The Lutheran Tradition and Education
by Darrell Jodock
Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota

Part of the Web companion guide to Our Calling in Education: A Lutheran Study

This essay will endeavor to address two questions: why does the Lutheran tradition value education?  And what kind of education does it value?  I begin with a series of observations and definitions.

Although its importance is not often recognized or discussed, the Lutheran tradition places a high value on wisdom.  Included in this high evaluation are both what I will call "theological wisdom" and what I will call "human wisdom."  "Theological wisdom" concerns the God-human relationship, and "human wisdom" concerns human relationships.  I do not mean to draw a sharp line between these two.[1]  That is, "human wisdom" is not separate from or uniformed by what God has done in our behalf.  Nor is our understanding of God unaffected by whatever human wisdom we possess.

By "wisdom" I mean an understanding of how relationships work and what does or does not strengthen them, of how communities work, and of what does or does not, in a particular circumstance, benefit the lives of others.  Wisdom is enhanced by experience, by empathy, by reflection, and by learning, and it helps to guide decisions and actions--especially decisions and actions designed to benefit someone else, but also those which may bring a long-term benefit to oneself.

Luther valued education because it enhanced wisdom.  If wisdom is the goal, then we can distinguish between "learning" and "education."  "Learning" is what adds to our knowledge.  It is important in its own right and may sometimes enhance wisdom, but often it does not.  A person may learn how to repair the engine in a car or learn how chemicals interact to produce a new compound or learn the major dates in U.S. history or learn the names of all the NFL quarterbacks or learn the principles of accounting or learn how to improve one's game of golf without any of these increasing one's wisdom.  It is possible to possess a great deal of learning and still be a fool (just as it is to be ignorant and be a fool).  On the other hand, a person can also learn about the Civil War in such a way as to understand how unresolved social divisions can lead to overwhelming human tragedy or study Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in such a way as to understand what it is like to be an immigrant worker at a meat processing plant today.  Such learning is far more likely to contribute to wisdom. 

Although education can enhance wisdom, the latter is not always dependent on formal education.  Folk traditions and the experience of negotiating the complexities of a tightly-knit community often are important sources of wisdom.

I

Our first question is why the Lutheran tradition values wisdom so highly.  Let me begin with "theological wisdom."

For Luther an interpersonal relationship is the best analogy for understanding God and humans.  God's involvement can be described in terms of adoption, of forgiveness, of promise.  Faith can be understood in terms of trust, "fear and love" (Small Catechism), gratitude, and hope.  These are all relational terms.  Over against the tendency in his day to define faith as agreement with doctrines, Luther argued that faith honored God by trusting God and trusting God's promises.[2]  Faith was not a matter of the intellect alone but a new orientation of the whole person.

Luther distinguished between law and gospel.  Law is whatever reminds us of our responsibilities to God and to each other.  Gospel is the announcement of what God has done, is doing, and will do on our behalf.  Both law and gospel are part of the dynamics of a healthy relationship, so both are important, but gospel is what builds, nourishes, and sustains the relationship, and in that sense it has priority.  Luther found this distinction so important that he said there was only one thing needful for a theologian: the capacity to distinguish law from gospel.  This capacity is what I am calling "theological wisdom."   It is wisdom because it understands the dynamics of a relationship.  That is, a given series of words, in itself, can be either law or gospel.  What determines whether it is one or the other is not only the words themselves but also what is heard, what is actually communicated to the other person.  The person distinguishing law from gospel has to understand the effect of these words on another person as well as their meaning and intent.

Luther himself struggled for years because he heard biblical phrases such as "the righteousness of God" as a demand to be righteous rather than a description of what God was providing for him.  He was hearing gospel words as law.  So, the confusion of law and gospel was not just an academic matter; it directly affected his religious life.  In this sense, every believer needs to be able to distinguish law from gospel.

If the message of Christianity could be adequately contained in doctrines or beliefs, then education may not be necessary.  Learning would be sufficient.  That is, the magisterium of the church could decide on a list of required teachings, and the believer could merely learn them and accept them.  But if we need to distinguish law from gospel, then education is important--specifically, the kind of education that produces theological wisdom.  Such theological education is important for children, for adults, for college students, seminary students, and the life-long learning of clergy and laity.

A commitment to developing theological wisdom through education is an inherent and indispensable feature of the Lutheran tradition.

II

The question under discussion is why the Lutheran tradition places such a high value on wisdom.  The next part of the answer is why human wisdom is so important.

Just as the Lutheran tradition is not satisfied to reduce the God-human relationship to the acceptance of beliefs, so it is not satisfied to reduce the human-human relationship to a set of do's and don'ts.  The Lutheran ethic is quite simple: a believer should do whatever benefits the neighbor and/or the community.  Luther was clear that violations of this obligation include not just harmful acts but also the failure to act.  The difficulty here is that the ethic is not simply one of proper intention (so that I've fulfilled it if I intend to help my neighbor) or proper motive.  The determining factor is whether the act actually does benefit the neighbor and/or the community.  In Luther's words, "love of neighbor is not concerned about its own; it considers not how great or humble, but how profitable and needful the works are for neighbor or community."[3]  To determine this, one needs to understand the neighbor/community in all his/her/its specificity, one needs to understand the likely effects of one's own actions and words on the neighbor/community, and one needs to understand what the neighbor or neighbors actually need (that is, what genuinely enhances and fulfills a human life and what enriches a community).   In other words, one needs human wisdom.

In his 1524 open letter "To the Councilmen of all Cities in Germany that They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools," Luther wrote:

Now the welfare of a city does not consist solely in accumulating vast treasures, building mighty walls and magnificent buildings, and producing a goodly supply of guns and armor.  Indeed, where such things are plentiful, and reckless fools get control of them, it is so much the worse and the city suffers even greater loss.  A city's best and greatest welfare, safety, and strength consist rather in its having many able, learned, wise, honorable, and well-educated citizens.[4]

Luther continues:

But, you say, everyone may teach his sons and daughters himself, or at least train them in proper discipline.  Answer: Yes, we can readily see what such teaching and training amount to.  Even when the training is done to perfection and succeeds, the net result is little more than a certain enforced outward respectability; underneath, they are nothing but the same old blockheads, unable to converse intelligently on any subject, or to assist or counsel anyone.  But if children were instructed and trained in schools, or wherever learned and well-trained schoolmasters and school mistresses were available to teach the languages, the other arts, and history, they would then hear of the doings and sayings of the entire world, and how things went with various cities, kingdoms, princes, men, and women.  Thus, they could in a short time set before themselves as in a mirror the character, life, counsels, and purposes--successful and unsuccessful--of the whole world from the beginning; on the basis of which they could then draw the proper inferences and in the fear of God take their own place in the stream of human events.  In addition, they could gain from history the knowledge and understanding of what to seek and what to avoid in this outward life, and be able to advise and assist others accordingly.  The training we undertake at home, apart from such schools, is intended to make us wise through our own experience.  Before that can be accomplished we will be dead a hundred times over, and will have acted rashly throughout our mortal life, for it takes a long time to acquire personal experience.[5]

The benefit Luther is seeking here is human wisdom: knowing "what to seek and what to avoid" and being "able to advise and assist others accordingly."

If human wisdom can be enhanced by education, then education is valuable for the individual and for the community.  Both benefit.  But the chief beneficiary is the community.

III

In the "Christendom"[6] of sixteenth-century Germany, Luther envisioned "Christian schools" supported at public expense.  As twenty-first century Americans, we live in a religiously pluralistic society,[7] a "post-Christendom" society.  What does Luther's vision of education imply for our setting?

Luther's open letter recommends--for the sake of the community--public education.  Even education that does not take into account the soul (that is, education that is not overtly religious) is valuable.

Now if . . . there were no souls, and there were no need at all of schools and languages for the sake of the Scriptures and of God, this one consideration alone would be sufficient to justify the establishment everywhere of the very best schools for both boys and girls, namely, that in order to maintain its temporal estate outwardly the world must have good and capable men and women, men able to rule well over land and people, women able to manage the household and train children and servants aright.  Now such men must come from our boys, and such women from our girls.  Therefore, it is a matter of properly educating and training our boys and girls to that end.[8] 

And elsewhere Luther is very explicit about Christians serving the community

Therefore, if you see that there is a lack of hangmen, constables, judges, lords, or princes, and you find that you are qualified, you should offer your services and seek the position . . . .

Here is the reason why you should do this: In such a case you would be entering entirely into the service and work of others, which would be of advantage neither to yourself nor your property or honor, but only to your neighbor and to others.[9]

Or, to cite one more example:

We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not to himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian.  He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love.[10]

The implication is that if the community needs schools, Christians should "step up to the plate" and help provide them.  And Luther has already argued that communities do in fact need schools.  Therefore, there is little doubt that a Lutheran vision of education should support public education.

How does "wisdom" fit in?  Not only does recognizing the value of wisdom mean support for education, it also implies support for a particular kind of education--what we have been calling "education" rather than just "learning" or "training."

What about parochial schools for children?   Given the vision we have been describing, the answer seems mixed.

On the one hand, as believers, Christians in the Lutheran tradition are convinced that the teachings of the Scriptures and of the Christian tradition contribute significantly to wisdom, to the richness and quality of human life.  They provide a solid basis from which to assess social needs and cultural developments.  Human understanding without such a rich grounding in religious tradition is often either superficial or distorted.  A parochial school can integrate the study of Scripture and Christian tradition into its curriculum, and that is a distinct advantage.

On the other hand, the Lutheran ethic involves service to the entire community, not just to the church, and the kind of wisdom needed to serve that larger community comes from interacting with it.  Hence, certain kinds of parochial education fall short--that is, any kind that cuts itself off from the world and (whether intentionally or unintentionally) creates an enclave rather than an arena of engagement.  The Lutheran vision involves a paradoxical relationship with the larger society, one that simultaneously digs deeply into its own tradition and focuses its service on the larger world, one that simultaneously distinguishes its priorities from those of the surrounding world and is engaged thoroughly in that world. 

In various parts of the country, Lutherans operate elementary and secondary schools.  So long as they do not fall into the problems mentioned above, they can be marvelous contributions to our church life and our public life.  They can model wisdom-oriented education that takes seriously the ethic of service to the neighbor and the community.  And, in an overt way not possible in public schools, they can draw upon the wisdom of Scripture and the Christian tradition.

IV

If we turn our attention to college education, what has already been said about public schools applies also to Lutheran support for publicly funded post-secondary colleges and universities.  In "Temporal Authority" Luther argued that, for the good of the community, Christians should support the authority of governments, even if Christians do not themselves need its laws.   Similarly, for the good of the community, Lutherans should support public universities, whether or not they or their children attend them.

Lutherans have the wonderful legacy of church-related colleges.[11]  They are important for the same reason good parochial schools are.  But two additional advantages deserve mention.

The first is that late adolescence is the time when young adults work out their sense of vocation.   (I do not mean their occupation or profession, but their sense of who they will be and how they will or will not be engaged with the larger community.[12]) 

Participation in an educational community that values vocation and encourages its development, that brings together faith and politics, faith and economics, faith and art, faith and contemporary science, etc., and that develops the skills of leadership--participation in such a community enriches the educational experience, develops wisdom, and contributions to the well-being of society as a whole.

The second is that church-related colleges, in a way that is not true for K-12 schools, are a resource for the church--a resource that is, unfortunately, under-utilized.  For a variety of reasons, congregations in our society tend to emphasize the private dimensions of faith and to reinforce those activities that maintain the church.  As a general rule (and I applaud every exception!), they provide little help or encouragement to congregants who struggle to embody their faith, deeply and meaningfully, in their daily life--at work, in their voting and other activities as a citizen, in their leisure, as volunteers, as neighbors, etc.  Because the theological education of clergy has focused mostly on the crucial task of understanding the tradition (biblical studies, church history, systematic theology, liturgics, and the like), they often feel ill-equipped to initiate and lead programs that focus on ministry in daily life.   What clues laity find elsewhere come in the form of platitudes too superficial to be of much help and/or reflect a view of church and society out of tune with the Lutheran tradition.  What the church-related colleges offer is a place of intersection, a place where faith and science, faith and politics, faith and the arts come together.  Out of that interaction comes a vocabulary for engagement.  However, so long as church-related colleges remain isolated from adults in congregations, so long as church-related colleges are perceived only as places to educate adolescents, this potential contribution can never be realized.

At present, many of the colleges related to the ELCA are reaffirming and re-articulating for themselves the importance of their Lutheran identity.  Given the tendency of other Protestant colleges to drift away from their respective denominational identities, this is a noteworthy development.  It would be unfortunate indeed if the Lutheran church were to be the one place where the church drifted from its colleges rather than the colleges drifting from the church.

V

Theological education includes (but is not limited to) seminary education.   As seminaries train pastors and other leaders (rostered and not), they make a crucial contribution to the church.  Such education helps to develop wisdom of both kinds, but especially theological wisdom.

Allow me to make but two observations about theological education.

First, in an era where students' understanding of the biblical and Christian tradition is often so impoverished, it is tempting for seminaries to focus relatively narrowly on teaching that tradition.  Learning and exploring it is, of course, indispensable.  But, if theological education is to fulfill the vision we have been describing, then it too needs to be broader.  That is, it needs to equip seminary students not just to lead congregations but also to provide leadership to the communities in which those congregations are located.  If individual Christians are to serve the neighbor and the community, congregations must also do so.  Pressures from both outside and inside the congregation militate against this, so (in community-oriented, wisdom-oriented Lutheran seminary education) leadership in serving the larger community (and inspiring laity to do so) needs to be a priority alongside of learning the tradition.

Second, the seminaries of the ELCA have been given a mandate not only to educate pastors and rostered leaders but also to provide assistance in the theological education of the whole people of God.  As already indicated, to be equipped for ministry in the world, the people of God need both a deeper understanding of the tradition and help in understanding their discipleship amid the intersections of faith and the other spheres of daily living.  The best strategy would be for a partnership to develop between the seminaries and the Lutheran colleges, because each kind of institution has expertise at one of those needs: seminaries with teaching the tradition and colleges with exploring and understanding the intersection of faith and life.

VI

When Luther produced a catechism, he did not focus on doctrine.  He instead explained the Ten Commandments, the Lord's prayer, the sacraments, and the Apostles' Creed and interpreted them in a relational way.  For example, with reference to the first article and in response to his own question "what does this mean?" he wrote:

I believe that God has created me and all that exists; that he has given me and still sustains my body and soul, all my limbs and senses, my reason and all the faculties of my mind, together with food and clothing, house and home, family and property; that he provides me daily and abundantly with the necessities of life, protests me from all danger, and preserves me from all evil.  All this he does out of his pure, fatherly, and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness on my part.  For all of this I am bound to thank, praise, serve, and obey him.  This is most certainly true.[13]

This is relational language. 

 When explaining Christian freedom, he also used relational language:

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.  A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.[14]

When giving advice to rulers, he used relational language:

He must give consideration and attention to his subject, and really devote himself to it.  This he does when he directs his every thought to making himself useful and beneficial to them[15] [and when he bases his judgments on reason rather than exclusively on laws[16]].

Luther did not think there was a prescribed pattern of government.  People were to use their reason and their wisdom to create one.  Nor did Luther prescribe a single pattern for church organization.  The people of God were to use their theological wisdom and human wisdom to create one.  Likewise, Luther did not think there was a detailed code of ethics that could fit every situation.  People were to figure out how to love the neighbor and serve the community.  For this, he relied on their wisdom.

In addition to the priority of relationships, another closely related feature of Luther's thought was his readiness to employ and endorse paradoxes.  Note, for example, the paradox of Christian freedom cited above or the paradox of being "simultaneously justified and a sinner" or the paradox of law and gospel or the paradox of "faith alone" alongside his affirmation of the importance of reason.  Paradoxes are usually absent from a system of beliefs or a set of ethical principles, both of which emphasize coherence and didactic clarity.  Something quite different is at work where paradoxes flourish, as they do in Lutheran thought. Paradoxes are expressions of wisdom and signal a thought world in which wisdom is valued.  In order to deal with these paradoxes, every believer needs a certain level of maturity--both intellectual maturity and a maturity of faith.  What brings them to that point is education.

So, the priority of relational understanding, the high valuation of theological and human wisdom and the fondness for paradox all suggest that the Lutheran tradition is committed to education, not just to learning.  And these priorities suggest that education is important for both the well being of the Christian community and the well being of the larger community.  Education (of the right, wisdom-oriented sort) equips Christians to serve their neighbors and the community.  There is no higher ethical priority!