This is Ben, and this is Keith,

and this is Main Street Lutherans. And today we've got a returning guest, Dr. Mark Tranvik from Luther Seminary, to come and speak to us about protest in the church. We had touched on this a little bit in our last episode with him. We're going to flesh that out a little bit more about the place of protest in our history as Lutherans.

Indeed.

And it's quite a discussion. Now, Keith is going to be missing from that. That discussion. He was there for the beginning, but got called away for. For other business urgently. So we had to cut Keith loose right away.

But he's sick families.

That's right. But he was. He was with us in spirit.

Right? Yeah. But I did just. Fabulous conversation, and in preparing to. To record this portion of the episode, I. I listened to the recording again, and it really is an awesome episode. I'm really looking forward to having this out in the world for people to engage with and respond to. So.

Yeah, yeah. So leading into this, because Dr. Tranvik is a professor, he uses some terms that I think we should probably cover or lead up to at least before we start the interview. One of those being vocation. We'll talk about that at the end, right. Before we go into the interview. But I wanted to get into sort of some of the. Oh, he talks about. He talks about World War II, talks about the early 20th century, and we touch on Bonhoeffer. But I think one of the important things we need to talk about with Bonhoeffer we don't get into in the talk. And that is one of Bonhoeffer's crucial writings, a book we now call Discipleship. At the beginning of that book, he denotes the differences between what he calls cheap grace and costly grace. Right. Cheap grace being he's convicting mainline Protestants. And that's a term that we have in the United States. They don't have in Germany at the time, but he's talking about the German church. That when we talk about Lutheran theology, the idea that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, that that gives us an out. Because we say that everybody is. Is. Is saved by grace through faith and that we don't have to do anything to earn God's love. We don't have to justify ourselves, that God does that for us, Jesus does that on the cross.

But all of which is true.

It is.

Right.

But Bonhoeffer says there's more to it.

Right?

He says that. That that's cheap grace. And then what Jesus calls us to is costly grace, which is Exemplified by the crucifixion.

Right.

We're back to this theology of the cross idea. And so.

And so rather than the notion that, okay, now we are welcomed, we are forgiven, thanks be to God. Amen. And just walk off now and live our lives however we want, good, bad or sideways, that. That this act of God's grace should convict us, should transform us, change us, you know, all at once or bit by bit or some of both, into the kind of people that God made us to be at creation. People who are active in community, people who are active in the lives of others, people who are looking to, you know, care for the world. Not an attempt to earn the grace, but in response to that grace.

Yeah, and so that's the.

Yeah.

So particularly to repair injustice. That is one of the main acts that Christians, Bonhoeffer would say that Christians are called to do. And so we have.

And Bonhoeffer's life was lived in a context where that was a really extreme case as well during World War II in Nazi Germany. And that'll come up in the episode a bit.

Right?

Yeah. And so we've got biblical examples of that. Right. So we talked about the crucifixion is obviously one of those. The cross is our invitation to this. And then we can look at the apostles lives after.

Right.

That they are persecuted and live dangerous lives just because they are proclaiming the gospel. We go back to the Old Testament too. The book of Daniel is full of it, particularly Daniel in the lion's den. Right. Where Daniel's put in the. In the lion's den and is not devoured by the lions, but is joined by angels.

Right, right.

And then Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego also in Daniel, where an angel sits with them in the fiery furnace after they refuse to bow down to the king. And so these are examples of resistance that cost them something. And they. God's grace joins us in that action. So.

Yeah, and we have examples from church history also, you know, starting with. Not starting with but. But including Luther himself, who, you know, as he is writing and speaking and forming this, this. This concept of reformation in, in his heart and in his ministry. You know, he is standing, having, having know, written some of these theological treatises. He is standing at the Deed of Worms and is. Is told that he must recant his writings or asked if he will recant his writings. And he says, I cannot. Here I stand. And so he's willing to accept whatever consequences are going to come as a result of what he feels must be proclaimed. As the authentic gospel for the church,

which he knows could be death, right?

Yeah. Probably came close to it at least a couple of times in that. In that period.

And of course, we've got Bonhoeffer himself, Right. Fighting against the Nazis, depending on which. Which account of his life you read. You know, he's. He's definitely a figure. He does participate in some. Some inside job things, trying to. To undo the Nazis. And so. So that is. But he is imprisoned for it and is ultimately killed for it. So.

Right.

So that's our talk about cheap and costly grace and Bonhoeffer's discipleship. Definitely worth a read if you can get in there, dig into it. It's written for people to read. It's not really a heavy text, but it's worth it. So we'll have a link to that in the show notes here. The other term or the term we want to go after is vocation, though. Dr. Tranvik talks about this idea of protest, of resistance, of Christian resistance being a call of vocation. And so vocation, when we talk about it, my kid, I've got two kids in high school, they're both being talked about vocation, you know, vocational education.

Right.

How to do a job. When we talk about vocation in the church, it's different than that. I mean, it's still doing something, but it means something that. Using your talents for the good of. Of the world, really. Right. In different ways.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, in Luther's day, the word, you know, when people talked about having a vocation, it meant having a calling to be one of those, you know, church. It's not church professionals, but church professionals to become a priest, a monk, a nun, you know, that was when you had a vocation, that was it. You worked in the church. And what. What Luther shifted about that perspective was to say we all have a Christian vocation given to us at baptism, to be disciples, to be those people that God calls on. Just as we were speaking about in. In Bonhoeffer's notion of costly grace, to be those people working for justice in the world and sharing the compassion and love and welcome of Christ. And we do that in any context, whether it is in our profession, you know, which might be as a pastor or a computer programmer or a carpenter or a schoolteacher, whatever it might be, you know, and in the church itself, you know, with the kind of community outreach that a congregation might be involved in in their own neighborhood or town. So we all have those roles as followers of Jesus in our vocation, so it may be attached to our income as, you know, a worker of some kind. Or it might be in our volunteering or simply in our relationships with our, with our family and friends and neighbors. But we all have that calling, as Dr. Tranvik is going to remind us.

Yeah, here's Dr. Tranvik. Well, back with us for this episode about, we're going to talk about civil disobedience. We're going to talk about Luther and resistance movements and how Christians and Lutherans act. Act in the world. And, and that back with us is Dr. Mark Tranvic from Luther Seminary. It's so good to have you back. This is a great conversation. I'm glad to have it with you today.

Thanks, Ben. Really nice to be back with you guys. And again, I just applaud the, applaud the, the effort here. I think the, the podcast idea. And you, you stoop low to get me. But whatever I'm willing to, I'm, I'm willing to give it a shot. Well, I,

we sort of got an introduction to this in our episode where we talked about Luther and his thoughts specifically on the Jewish people and Judaism in particular, and we talked about his thoughts on the peasants revolt that happened and the rebellion there. So we kind of got an introduction to that. But we want to talk more about, about these ideas of resistance, particularly because we've seen, and we don't see it in the news so much now, But Minneapolis and St. Paul were in the news most recently for the ice incidents that happened there and even before that with the murder of George Floyd and then Philandro Castile not long after that, I believe. I can't remember the order.

I think it actually preceded Floyd. Yeah, you're right.

It was a big moment taking place. And as I mentioned before we started recording, there's a new podcast out from Straight White American Jesus and their Axis Mundi Media about Minnesotans activating to bring Southeast Asians in for refugees to get them away from the political things that are happening in Southeast Asia during and after Vietnam. The Vietnam conflict the US Was in. So you're in the middle of it. You're, you know, you've got, if I remember right, you're campus pastor in, in Minneapolis and you teach it in St. Paul at Luther Seminary.

Yes. Right, right, right. I was a pastor for 10 years, but I've been in.

Yeah.

Been in the academic world.

Yeah, that's right. So, but, so, so you've experienced this up close.

Yeah.

But you can help us, help us talk about how Martin Luther sort of comes into that and sort that we as Lutherans have.

Yeah.

Because when we think of Lutherans, we normally think of passive people who like to bring their hot dish.

Right. No, Right, you're right. Yeah. Thanks, Ben. We tend to get pictured as pretty inoffensive. And the whole idea of resistance doesn't actually, until recently, as you pointed out, some of the things that have happened here in Minneapolis, but historically, it hasn't usually been connected very often with the. With the Lutheran Church or the Lutheran tradition, although there are some examples maybe we can talk about in the 20th century that cut against the grain of that particular narrative. But you remember Martin Luther, right? I mean, he's. He's often been castigated as someone who's a toady of the princes. He simply does the prince's bidding. In the Peasants War, he had these infamous and horrible words where he instructed the princes in the midst of the uprising. Not that they were listening to him, they really weren't, but he did. Right? Right. Smite, slay, stab. There's nothing worse than a mad dog. And you need to put the. The peasants rebellion down. But that's, of course, you know, reminder too. That's only half the story. Prior to Luther saying that he really got on the princes very heavily. And he said, you guys are the ones. And they were all guys. You guys are the ones to blame for this rebellion because of your avarice, your desire for luxury, your absolutely unwillingness to pay attention to the poor and the needy. And the peasants are simply driven to the point of desperation. And you should not be surprised that they've chosen to rebel. But when the rebellion gets out of hand, and he was worried about that, and again, for this whole topic, always important to remember, Luther was a 16th century person and he always preferred order to anarchy. Always. He would take tyranny any day over any kind of disorder, and that did not make him particularly special in the 16th century. Most 16th century people thought that way. However, with regard to the Peasants War, you know that Luther's. Luther's pen really did not serve him well, especially when he came down hard on the peasants and was henceforth seen as more of a political reactionary, which wasn't really true. He will change. He was very hesitant to sanction any kind of rebellion against the state and in his case would have been against the emperor. But then as time moves on, like with regard to the augsburg Confession in 1530. Luther dies in 1546. In that time period, he's starting to see, you know, the evangelical movement, as the Lutherans were known there, the princes who have adopted it. And there are a number of them in northern Germany are banding together in this defensive league in case the Catholic parties of Charles V decide to attack and put down the Reformation movement. And Luther sanctions that. He says, okay, if we're attacked in the name of religion, then we. We can defend ourselves.

Well, in Lutheran's Augustinian.

Right.

So he's got just. Just war doctrine or.

There is that. There is that. Right. I mean, it's a last resort, but. But if you need to. And he comes out of that tradition. Very much so. So he. He does. He does sanction that kind of resistance, especially when he felt the gospel was at stake. And the other important thing to remember here, again, you're talking to a 16th century nerd. Sorry, Ben. The other important thing to remember. It seems like a really minor point, but it deserves to be better known. There's a town in Germany, a city in northern Germany called Magdeburg, and it was a citadel of resistance. It was largely Lutheran. And as the forces of Charles V took over much of the Lutheran territory. This is after Luther dies. Magdeburg holds out. And the reason they hold out and the reason they defend their city is because they feel that Luther's writings, especially the later Luther, has sanctioned them to do so. And so they write something called the Magdeburg or the Magdeburg Confession, which basically sanctions resistance in the name of defending the church against what of course they saw as the. As the Catholic heresy. Anyway, the reason I bring that up is the Magdeburg Confession is actually used and cited in France by the Protestants who are the Huguenots who are resisting the Catholic king. And it is used by John Knox up in Scotland when he leads his revolution against the church. So Luther and the Lutherans were not as passive and mere toadies of the princes as one might think. There was a. There was at least the seeds of some resistance theory there that said. That said. You know, I mean, it. I guess it's kind of a minority report. Yeah. Yeah.

Huh.

Yeah. But we can move it to the 20th century if you want. Yeah, they're. The story changes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, World War II, of course. Well, you have the German Christian Church and I think we talked about that last time when we got in with about the anti Semitism issue and the Lutheran Church. But the. The German Christian Church was. Was called into question. Resisted. Remember, the German Christian Church were those who tried to combine Nazi ideology and Christianity. Small number, but very powerful because they became official German church. And they were certainly challenged and called into Question by the confessing church. Number of Lutherans in that Dietrich Bonhoeffer included. And, and of course, Bonhoeffer deserves to be highlighted as a resistor. When, when Germans were required to take the Hitler oath of loyalty, Bonhoeffer said, no, you can't do that. And a number of German pastors also resisted when that happened. You also have examples of resistance. Not so much in Germany. Yes, there were some, but not as many as we would have liked. But in Lutheran territories, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the church resisted tyranny. And often those stories aren't very well told or known. Norway is a great example. When the Germans invaded Norway, of course they attempted to take over the church, but I. Somewhere in the name, all the bishops resigned. They refused to succumb to the Nazi ideology. And I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of the Lutheran pastors resigned as well. Their bishop went under house arrest, their main bishop. And the church was a major part of the resistance against the Nazi occupation of Norway. So you have, you know, these examples, these pretty dramatic examples of resistance. And so the narrative that the German Lutherans were simply passive and that Martin Luther was simply. There's a straight line from Martin Luther to Hitler and all this kinds of stuff. It really doesn't. Historically, that's bad history, but also it ignores a tradition of resistance that probably deserves to be better known. Yeah.

I think I'm going to have to read this confession, that Madderberg confession. Yeah. See the connections there? Yeah. So when I'm looking at the history of American resistance, in particular, it usually ends up with Henry David Thoreau. Right. And his civil disobedience piece.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think mostly because Gandhi is influenced by it and then Martin Luther King Jr. Is influenced by it. And that sort of introduces it to our 20th century. How much in our history, American Lutheran history. I know you want to stay in the 16th century.

Well, that's where I'm comfortable. Right, right. But nothing much happened after 1700, save for a few vaccinations. Okay, there you go.

But, but so did. Did our theology incorporate those things very well or, you know, those are not. Those are not Lutherans that are bringing it to us.

Right. No, it. It didn't. I mean, with regard to the immigrant church, you know, that we see in the 19th century, as far as I know, or could tell, at least on a macro level, there were not great examples of resistance when it. I. That's a good, good, good.

It would be.

It's interesting question what was preached or taught. For example, when it came to the Spanish American War or the, or World War I or World War II. I know Germans were heavily suspected in World War I especially. So I think they tended to be passive and. But I think I'd like to lift up, though our unders, our loose understanding of vocation and moving away from the heroic, as important as that is. The Bonhoeffers, the knee molars, the bear graphs, you know, the big names. And resistance. There's a lot of resistance that goes on in a very local way, a kind of, a way that kind of flies under the radar. And you brought up something earlier. It made me think of it. My Aunt Carol. All right, my Aunt Carol. Duluthian, northern Minnesota, very conservative, Republican leaning Lutheran. Duluth, Minnesota. In the 1970s, the Lutheran churches, not only Lutheran churches, but the Lutheran churches in particular in Minnesota and Catholic churches as well, asked to resettle Vietnamese who, who were fleeing the Vietnam War. This would have been in the 1970s, 1975, 1980, that was not popular with Americans. Those Vietnamese refugees were seen by many people as the enemy. 55,000American troops had died. So there's animus over that and there's just a whole suspicion of the other or the outsider. Right. So my Aunt Carol, this fairly conservative Midwestern Lutheran, she leads an effort in her church to resettle Vietnamese refugees. And in fact, that committee, made up of probably, I would guess, a dozen people in that congregation, resettled, as far as I can remember, five or six families from Vietnam and actually followed them for the next 15 to 20 years, didn't just welcome them into the country, but also helped them get education and jobs and hung in there with them, became friends with them. Point being, that was not popular. She received a lot of hate mail from people in the city and a lot of cold shoulders from people in her congregation. And yet my Aunt Carol, she saw that as her duty. Jesus crossed lines, right. And she saw herself then kind of acting in a Christlike fashion, resisting, resisting popular opinion. And I think that that actually goes on again and again and again. And you pointed out too, here in Minneapolis recently, we had this, you know, horrible experience with ICE and this, Sorry, it was, you know, frankly, Donald Trump's private army here, and they were doing horrible things. And I can give you example. Example, example of how that was unjust. It really, truly was. It was the state doing something that was promoting violence and injustice. And a number of Lutherans that I know of, a number of Lutheran clergy, but Lutheran lay people as well, marched, resisted, started to bring kids to school whose families were afraid to Go outside, provided meals, provided doctor's visits, provided support across the Twin Cities area. And it wasn't just Lutherans, of course, it was all stripes of Christians and non Christians as well. But the Lutherans had a prominent role to play and the clergy did as well. So I mean, it's not headline grabbing stuff, but it really made a difference here. And why I think we were largely, I've been seeing, I think rightfully so, is largely successful in, in terms of the way we resisted the surge, we weren't violent and we made a difference in terms of the heat being turned down and most of ice leaving. I'm not saying things are perfect now are back the way they should be, but it's way better. And it's because, because of that resistance ethic. So there is an ethic there in the, in the Lutheran churches that I think, I think deserves to be lifted up. And it's not, it's not headline grabbing stuff at least, you know.

Right.

The effort as a whole was the individual people going about this. Oh, my goodness, my own congregation. I can name 15 people who were involved in these little acts of resistance that made a big difference in the lives of people. Ben, I'm talking too much. What do you got?

Oh, no, the. When I. When I think so.

I'm.

I'm active in this, in presenting this house from Selma, Alabama.

Yeah.

That. That supported sclc, the Southern or. Yeah, Southern Christian Leadership Council in March of 1965. And the woman that she and her husband owned, the. So it's Sullivan and Richie Jean Jackson. Richie Jean wrote a book about this before she died. And I actually just talked to her daughter Joanna just a few weeks ago, and Joanna talked about her parents. So in this house you have Martin Luther King Jr. Staying. Ralph Abernathy's there. Ralph Bunch is there. So you have the first two African American Nobel Peace Prize winners in this house talking together and on phone calls with the White House and all this. When Juana is asked of all these people that were in your home, and it includes rabbis and Greek Orthodox priests and all these folks, who do you admire most? And she said, my parents.

Wow.

Because her parents laid the ground to make this a safe place for these high target figures to be. And she cooked for them. She tried to go out and march, but. But King kept sending her back because he said, we're going to need dinner when we get back. Right. She helped them get shoes for the march that finally went to Montgomery. And so the story of the house is not about King. King's Going to get a lot of attention because he was there for the announcing of the Voting Rights Act. But the essence of the house is how this family. That's normal. It's a professional family. Sullivan was a dentist, and Rich Eugene was a teacher. And how they. They gave their family and their home to support this movement that was so much greater than themselves.

Nice.

They preserved every aspect of that because they knew that history would want to see it in the future.

Yeah. And, you know, it reminds me, Ben, too, of. And you. You, I'm sure, know this well. But. But the. But the bus boycott back in 1955, I mean, I forget how many days that went on.

It went on over a year.

Yeah. Went. I thought it was over a year. I mean, can you imagine now all these people walking to work, walking to school, walking to the grocery store. I mean, it was a massive mass. Yes. Rosa park gets the headlines and she should. She could become a symbol, but she's the tip of the iceberg. My. To make that go. These. These folks in these very pedestrian kinds of callings, but they saw it as a calling.

Well. And when we talk about the Lutheran involvement there, we're talking about Bob Gretz and Jeanne Gretz. He was pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery. He's not widely known outside of some Lutheran circles. Not all Lutheran circles. He and Jeanne just passed a few years ago, and Bob wrote a couple books about the experience. But Bob was behind the scenes. He drove north. A white couple. This is a white couple from southern Ohio, from the Appalachian hills. And he went up and bought cars up north and drove them down to Alabama because they couldn't buy cars locally. So churches up north would help them buy these and he'd bring them down, and they used those for the bus boycott. And so he and Jeanne both drove with babies around and that. And he was recognized locally because they tried to bomb his house several times.

Several times, right. Yeah.

But when you read Bob's book, it's also about supporting the MOVE movement because it's about Fred Gray, who's the. The man who. The lawyer who takes things to the

Supreme Court over and over again.

But it's also Fred's brother. Yeah, Fred's brother Bob and Jeanne, I believe they hosted him in Columbus when they. When they got moved up to Columbus to have a church in. In Columbus on the east side. And so his brother wanted to go to school, so. So they hosted him for a bit and helped him get into school and get that taken care of. And then he became instrumental in some behind the scenes work too. Yeah, so, so we talk about all that stuff. So, so every church can get involved in these movements in different ways. And when we think about that, it's sending money, but it's also sending supplies or prayers to, to places like Minneapolis in this case, or wherever the action is being taken.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, I like to, I like to say. So we're talking about vocation. Here it is again. The heroic figures are important. We need those role models at the same time. Everybody is called. You're called 365, 24 7. You're never without a calling. You're never without a calling. And to lift up some of these examples of people who were involved in resistance, it's. I mean, it's just so essential because otherwise people tend to get resigned. It doesn't matter what I do or I shouldn't be involved in the public realm in any way, or that has nothing to do with my faith. We just need to do a massive correction here in our theology and then how we preach our theology and equip our people to, to have vocations. I understand their sense of calling. Yeah.

So one of the things that Keith and I will dig into soon is the new ELCA statement on civic life and faith.

I've read it yet.

Yeah, well, the, the LCA did a website, Rejuvenate Rejuvenation and, and most of the documents weren't available for a long time. So we've been trying to read it, but. But we couldn't get the final edition.

Yeah, no, I've heard about it. Yeah, but keep going. Yeah, about the.

Yeah, so, so we're gonna, we're gonna talk about that. And it does get a little bit into this, which is sort of prescient since they approved this in Phoenix in August and then I think it got put to use right away.

Yeah, I would say, I would say. And you know, one other thing, along with this topic of resistance we should probably at least mention, is this phrase in statu confessionis or in state of confession. In other words, are there times when your resistance is not just a matter of opposition, but actually it bleeds into your faith being at stake? Right. So in state of confession, in other words, are there times when Christians not only should resist, but they must resist? In other words, to be a Christian means to be in opposition. And of course, you know, Bonhoeffer's famous example, he thought was the church in, in, in, in Germany in World War II.

Sure.

He, he thought it was Absolutely incumbent upon the Lutheran Church to oppose the Nazi ideology and especially the German Christians. But it's also come up then in. With regard to South Africa as well. And, and, and, and, and the idea that that government and the, the white Christian church in South Africa had sanctioned themselves as some sort of higher level of human beings than, than their brown or black brothers and sisters. So. And the Lutheran said, no, if you take that position, you have ceased to be a Christian. You know, so there are times when that line gets crossed. Right.

Sure, sure.

And, and I think. And so there are those. So in other words, there's moments when it's not just where the, where the level of resistance takes place with a capital R instead of a small R. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think, I think we run into this with Palestine.

Let's say more.

Well, we, we talked with, with at the time, he was, he was Pastor Haddad and now bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in, in Jordan, in the Holy Land.

Right.

We talked with him about a year ago and it's real there when we talk. We, we bring him up nearly every episode. But, but Pastor Jack Eggleston is, is in my, in my conference and is very active in, in, in, in peace. Peace work for the Holy Lands. And, and so I'm, I'm sure that Jack believes would, would advocate that, that we are at capital R resistance for atrocities being committed against both our Christian, but also our Muslim and Jewish neighbors and our friends and our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land who are being driven off their land or being occupied in different ways, being shot at and such. But it's easy. Well, it's hard to know what that means for somebody in America.

Yeah.

To be resisting when it's something so far away and when the people that are in the middle of it really, they have a lot to protect.

Right.

We can't demand them tell us what to do because they have their own families and their lives to look out for. And so I think it's hard for us to figure that out. And I think that's why we have social statements too, is it helps us figure out how we can help.

Yeah, that's a great example. I think, I mean, for us to think about and what that might mean and the whole, the violence involved with the settlements and what's happening on the west bank and the incredible violence in Gaza and for most of my life,

when we talk about resistance, it's usually somewhere else.

Yeah.

At least living in the Midwest.

Yeah.

Civil unrest doesn't really happen to me, when I'm living in central Ohio or.

No, no.

You know, these days, even in southeast Michigan.

Right, right. And. And then what does it mean to cross the line? You see, what's hard for me is that while I vehemently disagree with Netanyahu and his policies, am I going to say that if you support Israel and Netanyahu, am I going to say you cease to be a Christian? I don't know if I would go that far. That strikes me as. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you know, the context there is so incredibly complicated and violent, and something horrible happened in Israel on October 6, and, I mean, there's no question about it. See what I mean? So. Yeah. Where do you draw those. What do you think? Where do you draw those lines?

I can't even begin to guess most of the time.

Yeah, yeah. I don't. I don't know. I mean, I have no problem saying if you're.

If you.

If you support apartheid, and of course, some people are using that word with regard to Israel's policies. I don't know, maybe that. Maybe that applies. But if you Sparta. If you supported apartheid in South Africa, South Africa back in, you know, in the 80s or whatever, you cease to be you. You could not do that and be a Christian.

Well. And at least in our perspective now, apartheid is much more clear.

Yeah, there.

There isn't. There aren't multiple things. We. We have a. We have a national park not far from me. It's where one of the b. And The War of 1812 happened.

Ah.

And there's a lot of involvement in that national park site. It's the River Raisin National Battlefield Park. There's a lot of. In a lot of involvement from the native tribes of Michigan, and a lot of people aren't familiar with River Raisin. 1813, US troops catch British troops by surprise and push them back out of this town. French town is what it was called. And so they push them back, and the British come back and they fight again. So there's a second battle. The British win that battle, and they're reinforced by Native Americans. And that battle leaves a lot of American troops injured. They're kept there. The rest are marched across the ice over to Canada. And in the night, Native Americans come back and they massacre the wounded Americans, which leads to a battle cry of remember. The Raisin becomes America's first battle cry, like what will become Remember the Alamo? And so when they present this story, they say there are no Good guys in this entire thing. Because the Americans, they did a lot of atrocities through this. In fact, there's the Kentuckians coming up, and they were wanting vengeance for raids that had happened down south, and so they were particularly brutal. And then the British and natives were brutal in the second battle. And then the massacre happens. And so everybody in this is. Is framed as not having good. There no good intentions in this whole thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so who. When. When you want to know who won, who lost, who's the good guy, who's the bad guy? There are no clear answers to that.

Yeah.

And that's more normal than. Than we like to think.

Yeah. And I think. I think it's a. If I take your point, and I think it, you know, it's a good one in terms of the ambiguity of politics, the rush to judgment, and our. Our temptation to go binary. Right. There's got to be a good guy and a bad guy or a good person, a bad person. And, and it's so often. So often it's. It's so incredibly. It is so incredibly muddled at the same time. Yeah. Right. I mean, sometimes I get caught. I frankly be. You know, I see this sort of situation, situations where, you know, in the night, all cats are gray, and therefore, you know, you really. You're either paralyzed or you're cynical. Sometimes you just, You. You need to. You need to. To buy your best lights, do what you think is the most just thing to do and, or make the most just judgment and, And, And. And recognize that you could be wrong. But there are situations. Slavery. Right. I mean, we're right. I. I know a lot of Lutheran churches in the south and some in the north supported slavery. I got it. I get it. But. But I don't want to say. I don't want to say that.

Yeah, they're definitely things that.

Yeah, there are things. There are things. There are things. Apartheid, slavery, the Nazis. I mean, there's stuff out there. And maybe what's going on now in some way in Israel, too, deserves that, to be called out that way. I don't know. Maybe.

But as a historian, you know that it's hard to talk about history when it's happening.

It very much is. Yeah. Yeah.

Probably the most dangerous time to talk about it.

It's the most dangerous history. Yeah. My favorite anecdote. You maybe have heard this, Ben, about the. The journalist who went down to Central America and stayed for two weeks and wrote a book, stayed for a month and wrote an article and stayed for a year and didn't write anything, you know, I mean, it's right. But I mean, it's true. It's true. The closer you get. And it is there. There. There's a lot of. There's a lot of ambiguity. That's okay. That's okay. But as long as it doesn't lead to paralysis or cynicism. I don't like the sort of. Well, you know, we can't do anything.

Well, I think that leads us back to Luther. Right?

Yeah.

He would say, you know, when it comes to making a stand, sin boldly.

Yeah, it's really true. Melanchthon, when he said that melancthon is cohort, is companion, was back in Wittenberg wondering what to do. The place was erupting. You know, everybody wanted to make these changes fast. Some people were resisting Luther's in the Wartburg. And he writes, Philip, he's just. Just, you know, act, do something. Sin boldly, but then trust in Christ more boldly still. Right. In other words. Right. Yeah. But you. Right. We. We need to act and we will need forgiveness. Yeah.

Excellent.

Yeah.

I think that's where we end.

Thanks, Ben.

Well, thank you so much for being with us for this. We'll have to come up with some more. Some more topics and.

Well, if you don't mind straying into the 16th century.

Okay, we'll head there. We'll head there. I'm sure something happened.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, we'll figure that out.

Good. And, yeah, blessings on your work, too. Your work as a student and hope that continues to go well. And, and, and this work as well.

Yeah, this has been a blessing.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We'll see you end that recording. It's been so great to get to talk to Dr. Tranvik about these things. When we talk with him, we're always thinking about what the next topic is going to be with him. And so hopefully we'll have another one maybe in another six months or so. I have to note that we're talking a lot about, well, social resistance. We're talking about racism. In a lot of cases, we're talking about xenophobia. These are tough topics. We didn't necessarily expect these to all come in. When we talked with Dave Scheer, we didn't think we were going to be talking about anti racism. And yet that's where we're at. And I think that's an indication of our times that our conversations are sort of headed this way. And to be honest, part of it is also you just have to look at what I'm doing in the world right now. I talked in the, with Dr. Tranvik about what I do with my day, day job right now. And I am knee deep in the civil rights movement and, and voting, the Voting Rights act in particular. And so that probably influences us a little bit, but it's not entirely intentional. We're going to try to get some other topics mixed in here. We don't have anything on this, on this line coming up soon anyway. We do have at least one more conversation we want to have. But, but thank you for listening and participating in this and hopefully it's starting a conversation with yourself or with folks in your congregation. If you want other resources on this, let us know. We'll provide as much as we can in our episode notes here. And. But go ahead and let us know if you want this conversation to continue or if you want other resources for this.

Yeah, and I hope that we're giving people space to think and to listen and to learn. I think that, you know, I don't, I don't think that we proclaim to have any answers to any of this, but it is just very much part of our social conversation right now in the world. And so it's not surprising that it's coming up in these episodes, but it gives us an opportunity to, to reflect, to acknowledge, but also to proclaim that, you know, there is always hope that we turn to and that we live into and that things will not always be this way.

I think the answer to that is Amen.

Yeah.

All right.

Main Street Lutherans is hosted by Keith Fair and Ben Fot. The show is produced by F Media Productions. You can find all of our contact information, lots of helpful links, and a transcript in the episode notes. Until next time, go in peace.

Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God.