All tagged Lutheranism

Meyer v. Nebraska, A Lutheran Contribution to Constitutional Law

Meyer v. Nebraska, A Lutheran Contribution to Constitutional Law

William G. Ross

One of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most important civil liberties decisions arose out of a case that began in a one-room Lutheran schoolhouse in rural Nebraska. On a May afternoon in 1920, Robert T. Meyer, a teacher at Zion Lutheran Church’s elementary school near Hampton, Nebraska, boldly continued teaching German in defiance of state law when the Hamilton County attorney entered his classroom. Meyer, a forty-two-year-old father of six, knew that this elected official did not want to offend the area’s large German-American community. “I had my choice,” Meyer later told his lawyer. “If I changed into English, he would say nothing. If I went on in German, he would arrest me…”

Whose Flannery?

Whose Flannery?

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

Like so many others, I was first exposed to Flannery O’Connor in high school when assigned her infamous short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” in English class. My English teacher told the class with obvious delight that the point of the story is that all religious people are hypocrites who will do whatever they can to save their own skin because God sure won’t. I didn’t think much of that and decided to avoid Flannery O’Connor in the future…

Thou Shalt Not Cheat Prospective Lutherans

Thou Shalt Not Cheat Prospective Lutherans

Richard H. Foege

It was out of simple curiosity that I attended the classes. They were three one-hour sessions offered to non-Lutheran adults desiring church membership at the congregation that was my home church during my senior year of seminary. The classes weren’t taught by either of the pastors but by a young parish worker. The first week’s topic was baptism, the second week’s was communion, and the final week was stewardship. By the end of the second week, I had concluded that the teacher may not have been listening very carefully during her confirmation class days when the sacraments were being taught…

Where Have All the Women Gone?

Where Have All the Women Gone?

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

When I was in seminary and later in graduate school, I couldn’t help but notice a seeming paradox: that I was about the most “orthodox” of the women students, but I had come from the most “liberal” background. I was staggered and somewhat disbelieving when women from “conservative” backgrounds related the kind of notions they’d been raised with. I had certainly never been told that my choice of clothing was the one thing standing between young men and sin, or between young men and rape. I had never been told that my chief duty in life was to submit to my husband. I had never been told that I was ontologically disqualified from speaking the word of God on account of my biological sex...