the break with the Church of Rome. It also became the primary source for the creative reordering of theological doctrine and the subsequent reorganization in the societies that adopted Lutheranism as the state religion or that were significantly influenced by Reformation thinking. These teachings provided the foundations on which educational programs were developed. Their relation to Lutheran education is described in section three of this essay.

II. The Common School in America
The Constitution of the United States makes no provision for education. Education was not debated at the Constitutional Convention, except for a proposal to insert a clause establishing a national university, which was voted down. Only three of the state constitutions of the original thirteen made a free system of compulsory education an obligation.

The common school movement did not take hold until the 1830s when the new nation was expanding in industry, agriculture, population, and territory. It was an era of optimism and reform. The father of the common school, Horace Mann, was imbued with Enlightenment ideals and the dogged determination of a reformer.3

Immigration increased in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Between 1832 and 1932 over 40,000,000 immigrants found their way to our shores.4 The common school, which Mann believed could successfully socialize and enculturate children, was the instrument by which those from other cultures and speaking other languages could be Americanized. While the immigrants themselves were culturally formed by the societies from which they emigrated, their children, the second generation, would become Americans in every sense of the word by means of the common school.

One other source of support for the common school was the emerging philosophical opinion on knowledge. A growing number of the learned in America at this time were becoming acquainted with the philosophical empiricism of John Locke, who had influenced many of the framers of the Constitution. According to Locke, it is possible to derive objective knowledge through the empirical process. On that basis people can make correct judgments about things. Because empiricism provided an Archimedean point from which to judge, it was an appropriate universal foundation for the common school. Church schools with their separate denominational belief systems could not provide this foundation for a pluralistic society.

A. The Four Foundational Pillars of the Common School
The foundation of the common school consisted of four pillars. The first pillar was the Enlightenment confidence in human capacity to shape a better world; science can solve human problems. The Enlightenment lifted up education and knowledge as the builder of civilization and the engine of progress. It sought to remove mystery and abolish superstition by projecting a rational world. It believed in the inevitability of progress; reason would prevail and peace and prosperity would result. These Enlightenment views, particularly those about the capability of universal education to develop responsible, enlightened citizens were shared by Horace Mann and the general population.

The second pillar was the conviction that the common schools could imbue each rising generation with moral virtues. For the Enlightenment, morals could be derived by reason alone and did not need religion. Those who believed in religion within the realm of reason alone, such as the Deists, did not view the Ten Commandments as contrary to what reason alone can determine as the right. The McGuffy Readers, which were widely used in the nineteenth century, were filled with moral maxims. Well into the twentieth century, the Ten Commandments could be found in a prominent position on school walls.

The third pillar was the affirmation that the common school would be an effective instrument by which the children of millions of immigrants would become Americanized. The nineteenth and early twentieth century migration to the United States from Europe was perhaps the most extensive migration of peoples in the history of the world. The communication media that have created the "mass society" of the last half century did not exist. No other institution of the nineteenth century was as equipped to enculturate the immigrant culture as the common school.

The fourth pillar was the belief that empiricism delivered objective truth in all matters. The confidence in experience and the use of the scientific method to confirm it played a fundamental role in developing the view that through research not only the secrets of the natural world but also the meaning of history, the purpose of life, and the proper road to the future could be objectively determined and embedded in an educational philosophy for the common school.

When this country's historical accomplishments are taken into account, these beliefs seemed to fit an era that was dynamic, progressive, and productive. There is, however, a growing awareness by many that we are entering a new phase of history. The assumptions of the "modern era" as the founders of our country knew them are no longer tenable. It is time for restructuring in the light of the critical review of "The Pillars."

B. The Undermining of the Foundations
Optimism about the capacity of science and education to create an era of prosperity and peace has been dimmed in the twentieth century by two massive World Wars, fifty years of Cold War, several examples of genocide in addition to the Holocaust, and an environmental crisis that is largely the product of the material progress science and technology have made possible. The Nobel scientists who gathered to debate whether science had, overall, been a positive or negative for humankind could cite as many negatives as positives. Many had doubts on the reversibility of our environmental degradation. Global projections on population and prosperity describe a situation of more people and more poverty, not a foreseeable blossoming of global prosperity.5

The confidence that Horace Mann and his teacher respondents exhibited about the capacity of well trained teachers and well chosen curricula to produce model citizens who love both God and humans and contribute positively to the formation of the good society has been brought under serious doubt and open disbelief. The existence of a large body of citizens who "look out for No. 1" at the expense of others, the dramatic rise of crime, and the seemingly uncontrollable violence that has made so many areas unsafe are evidence of the failure to develop the citizenship required for a sound society. Civility and decency, honesty in government, safety from crime, security in employment, and many other things seem harder to come by. Confidence in the improved quality of life has eroded, and belief in inevitable progress has departed.

The idea of a morality sustainable by reason alone and capable of guiding the course of a secular society--a morality to which people of reason could appeal to all others on the basis of reason and be confident of assent--has proved to be unattainable. This is evident in the failed attempt of philosophers to win universal acceptance of their efforts to establish a secular ethic or to validate ethical statements of the past. For example, some truths Americans and Europeans hold to be self-evident in regard to human rights are not self-evident to peoples in many other cultures, particularly people in Asian cultures.6

In place of the moral maxims that formerly were part of public education and the "associational" relationship with the commandments of the Judeo-Christian tradition, " values clarification" has been introduced in many school systems. Values clarification avoids the issue of moral law by using a method that assists the student to determine what his or her values are but takes pain not to assert authoritative moral statements of right and wrong.

Columnist William Raspberry, in a piece entitled "Ethics Without Virtue," points out that examining issues without coming to conclusions about what is right and wrong has about as much to do with ethical behavior as learning about religion has to do with salvation. "You can't exercise moral authority," he says, "while denying the authority of morality."7 Driven by court decisions away from an "associational" relationship with the religion that has provided the moral tradition undergirding Western culture, and delinked from a philosophical endorsement of natural law by the current dominance of logical positivism and linguistic analysis in philosophy, public education has been hard put to find an acceptable basis for engaging in moral education. Public education has been left "twisting in the wind" for a socially endorsed foundation for moral education. In addition, the eroding of family life has shifted an increasing responsibility for moral education to the public school. It is a classic double bind.

In regard to a foundation for moral education, the problem for the public school is part of a larger problem involving the political-moral basis of human rights. After discussing recent attempts to find an independent (secular) conception of justice and human rights apart from more general, typically religious conceptions of the good, Michael Perry, a legal scholar, writes, "Political justification from which disputed beliefs about human good are excluded lacks the normative resources required for addressing our most fundamental political-moral questions about human rights."8 Jurgen Habermas in his interesting Theory of Communicative Action reminds that Max Weber, one of the eminent founders of modern sociology, who studied this issue in depth a generation ago, maintained the view "that a principled moral consciousness not embedded in a religious world-view can be neither philosophically explained nor socially stabilized."9 History may someday conclusively answer whether or not Max Weber was right. So far history appears to justify his position. The lack of moral character in aggressively secular societies such as the Third Reich and the Soviet Union in this century support his position as well.

The third pillar of the common school--its utility in Americanizing the children of immigrants--has been seriously questioned in recent research. In Beyond The Melting Pot, the authors Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan study the thesis that America has truly become a melting pot, where, in M.B. Jean de Crevecoeur's words, "individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men."10 After studying the survival of ethnic communities in major cities, particularly New York City, they offer the following conclusions: "The fact is that in every generation, throughout the history of the American republic, the merging of the various streams of population differentiated from one another by origin, religion, outlook has seemed to be just ahead - a generation, perhaps, in the future."11

Oscar Handlin, the great historian of immigration, has also identified how seemingly ineffective the common school has been in accomplishing that "melting together" function.12 In 1993 he wrote, "In the four decades that have elapsed since Brown, all its gallant expectations have faded. Education has not improved; indeed very likely it has deteriorated. Urban schools are not less segregated than before; they are probably more so. And racial peace is as elusive as ever."13

Surely the failure to melt ethnics and races into an entirely new American independent of origin and race is not because the common schools have shirked the assignment or deliberately scuttled the effort. Even to imply that would be unfair to the dedicated efforts expended to reach that goal.

The fourth pillar, the empiricist epistemology from Bacon, Locke, Voltaire, Pierce, James, Dewey, and others, has also been under attack in the last half century. Current epistemology has all but demolished objectivity's claim to rule in matters of knowledge. This is particularly pertinent to the public schools since the scientistic pragmatism of John Dewey was the reigning educational philosophy in American elementary and secondary education for the greater part of the twentieth century. Dewey's philosophy of naturalism operated as an ultimate authority, like a religion, enjoying the privileges of "free exercise" but shielded from the restrictions of the "establishment clause."

Over the last century the ideas that the mind is a mirror of reality has been taken apart. Three separate but inter-related developments have assaulted it. The empiricist assumption of a type of tabula rasa or clean slate receptacle capturing an undistorted representation of the world "out there" was first faulted by Freud as he uncovered the sub-conscious and unconscious influence on the way the human mind acts.

A second development tending to erode empiricist epistemology has been what is sometimes called the sociology of knowledge. Karl Mannheim and many others have analyzed the power relationships involved in knowledge and how the power aspect of knowledge shapes the way what is presumably known is delivered. Knowledge is sometimes twisted to legitimate power by those in power, and those out of power who wish to possess power sometimes manipulate knowledge to justify the change.

The third development that has shaken the empiricist pillar is the analytic critique of the carriers of the "outside world" to consciousness, the study of signs, signals, symbols, words, sentences, and concepts. Language is the medium by which the sign or word can be grasped. It operates, however, by a set of rules established not by a world "out there" but by human interpreters. The study of linguistics has shown the degree to which meaning is a human construct of subjective origin.

These epistemological developments have not unseated modern physical science. Its theoretical achievements concerning the way the physical universe works, buttressed by the technological achievements based upon that science, remain largely unchallenged from outside the physical sciences, although it tends now to be viewed as an interpretation of reality rather than as a mirror image of reality.14 The new epistemology, however, has served to dethrone the presumed objectivity of empirically based systems of thought from which to judge history, morals, values, and meaning. The objectivity of what are called "metastructures" of history, economics, and values, for example, is skeptically received. In this sense, the presumed authority imputed to the common school that could operate supposedly within the realm of objective reason, free from the dogmatisms of religions and individual cultures, is gone. It has been undercut by the new epistemology that has cast doubts on empirically derived metastructures and has shown major changes in perspective in the physical sciences.15

While history and the accumulating insights from several academic disciplines have shaken the intellectual foundations on which Enlightenment thinking was based, its optimism about humanity's capacity to solve all problems and create an ever improving world continue in many groups to be a kind of secular faith. The end of the Cold War and the heady talk about a new world order gave rise to many expressions of optimism. One American essayist even suggested that history has reached its end point with the universal acceptance of democracy.16

More recent assessments of the post Cold War world, however, are much more sobering. Realism has returned.17 The realities with which democracy must contend in order to survive and prosper include coping with problems stemming from the dysfunction of institutions based on those collapsing foundations. That is the next subject.

C. Stage III--Modernism or Stage I--Post-modernism
Historians like to divide history into periods. Analysts of our current cultural situation differ on whether it is best described as stage III of Modernism or stage I of a new age which, yet somewhat amorphous, is designated as stage I of Post-modernism.18 To the public such concerns of the professional historians and culture critics are of little interest. What the social critics have been tracing out in terms of societal breakdown and the upsetting changes and accommodations those changes have required, however, are of vital interest to the public.

Current social critics often cite descriptions of earlier eras of social disintegration. The words of John Donne, in 1611, when the "ties of kinship and village and feudal obligation were breaking" are often quoted:

'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All just supply, and all relation:
Prince, Subject, Father, Son, are things forgot,
For everyman alone thinks he hath got
To be a Phoenix, and that then can bee
None of that kind, of which he is, but hee.19

The breakdown of family, the erosion of the authority of institutions, the loss of respect for tradition, the absence of coherence in knowledge, and the departure of the spirit of commonweal are endemic in our current social situation. Some call this condition "advanced individualism," where significant numbers acknowledge accountability to no authority beyond the self. Such a condition is both the result and the cause of social disorder.20 It is closely related to the kind of education that children and young people receive whether or not that education acknowledges an ultimate authority, the priority of justice, the unity of all things, freedom for responsibility to and for others, as well as a spirit of compassion capable of working for the commonweal. In his book Agenda for Theology, - After Modernity - What?, Thomas Oden writes: "In sum, these are axial assumptions of later-stage, falling - to - pieces modernity:

Contempt for premodern wisdom
absolutized moral relativism,
the adolescent refusal of parenting,
idealization of autonomous individualism
awed deference to reductionist naturalism,
and, scientific empiricism as the final
court of appeal in truth questions."21

These assertions about the shaking of the intellectual foundations of the Enlightenment by the events of the twentieth century and the critique of the truth claims of empiricisms as applied to the "Life world" indicate the importance of foundations or world views such as those from our Græco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions, the culture out of which democracy first emerged. The next section will seek to describe resources that tradition carries that provide foundations for education and counteract "advanced individualism."

III. The Foundations of Lutheran Education and
Basic Societal Requirements
While the political philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth century and the pervasive influence of Enlightenment thinkers played a role in the shaping of the American Constitution and the common school, democracy has a long history and has emerged from Classical, Jewish, and Christian sources. The Protestant Reformation in particular was the decisive influence on the first political-social contracts in the New World in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia.22 The following paragraphs describe some contributions of Lutheran theology as a foundation for the kind of education needed to sustain a strong democratic society today.

A. The Foundations of a Lutheran World View
Lutheran theology contends that the Christian world view does provide a comprehensive and compelling interpretation of the nature and destiny of man. It holds that Christian faith inspires the best of human potentials and sets us free. Further, it believes that the Bible lays out the proper functions of the structures of creation that enable human life and culture.

Christian faith provides a guide for the pathway through life and successfully unites nature and spirit. Upholding the unity of creation and the role of reason in delineating nature, it has enabled modern science. At the same time, the Christian faith has maintained that unaided reason is incapable of understanding the mystery of existence and the purpose of life. The will of the Creator has been most perfectly revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ.

Lutherans uphold the ecumenical creeds, which are often called the classic Christian faith. The recovery of the classic faith at the time of the Reformation involved its restatement in view of distortions that had developed. This restatement sharpened the Christian world view. Several perspectives of the Lutheran statement of the Christian faith are of particular significance as a foundation for education.

Central is the Lutheran understanding of justification by grace, received by faith alone. Not only is this the basis of the human relationship with God but also the basis for human freedom. By grace humans are free lords of all subject to none. By God's grace we have inalienable rights. At the same time, however, because the love of God constrains, humans are to be servants of one another. This understanding of freedom joins it inexorably to responsibility and makes it a pillar of Lutheran education.

Another pillar of Lutheran education is the conception of the vocation of the Christian. Luther's recovery of the Biblical view that the Christian life is to be lived out in the world, in and through people's various callings, has linked the living of the Christian faith directly to contributing to the public good and the good of the individual. The distinctive Lutheran understanding of the two kingdoms--for example, state and church, with separate identities and functional interaction--is important to education. The Lutheran concept of how the different structures of creation--family, state, and church--are each directly accountable to God and to one another contributes to a view of social responsibility. Together they are a pillar of Lutheran education.

There is distinctiveness as well to the Lutheran grasp of the radicalness of human sin, and to the understanding that we are justified even though our sinful nature remains. The Lutheran view of how the dialectic between Law and Gospel promotes growth in moral understanding and behavior is a contribution to human development. These also constitute a pillar of Lutheran education.

Obviously, these foundations of education are meant for those who are Christians or are open to Christian faith. They are not presented as the basis of the education in the common school of a multi-cultural, multi-religion society. They do, however, offer insights into criteria by which to evaluate all education, and they do constitute pillars for an education that deals with the problems of Stage III, Modernism and Stage I, Post-modernism as the following paragraphs of this section will reveal.

B. Lutheran Education and Accountability to Authority
Græco-Roman education developed a paedeia, or core, that was to be the heart of education for each new generation. This classical education made a distinction between knowledge that was basically innate and was drawn out--e ducere--by the teacher and knowledge gained from the outside world alone. Logic, mathematics, the good, the true, and the just emerged from dialogue with a teacher. The other form of knowledge was derived by the study of external phenomena, of nature, history, the effect of medicines, and other empirical things. While both forms of knowledge were part of "the core," that which was inherently innate and drawn out by dialogue was primary.

Jewish and Christian education also developed a paedeia and made a distinction between the two forms of knowing. The Greek version of the Old Testament used the Greek word denoting knowledge from within to refer to the form of learning dealing with Torah, the revelation of God in the events of the Exodus and the Law. Led by the prophets and teachers and aided by the Spirit of God, humans could understand the revelation of the Holy One, the Great I Am.

In the New Testament this same Greek word describes what the disciples learned from Jesus and from the event of His death and resurrection. It was knowledge confirmed by the Holy Spirit and leading to the confession of faith in Jesus as Lord. It is the nature of this knowledge that it acknowledges obedience to God as the authority beyond the self.

This knowledge issues in a life of discipleship. The disciple is enrolled in a continuing dialogue with the Lord, who teaches through the Bible, the written Word of God. The disciple is held continually accountable to the Law, and renewed by the grace received in the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. The Christian's accountability is to God and to those who bear delegated authority in home, work, community, and church, and to all need that lays appropriate claim upon the conscience.

C. Lutheran Education and a Public Life Related to the Creator
A second need--similar to the need to get beyond an individualism that does not acknowledge an accountability to a power beyond itself--is to move beyond a public life disengaged from the divine source of its charter. This source is acknowledged in "we behold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." That all people are created equal is not a truth derivable from observation of particular people, statistical studies, or societal practice. It is derivative of a concept of justice drawn out of an innate understanding. This basic truth is affirmed from our knowledge of what is just and that our Creator is just. From this self-evident understanding of justice, we claim our inalienable rights that are a gift of a just and gracious God.

What is so clear in our social charter is not so clear, however, in our public paedaia. The inauguration of the President of the United States is preceded by an invocation of God. The opening of each legislative session of Congress is begun with prayer. Our military requests prayer from chaplains who are paid by tax money. Federal and state prisons frequently employ chaplains paid by tax funds. But our schools cannot open with a prayer, even one offered publicly by a student, or with a moment of silence.

An invocation is permitted in a Presidential inauguration but not at a school graduation. We may pledge allegiance to our republic but not to the One who has endowed us with our rights even though we acknowledge our nation to live under God. Nor can we allow any representation of what any group of believers understand to be the character of our rights and obligations under God; the Ten Commandments, for example, are not to be posted. Nor can any teacher or principal cite a higher authority than school rules in disciplining a student for misbehavior other than perhaps a delegated parental authority or a civil ordinance.

What cannot be done at a public school in regard to acknowledging the divine source of our civil rights and responsibilities can be done at a parochial school. Lutheran theology and the education based upon it acknowledge the divine source of our civil life, holding that all rightful earthly authorities derive their authority directly from God and are accountable to the Law of God in discharging their responsibilities. Patriotism and support for law and order and for the upholding of the civil rights of citizens are highly regarded and promoted by the Lutheran ethos. Lutherans acknowledge that each of the "orders or governances" of creation have a responsibility to the others. Parents have obligations under civil law, and civil authorities are in turn held accountable by citizens. The church itself is under civil law in discharging its affairs in society and in turn participates as part of its free exercise of religion in expressing its conscience on public issues, and in witnessing to civil authorities in respect to their accountability to the Law of God.

Lutheran education is not an alienating force or disruptive of civil order. Quite the contrary, it seeks to build community, contribute to the common good, witness to equality, and uphold the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It does this in obedience to God. In his Letter Concerning Tolerance, John Locke wrote, "The taking away of God, though even in thought, dissolves all."23

IV. Redefining E Pluribus Unum
All over the world cultures and nations, new and old, are struggling with the process of redefining the ways particular cultures and sub-cultures can retain their integrity within larger societies and nations. It is a fact of life in the new nations of Africa and Asia, in the newly forming European Union, in the countries of the former Soviet block, in Central and South America, and in the United States as well. In the book Flashpoints, Promise and Peril in a New World, the authors put it this way: "On the eve of the twenty-first century a new idea of order is evolving. In an era of diffused and devolving power, its cornerstone is not dominance but global pluralism. Its major aims are empowerment and accountability both within and among societies."24 This "new idea of order" has been developing within the United States in ways that involve educational choice. To that subject and the contribution Lutherans might make we now turn.

A. The Conflict Between Assimilation and Cultural Pluralism
In his seminal work on American ethnicity, The American Kaleidoscope, Lawrence Fuchs shows how the national political culture has evolved to accommodate ethnic diversity through the emergence of a more inclusive civic culture in which voluntary pluralism flourishes. Diversity itself has become a unifying principle.25

Three views have contended for preeminence in American civic culture from the colonial era onward. Fuchs designates them as the Massachusetts, Virginia, and Pennsylvania approaches to e pluribus unum. The Massachusetts Bay Colony preserved unity by restricting citizenship to those who subscribed to its religion and the practices of its theocratic community. Even after those restrictions were removed, the concept of limiting citizenship to "people more like us" continued to influence the idea of preserving e pluribus unum through assimilation. New England laid claim to being the birthplace of American democracy and the shaper of uniquely American values, and immigrants needed to be enculturated into those values.

The Virginia approach advocated immigration into a system where indentured servanthood and slavery were the means of developing agriculture and industry. Virginia grew rapidly in population, but only a small percentage enjoyed citizenship. Even after indentured servants earned freedom, the use of slaves kept the former servant class from flourishing. The slow access of civil rights by slaves, women, and Native Americans, and the continuing problems of the poor to secure equality before the law indicate the hold the Virginia approach has had in American history on defining e pluribus unum.

In Pennsylvania, under the guidance of William Penn, a policy was adopted that encouraged the immigration of Europeans regardless of religion and admitted them to civic membership on the same basis as the native-born. This policy did not, however, avoid conflicts between and among the native born and immigrants of different nations, languages, and religions. Pennsylvania, however, established no restrictions on access to citizenship other than allegiance to the principles of the republic.

The assimilation and denial of citizenship approaches to defining e pluribus unum hung on in one form or another for decades. Over time, however, the Pennsylvania approach of only requiring for citizenship subscription to the principles of the republic--instead of to a particular religion or culture or ethnic background--won out and was guaranteed by law and later twentieth century Supreme Court rulings.26

Tying citizenship to a civic culture alone made it possible to be a hyphenated American and be every bit as American as any highbrow Boston Brahmin. Indians, Blacks, Italians, Germans, Japanese, Jews, Eskimos, Hispanics, and others have suffered at various times from nativist attacks as "not belonging." There is still sophisticated questioning of this nation's capacity to maintain the unum, the center, in the light of immigration from non-Western cultures and the "take over" of several large urban areas by ethnic Americans.27 Over the last few decades, however, many have viewed the multiculturalism of the United States as an asset and as a model for linking people of different nations, religions, cultures, and language groups within a common civic unity.

The change from viewing pluralism somewhat negatively, suspiciously, or in a begrudging manner to seeing it in a positive light is of relatively recent origin. The first American president to lift up diversity as a core value was Franklin Roosevelt. In 1940 in a speech in Brooklyn he said, "We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions--bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality."28 Previous presidents had decried the idea of hyphenated Americanism.

Peter Drucker's prescient volume from 1957, Landmarks of Tomorrow, is one of the earliest acknowledgments that we are moving into a post-modern world. In calling for another major age of political philosophy to lay the groundwork for the future, he writes,"One major starting point must be pluralism which is a living tradition only in the United States."29 The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Indian Education Act of 1972, and other legislative developments have sought to correct elements in our society that followed the Virginia approach of subjugation of citizenship rights. Hyphenated Americans, representing a rich cultural pluralism, have not only been finally recognized but also widely embraced.30

The movement away from assimilation to a positive view of cultural pluralism provides support for educational choice. The fears of assimilationists that Polish, German, Irish, or Italian Catholic parochial students or German Lutheran parochial school graduates would be less patriotic or less involved in politics have proved to be groundless. Present day parochial schools themselves often reflect the multicultural makeup of their communities, and today inter-cultural interaction is everywhere: the workplace, the armed services, labor unions, higher education, and in the mass media. The argument for the common school as critical to maintaining the unity in e pluribus unum no longer appears to be persuasive to many. Nevertheless, it remains a major argument used against educational choice involving private and parochial schools. Educational choice as consistent with cultural pluralism is an important area for continuing discussion since it would appear to be an institutional structure in keeping with current beliefs concerning e pluribus unum.31

B. The Culture Wars and School Choice
Cultural pluralism has moved from being negative or neutral to positive but other areas of pluralism have turned negative. Sharp differences exist in American society on such issues as abortion, affirmative action, homosexual marriages and adoptions, the distribution of condoms in schools, and forced busing. These issues are contested in the courts, through demonstrations, and by harassment tactics.

Many of these issues are debated on moral grounds. Since the authority of morality tends to derive from the sacred, contestants also view the sacred differently. Yet the division between sides in the culture wars is not generally between Catholics, Protestants, or Jews but between conservatives and liberals in each of the religious groupings.32

The culture wars do not appear to be rooted only in religious interpretation. Some sociologists see them as an expression of class war between the old and the new middle classes. The new middle class of knowledge workers and professionals has been growing rapidly in the last few decades. They tend to be salaried with a large proportion supported by tax money, products of higher education, and involved in dealing with non-material goods such as education, health, human resources, public relations, and quality of life. Their collective vested interests and their values tend to be different from the old middle class who were and are mostly composed from those who are involved in production of material goods.33

Social critics with an historical orientation not only see the cultural wars as a social class conflict. They also see it as a conflict between people who are still possessed with Enlightenment optimism and who believe in progress through social engineering and traditionalists who have become cynics about "experts and social engineering" and who view the good society as the product of the cultivation of moral virtue.34

People who are pro-choice, for example, express the view that "it is irresponsible to bring children into the world when they cannot be provided with the full range of material and cultural assets essential to successful competition."35 People who are pro-life, on the other hand, "believe that children need ethical guidance more than they need economic advantages."36 The pro-life group also reacts negatively to feminist disparagement of housework and motherhood, to "the idea that family duties--rearing children, managing and caring for a home, loving and caring for a husband--are somehow degrading to women."37

Not surprisingly, the contest between these opposing points of view also focuses on the public school. Whoever controls the education of children is "one leg up" on controlling the future. Battles over local control of schools, textbooks, condom distribution, and sex education are natural outgrowths of existing culture wars. Supreme Court decisions rejecting the right to celebrate religious holidays in school, hold school prayer, or post the Ten Commandments (while secular ideologies functioning as religions, as arbiters of right and wrong, have been granted free access in public schools) have created conscientious objectors in large numbers, so that there exists a growing, alienated, and increasingly politically active sector of American society.38 This situation has been one of the driving forces behind the growth of private and parochial education as well as conservative and liberal strategies to "take over" school boards.

Growing political pressure has led many state legislatures to consider, and in some cases to pass, state laws authorizing school prayer by students at such functions as graduations, ball games, and assemblies. Students must plan, approve, and lead the prayers. The rationale frequently offered is that "the biggest problem facing our nation is that people have turned away from God."39

Such efforts tend to be gestures that perhaps satisfy some need for a religiously plural people to see acknowledgment of the divine in public life. However, they can also contribute to a civil religion cult that appears perennially. American civil religion consists of a very general belief in God that holds that America has a special God-given role to play in the world, and that sanctifies United States' political ideology and interests. While civil religion has often been encouraged by churches and synagogues, it easily becomes a form of idolatry rejected by prophetic religion (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and without real power to shape life except in the most general way.40

There is a long list of points of contention between opposing parties in the culture wars that would need to be negotiated before a modus vivandi could be reached. The problem of developing acceptable solutions is complicated and will require both transformational and transactional political leadership.41

One way to reduce the tension in public schools tied to the culture wars is to allow pluralism in educational options, including private and parochial schools. The level of resentment in those who reject teachings and values presented in public education, who are forced to pay taxes for what they cannot support, and who cannot themselves afford a private or parochial education, adds a powerful force to the alienation in society. Further, the attempt to use the common school to promote a supposedly approved set of cultural values (other than equality and freedom) is a reversion to an assimilationist approach to e pluribus unum, and is inconsistent with the definition of cultural pluralism that has emerged in relation to ethnicity. Some cultural anthropologists understand culture wars as more than a contest between conflicting mentalities. They see it "as the substance of a struggle to create an institutional structure for the country that enough of its citizens would find sufficiently congenial to allow it to function."42

In the discussions that are required to work through the issues in creating an educational structure that contemporary citizens would find sufficiently congenial to allow, we believe Lutherans have something to share. Lutheran theology is centered upon justification by grace through faith. This theology abjures the self-righteousness so evident in aggressive contenders for particular points of view, and at the same time it takes seriously obedience to the Law of God.43 Lutheranism has traditionally held a high view of the importance of education and has recent memories of the dangers of unchecked ideologies. Its colleges and universities have been leaders in preparing people as teachers, and its theology urges the vocation of active citizenship. Its two kingdom theology acknowledges a proper separation of church and state, while it encourages interaction on the basis of the Law of God. Lutheranism does not seek a theocracy, but it does hold civil authority accountable to uphold the sanctity of life expressed in the Ten Commandments.

Lutherans also have a history of sponsorship of parochial schools. In Lutheran congregations today the pros and cons of educational choice can be discussed by people who often have personal knowledge of each option. The following section on theologically informed criteria for guidance in decision-making on these issues is meant to be helpful for such discussion.

V. Seven Theologically Informed Criteria
Several of the issues inevitably involved in discussions related to education and, in this case to educational choice, revolve around specific concerns such as eligibility for government subsidization, the basis of the Church's involvement in education, equality of opportunity, the nature of quality education, education for citizenship, and cost effectiveness. The following statements reflecting these concerns seek to provide insights from theology to assist in making judgments in regard to these matters.

Eligibility - The concept of educational choice is based on the primary responsibility of parents to oversee and provide for the education of their children. This right and responsibility have been advocated by Christian theology, including Luther and Lutheran theology. They have been upheld by the United States Supreme Court in Pierce, Governor of Oregon, versus Society of Sisters, 1925. The concept of eligibility for tax-based support for citizen entitlements from the government, usable by citizens in non-governmental agencies, has also been well established in health, welfare, and higher education. The eligibility belongs to the individual and is usually related to need. The grant is designated for secular purposes.

Lutheran theology and the U.S. Constitution recognize the separation of church and state. Lutherans reject the idea of using the power of government to coerce faith. True faith cannot be coerced. The state cannot be run by the Gospel as an evangelical theocracy. The state is accountable not to the church but directly to God who holds it accountable to the Law. One role of the church is to remind the state of that accountability.

Lutherans also believe that while church and state have separate responsibilities as institutions, they do functionally interact, officially recognize each other, and in ways appropriate to each, join in support of common ends. The concept of citizen entitlements usable in church-sponsored health, welfare, and educational institutions represents joint effort in support of common ends. The involvement in a joint effort is, in the case of the state, enacted in law and tested in the courts. Church sponsored agencies must determine what limitations imposed by government regulations they are willing to accept in deciding to participate in an activity with some form of government restriction.

Evangelical - The heart of the church is the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news of justification by grace through faith. It is the center of what the Church is all about. If the Church is involved in providing education at whatever level, the Gospel is to be its heart.

The church's concern in public education is more limited. It rejects the attempt to use the power of government to promote any religion, or secular ideology functioning as a religion, or a civil religion. Its concerns have to do with enculturation, equity, excellence, edification, and efficacy. Those concerns are equally applicable to church-sponsored education.

If educational choice is extended to include private and parochial education, the concern of the church is to insure that whatever arrangements are made do not interfere with the preservation of the Gospel as central to the education it provides.

Equity - This education issue is of great importance to minorities, the poor, the physically handicapped, new immigrants, and everyone who has a passion for justice. That should include all Christians. Love without justice is only sentimentality. Starting with Luther, Lutherans have supported universal education that serves rich and poor, boys and girls, each receiving that education needed to develop talents and prepare for vocation.

Neither Luther nor subsequent Lutheran understandings of equity have viewed justice in strict numerical terms. Some balance must be struck with the distribution of scarce resources, but it must be skewed to meeting evident need, which is most often unequal. Justice involves judgment.44 It cannot be simply stated in a formula but is expressed in decisions exercised by those who have carefully considered each situation in the light of doing the best possible with each legitimate claim.

Several provisions providing greater opportunity and equity such as busing, magnet schools, provisions for the handicapped, and funding choice add additional cost to education. Some critics have charged these measures with creating inequities within districts by providing a costlier education for some than for others. The passion for justice that faith constrains requires something more than a criterion of the greatest good for the greatest number, a formula that begs for an arithmetic answer. It requires struggling to understand the character of the need realistically. To do justice requires a struggle to assess specifics, and that requires a passion for justice. One of the qualities those of us who bear the name of Lutheran should endeavor to bring to decisions on educational policy is an inspired passion for justice.

Excellence - Excellence has two sides. Its etymological root means to try harder, to excel in earnestness of effort. The other side of excellence is the higher level of achievement that effort produces. When understood in this way and tied to virtue and service, excellence reflects the Biblical injunction. Persons are enjoined to strive, to run the race with all that is in them. When someone has done his/her best, each has achieved that excellence of which all are capable.

In the history of our culture, however, certain things stand out as exemplary of excellence of what is good, noble, and of good report. These are held as standards for measurement. In that sense excellence is a high standard, the aim of striving. Excellence is related both to the way education is pursued--with earnestness--and to the standard lifted up for emulation.

Excellence viewed theologically is not elitist. It does not separate out the very gifted to form an elite corps who become the brahmins of a student class system. Excellence is to pervade the school: in the earnestness of the teachers' commitment, in the high value placed upon education in family and community, and in student expectations. It is expressed in the character of the persons who are lifted up as exemplary of what the student should strive to be.45 When an educational policy is debated, voters should diligently inquire into how the policy would promote excellence: the earnestness of effort and the promotion of what is good, noble, and of high repute.

Edification - One of the distinctions of importance in matters dealing with schooling is the difference between instruction and education. Instruction is an essential ingredient of education, but it is possible to have instruction without much education. To educate means more than to inform. Education includes the development of values and virtues, growth in the stages of moral behavior, development of talents, and training in the discipline of study. Education does not simply convey information but develops human capacities.

When a school focuses upon building up those capacities, upon growth in what it means to be human, it is educating. The process of building up those capacities is edification. What is to be developed is character that involves basic human values such as honesty, commitment to learning, a cooperative spirit, respect for others, doing one's part, fulfilling obligations, honoring those in authority, and love of country. Edification includes those intellectual skills that enable us to act intelligently; these are reading, writing, doing mathematics, operating the tools of learning, and communicating. These are the skills required for critical intelligence. Education in the arts builds up the aesthetic aspects of what it means to be human.

True virtue is to do all to the glory of God. Public education in the United States as presently structured is to be strictly neutral on matters of religion and is prohibited from placing the worship of God even in rudimentary form (other than the indirect reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance) in public schools. To do all to the glory of God is a matter to be taught in the home and the church. Yet schools that focus education upon building up those capacities that belong to humans and contribute to the edification of youth are valuable. They are enabling individuals to have something to offer God.

Schools that offer the same courses can have very different levels of success in edification. If there is no discipline in the school, not much character building takes place. If teaching is just another job, where instructors offer information for so much money without regard for whether or not anything happens to those being instructed, not much edification takes place. Because schools that do not do well in edifying exist in many places, educational choice may help to address that problem.

How well students achieve on standardized tests may be one index of edification, but a closer examination is necessary to determine whether or not students are also growing in character, in the aesthetic realm, and in athletic skill. In what sense is this a theological issue? Schools that do not edify are failing to discharge their stewardship for the building up of the God-given capacities of their students.

Enculturation - As a pluralistic society the United States requires that its citizens be enculturated with the values that are necessary if a plural society is to work. Civic education is the means by which persons of different ethnic and religious groupings are enculturated into the political and social reality that is America. The American ideals promoted in civic education owe much to the Judeo-Christian heritage. Equality, fraternity, liberty, the pursuit of human fulfillment, and other democratic values are the derivatives of more than two millennia of Western civilization in which the Biblical faith played a central role.

The dynamic of the Biblical tradition that drives community building is love and the passion for justice. Love is concerned about "the other," goes out of its way to be helpful, reaches out to embrace, and seeks as much community as the other will allow. It goes beyond tolerance; it is more positive. Love includes justice and seeks it with a passion as the sine qua non of community.

A society as diverse as the United States must continually work at achieving those spiritual qualities that define and unite it. Christians have a responsibility to work with the Lord who creates community. Luther had a great interest in and commitment to building unity among the different Germanic tribes. That unity had not been previously achieved, and Luther promoted it. In his commentary on the 82nd Psalm, he writes, "Observe that [God] calls all communities or organized assemblies the congregation of God, because they are God's own, and He accepts them as His own work, just as, in Jonah; He calls Nineveh 'a city of God'. For he has made them, and makes all communities; He still brings them together, feeds them, increases them, blesses and preserves them."46 Building community is God's work and all those who contribute to it are working as co-creators with God.

As Christians, whether we are involved with public, private, or parochial education, we are to promote the civic community of which we are all a part. Multicultural education is as appropriate for private and parochial education as for public schools. Lutheran theology encourages participation in politics and dialog on public issues. Citizenship is a Christian vocation. Enculturation into civic society is a preparation for exercising that vocation.

Efficacy - Practicality and effectiveness are highly regarded in the Scriptures and are values Lutherans honor. The Scriptures indicate that words without deeds are empty. Luther excoriated the curriculum of scholasticism that kept students in school for years without preparing them for anything useful; he had no time for empty pedantry. The two virtues that were used most frequently in respect to fulfilling one's calling were diligence and thrift. They are part of the formula that has been summarized as the "Protestant Ethic," diligence plus thrift equals service to God.

The virtue of thrift is related to how the means accomplishes the end it seeks. Life is too short and resources are too limited to waste effort. Cost effectiveness is an essential element of the virtue of thrift. A desirable end, however, is to be valued for itself. It is not to be forsaken because of cost, but it must be weighed in relation to other desirable ends. Thus thrift is not an end in itself but a way to secure as many desirable things as possible.

As Lutherans for whom thrift and diligence are theological injunctions, efficacy is a criterion to be applied to educational proposals.47 Is the end, the purpose of the proposal, a worthy goal? Is it cost effective in relation to other desirable ends? Like justice that must be evaluated thoroughly and requires passion, so the effort expended to determine efficacy must be undertaken with diligence in order to keep means and ends in optimal relation.

VI. Lutheranism as a Piety of Engagement
In this engagement of Lutheran theology with education, this essay has attempted to demonstrate the relevance of the resources of our faith for issues we face in the public square. The corollary to their relevance is their application in concrete situations. A final word about Lutheranism as a piety of engagement with the world is in order.

Lutherans believe we have all been given a vocation, a calling from God to realize our full humanity as we live out our life within the structures of the world in community with one another. We are heirs of the blessings of God, set free by grace received by faith. We are called to be our neighbor's keeper, constrained to carry out our responsibilities with a passion for justice and excellence.

Lutherans have a realistic assessment of human failure. Human nature is turned in on itself; narcissism makes commitment to the common good difficult to maintain. Even though we lay claim to be God's children through forgiveness, we remain faulted and need constantly to fight against our self-centeredness. Christians live in the tension between failure and renewal. While we do not expect a perfect world, we are constrained by the Spirit of God to seek justice and those things that are good. We are emboldened by that Spirit, pulled out of negativism and pessimism by renewal through the Gospel. We are brought back daily to our calling to work as co-workers with God in what needs to be done to renew and fulfill God's creation. We are to live a piety of engagement with real problems.

Luther was engaged with the renewal of education in his day. We stand in his tradition. We can do no less!

Endnotes

1. Brandt, Walther I., ed. Luther's Works, Vol. 45. The Christian in Society II., Muhlenberg Press, Philadelphia, 1962, pp. 311-339.
2. Schultz, Robert C. ed., Luther's Works, Vol. 46, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1967, pp. 207-258.
3. Mann, Horace, On The Crisis In Education, edited by Louis Fuller. The Antioch Press, 1965, Yellow Springs, Ohio, pp. 157,158, cf. Thorp, Louise H. Until Victory, Little Brown & Co., Boston 1953. Messerli, Jonathan, Horace Mann, A Biography, Alfred Knopf, 1972, N.Y.
4. Ahlstrom, Sydney, A Religious History of the American People, Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 1972, pp. 735, 736.
5. Kennedy, Paul, Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Random House, N.Y. 1993, pp. 99,100.
6. MacIntyre, Alastair, After Virtue. Also, check the news reports on the International Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria in August 1993. The Asian delegations refused to accept the total conference report indicating that their culture held different views on human rights from those in the West.
7. Raspberry, William, national column, "Ethics Without Virtue," Dec. 16, 1991.
8. Perry, Michael J., Love and Power, The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics. Oxford Un. Press, N.Y., Oxford, 1991, p. 42.
9. Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 2. Life World and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, Trans. by Thomas McCarthy, Beacon Press, Boston, p. 290. About Habermas' approach, Francois Lyotard in his The Post-modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Un. of Minn. Press, 1984, writes, "Is legitimacy to be found in consensus obtained through discussion, as Jurgen Habermas thinks? Such consensus does violence to the heterogeneity of language games...Here is the question: is a legitimation of the social bond, a just society, feasible in terms of a paradox analogous to that of scientific activity? What would such a paradox be?" p. XXV, Intro.
10. de Crevecoeur, J.G.J., Letters From An American Farmer, Fox Duffieldd and Co., N.Y. 1904 pp. 54,55.
11. Glazer, Nathan; Moynihan, Daniel, Beyond the Melting Pot, M.I.T. Press, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1964, pp. 290,291.
12. Handlin, Oscar, The American Scholar, Spring, 1993, p. 185.
13. Ibid., p. 186.
14. Barbour, Ian. Religion in an Age of Science, Gifford Lectures, 1989-1991, p. 219.
15. Rorty, Richard. The Consequences of Pragmatism, (Essays: 1972-1980), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1982, cf. pp. 84, 85. Rorty summarizes Dewey's problem in the following sentences. "He wanted, in a way, just what he had wanted in the 1880s - that psychology and metaphysics should be one. But the way in which they were to be made one consisted merely in lifting the vocabulary of the evolutionary biologists out of the laboratory and using it to describe everything that could ever count as 'knowledge'." p. 84.
16. Fukuyama, Francis, "The End of History?," The National Interest, Summer, 1989, pp. 3-18.
17. Wright, Robin and McManus, Doyle, Flashpoints, Promise and Peril in a New World, Alfred Knopf, N.Y., 1991. Cf. "The Rise of Nations and Democracy and its Discontents." pp. 47-103. Vaclav Havel, poet president of the Czech Republic, put the optimism about democracy in proper perspective in a speech to the U.S. Congress: "As long as people are people, democracy, in the full sense of the word, will always be no more than an ideal...One can approach it as one would the horizon, in ways that may be better or worse, but it can never be fully attained." p. 87.
18. Cf. Toulmin, Stephen, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, The Free Press, N.Y. 1990. "Approaching the third millennium, we are at the point of transition from the second to the third phase of Modernity or, if you prefer, from Modernity to Post-Modernity." p. 203. Bellah, Robert H. et.al, Habits of the Heart, Individualism and Commitment in American Life, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1985. "There is a widespread feeling that the promise of the modern era is slipping away from us. A movement of enlightenment and liberation that was to have freed us from superstition and tyranny has led in the twentieth century to a world in which ideological fanaticism and political oppression have reached extremes unknown in previous history. Science, which was to have unlocked the bounties of nature, has given us the power to destroy all life on earth. Progress, modernity's master idea, seems less compelling when it appears that it may be progress into the abyss." P. 277.
19. Bellah, ibid, p. 276; Toulmin, ibid, p. 66.
20. Cf. Oden, Thomas C., Agenda for Theology - After Modernity ---What?, Zondervan 1990.
21. Ibid., pp. 50, 51.
22. Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma, The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Harper Torch Books, N.Y., 1944, 1962. Cf. Chapter 1, pp. 3-25, esp. 9-12 for a summary of the Protestant contribution to American democracy. For a research study on the outcomes of Lutheran schools see, How Different Are People Who Attend Lutheran Schools? By Milo Brekke, Concordia Publishing House, 1974, 151 pp.
23. Bellah, Robert, N., op. cit., The Good Society, Knopf, N.Y. 1991, p. 180.
24. Wright, Robbin and McManus, op. cit., p. 219.
25. Fuchs, Lawrence H., The American Kaleidoscope, Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic Culture, Wesleyan University Press, University Press of New England, Hanover & London, 1990. Cf. Chapter 1.
26. Ibid., pp. 55-67.
27. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., The Disuniting of America, Reflections on a Multicultural Society, W. W. Norton & Co., N.Y., London, 1992.
28. Fuchs, op. cit., p. 360.
29. Drucker, Peter, Landmarks of Tomorrow, Harper and Row, N.Y. & Evanston, 1957, p.228.
30. Fuchs, Lawrence, op. cit., pp. 314, 315.
31. Cf. Holt, Claire, Benedict, R. Anderson, O'G, and Siegal, J. Ed. Culture and Politics in Indonesia, Cornell University Press, 1972. "The Politics of Meaning" by Geertz, Clifford. Geertz's thesis is that politics is the process of creating an institutional structure that represents the beliefs and thoughts of its people. In this definition of politics educational choice would constitute an institutional structure consistent with cultural pluralism.
32. Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars, the Struggle to Define America, Basic Books, a division of Harper/Collins, 1990, p. 319 ff., and Wuthnow, Robert, The Restructuring of American Religion, Princeton University Press, 1988. See particularly Chapter 9, "Fueling the Tensions" pp. 215-240.
33. Berger, Peter, A Far Glory, The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity, The Free Press, N.Y. & Toronto, 1992, pp. 52-62.
34. Lasch, Christopher, The True and Only Heaven, Progress and its Critics, W. W. Norton & Co., N.Y. & London, 1991, p. 489.
35. Lasch, Christopher, ibid., pp. 488, 489.
36. Ibid., p. 489.
37. Ibid., p. 489.
38. Hunter, James Davison, op cit., pp. 143-158.
39. News Press, Ft. Myers, Florida, 3/15/94, p. 1. The quote is from David Coton, President of the American Family Association of Florida.
40. Bellah, Robert, "Civil Religion in America," Daedalus, "Religion in America," Winter, 1967.
41. Burns, James McGreggor, Leadership, 1978, Harper Colophan Edition, 1979, 2.V., Hagentown, San Francisco, London. In this study of presidential leadership, Burns defines two important forms of leadership which he labels transformational and transactional leadership. The first calls citizens to forgo private interests for the common good. The second seeks to negotiate policies and structures that accommodate the legitimate interests of different groups. Both forms of leadership are required in resolving difficult, complicated cultural differences. For a brief definition by Burns see page 4.
42. Holt, etc., op cit., pages 314 and 315.
43. Peters, Ted, Dialog, Winter, 1993, "Theology Update," pp. 37-52, especially p. 51.
44. Bornkamm, Heinrich, Luthers World of Thought, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Missouri, 1958. See especially p. 290 and pp. 247-250. See also Wingren, Gustaf, "The Christian Calling According to Luther," Augustana Quarterly, January 1942, Vol. XXI, No. 1, p. 10.
45. See Philippians 4:8, 9. Here Paul holds up standards to contemplate, what is true, honorable, pure, pleasing, commendable, worthy of praise and ascribes the word excellence to these things. He then goes on to use himself as a model, "Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me." It is clear that excellence does not consist only in academic achievement when viewed theologically but extends to what is honorable, pure, etc.
46. Luther, Martin. The Works of Luther, op. cit. V. p. 292
47. Luther, Martin, Works of Luther, op. cit. II. pp. 198, 199. In his "Treatise on Good Works," Luther writes, "O, this faith is a living, busy, powerful thing! It is impossible that it should not be ceaselessly doing that which is good."

Two Essays on Educational Choice: Lutheran Perspectives
Copyright © 1996 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Produced by the Department for Studies of the Division for Church in Society.  Permission is granted to reproduce this document as needed, provided copies are for local use only and each displays the copyright as printed above.