This papers session for the June Online Meeting focuses on recent and emergent scholarship. From baptismal practices under transformation in Scandinavia to new perspectives on comparative theology and indigeneity, from deep histories of colonialism to the urgent challenges of responding to White Christian Nationalism, the papers in this session point to cutting-edge questions and offer new directions for scholarship on Global Lutheranisms and society.
In the Nordic countries, most infants have traditionally been baptized in the Lutheran majority churches. For the last decades the percentage of infants baptized has showed a steady decline. In a joint research project, the five Nordic folk churches have studied reasons for this development and analyzed the churches’ responses. A forthcoming book is the result of this project and looks at empirical research, churches' responses, liturgy, and theology, focusing on themes such as Lutheran theology, ecumenical and interfaith issues, and ecology. The book is the result of a two years' research process and with its combination of empirical data (quantitative and qualitative), and practical and systematic theology it is a valuable contribution to theological discussion.
World War I brought significant challenges for American Lutherans who had remained closely connected to German or Scandinavian language and cultural practices. While politicians proclaimed a “return to normalcy” following the war, white nativists seized upon post-war anxiety about immigration and radicalism. The state of Oregon became a hotbed of the Ku Klux Klan. Voters approved a “compulsory education” bill in 1922 requiring all children aged 8-16 to attend public schools. As northern European Protestants, Lutherans could opt to blend into the “100 percent American” mainstream. However, rather than acceding, the Lutheran Schools Committee organized in opposition. Despite the discrimination they had faced during WWI, freedom to pursue Lutheran education for their children overrode any desire to conform. This project illustrates how Lutherans negotiated ever-present tensions between assimilation and distinctiveness during the 1920s—a story with grave relevance for people of faith grappling, theologically and strategically, with Christian nationalism today.
This paper proposes to examine the theologies of two theological contemporaries, Martin Luther (1483-1546) and Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566), in order to explore possibilities for foregrounding colonial discourses as transcending denominations and therefore constituting broader intra-European theological concerns. Such a conversation reveals similar concerns regarding the theological and political status of non-Christians, the rhetorical and political strategies for projects of conversion and catechesis, and shared conceptions of the human more generally. This paper seeks to contribute a fuller understanding to the extent to which Protestant reformers such as Luther, despite their apparent historical remove from projects of colonialism, might have contributed to the broader epistemological, political, and indeed, theological conditions for Protestant coloniality in the 17th century and later.