I wonder about Intersectionality and the Lutheran Theological Tradition

I have been reading a lot from colleagues a generation or two younger than me who are imploring our tradition to change. Specifically, in areas of inclusion and intersectionality, two areas our tradition does not carry a progressive track record. I hope they succeed, but I wonder...

Our tradition, for example, is not big on "intersectionality." One way to read the Lutheran theological tradition is to see it as the breakdown of society with the elevation of independence. (This has been the basic Roman Catholic critique of Martin Luther and his tradition since the Diet of Worms in 1521.) If you are going to assert independence as a method of theological interpretation, societal methodologies often take a back seat, especially when facing execution. So although we might wish to include as many people as possible, since we base our inclusion on independence rather than societal rationales, we get a haphazard way of living and being. It's tough to be inclusive if your're the only one.

Our congregations are then centered less in our independence and more in whatever other societal norms and mores are active in our larger community. Although in our theological tradition we claim independence as a value, in our piety we are much less independent, and in some cases we even make our theology subservient to our piety. The result is that those on the margins of society are also on the margins of our congregations, and it's hard to be intersectional when you're in the middle.

On the one hand, Luther offered the possibility for intersectionality* to even be available by placing the contextual situation of the human within his law and gospel paradigm. In fact, the tradition following Luther did an even better job of placing humanity within theological method, so much so that by the time of John Wesley, the Lutheran tradition could be the catalyst for the great Methodist theological tradition centered in a "strangely warmed heart." So the result that those on the margins, or more accurately to date, those who started on the margins of theological discourse, are able to participate at all because of much work done in our Lutheran theological tradition.

But on the other hand, because those following Luther (and in this case Luther himself), were not on the margins in any way but theologically, they could never explicate the intersections that society placed upon our theology. It literally took World War One to get Lutheran theologians to think that maybe God was doing something other in the world than colonizing. This comes from a theological tradition that experienced the Peasant's War, the 100 Years' War, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the American Civil War, and whatever France and Prussia were doing. Because the Lutheran theological tradition was so centered in a rather calcified way within society, and those in the tradition calcified right along with it, the idea of intersectionality, although available for discernment, was never used.

The result is that in the last 100 years, those formed by the Lutheran theological tradition have come to see great benefit in viewing Lutheran piety in more intersectional ways. As different pieties, almost now by defintion intersectional, begin to be lived in society, the way to be Lutheran has come under great change. And all the change arises from its own theological tradition.

For example, when Lutherans of the ELCA (my own denomination) in 2009 voted (not "discerned," as that had been done years before) to allow LGBTQIA+ people to be in relationships (now marriage) and to be eligible to be ordained leaders, the primary theological rationale was to allow those on the margins the same standing before God as those in the center. We used the nascent form of intersectionality, focused through the crucible of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to de-center the piety that had so long been the blinder to our theological radicality. This began, for our theological tradition, the way into the future...and I just wonder what I'll see along the way?

The radicality of the Lutheran theological tradition explodes the colonizing tendencies of Lutheran piety practices. Although for some it might seem too radical, it is the same idea in the theological tradition  that allowed Luther to burn the papal bull against him. We Lutherans have a history of using our theology to de-center our piety, although it goes dormant every now and then it seems. But I wonder how pieties and practices will change?

Take, for example, attending worship. Somehow attending worship became the prime spiritual practice, and the defining piety for our Lutheran tradition. This was so true that as a child I would go to worship with my grandparents and everybody who was healthy that day was "at church." The rest of the week you did whatever you did, but on Sunday you went to the Lutheran congregation. That's how you knew you were Lutheran. Did all those people believe in the right to self-assert their conscience in defiance of government? No. Did all those people believe in the power of the gospel to correct the abuses of the law? Maybe, at least theoretically, although most never claimed to see it in action, especially if it involved themselves. The few sermons I remember were about the power of Jesus Christ to change lives and about being able to free from a lot of rules and norms. The theological tradition of Luther was there, but it was not being used to critique the very piety that was being lived. So what is the point of worship if it no longer defines your religious or theological identity? Why go to worship? That to me is the main reason why worship attendance declines. Worship is no longer part of who you are. The question facing me is can you still be a Lutheran and not go to worship? I wonder...?

Once folks started using that theological tradition to critique that colonizing piety of "Lutheranism?" You begin to get the intersectionality we now experience so often in our congregations. From my reading of the history, the Lutheran theological tradition was always intersectional, but it took us 500 years to apply it to our piety. I wonder what else we've missed?

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.




*Intersectionality is not a term of the Lutheran tradition, but the parameters of the idea seems to fit well with an understanding of Luther's Word of God hidden versus the revealed God of the cross. The Gospel always de-centers the Law in Lutheran theology, and this seems to be the basic motivation for intersectional interpretation as well.