Crossroads Podcast: What Do ‘Lutherans’ Believe, Anyway?

If you look up “Baptist” in the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, you will find: “… a member or adherent of an evangelical Protestant denomination marked by congregational polity and baptism by immersion of believers only.”

Ah, but I have heard quite a few Baptists, especially those leaning toward an Anabaptist identity, argue that the vague term “evangelical” doesn’t apply to them and some may even debate the word “Protestant.”

So let’s get more practical, as we did in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, which focusing on what happens when journalists — especially of the political-desk ilk — start tossing around terms such as “Baptist,” “Presbyterian,” “Lutheran,” etc.

Yea or nay on these folks being “Baptists” — President Bill Clinton, the Rev. Pat Robertson, Jimmy Carter, the Rev. Billy Graham and the Rev. Bill Moyers (yes, ordained). OK, I will add one more — Vice President Kamala Harris.

Ah, you say, but they are not the same “kind” of Baptists! They don’t believe the same things on a kazillion different issues. To which I say: “Bingo.”

How about Presbyterians? Here is a chunk of an “On Religion” column — “Presbyterian alphabet soup, again” — that I wrote about my experiences covering the major churches of Charlotte, North Carolina, in the early 1980s:

The Presbyterian Church in America is not the same thing as the American Presbyterian Church. Also, Orthodox Presbyterians are not to be confused with Bible Presbyterians, Cumberland Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Associate Reformed Presbyterians or Evangelical Presbyterians.

This Presbyterian alphabet soup became less complicated in 1983, when the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. joined with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., the so-called Southern branch. This created the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) … 

Is that clear?

All of this brings us to a “Minnesota Lutheran” guy in the news — Gov. Tim Walz. Rod “Living in Wonder” Dreher called him “The Lake Wobegoner,” which is actually a relevant label.

Ah, but what kind of Lutheran is this retired Army National Guard master sergeant? The New York Times noted:

He is a Lutheran. More specifically, he sometimes describes himself as a “Minnesota Lutheran.” “Because we’re good Minnesota Lutherans, we have a rule: if you do something good and talk about it, it no longer counts,” Walz joked during a speech last spring. “So what you have to do is to get someone else to talk about you.” 

OK, but is that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod or the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod? And there are a dozen or more other smaller Lutheran flocks in North America.

At Religion News Service, readers learned:

Some Lutheran groups are affiliated with American evangelicalism, but the largest — and the one associated with Walz’s own church — is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a mainline denomination on the more liberal end of the spectrum.

Wait a minute. What does it mean to be “affiliated” with “American evangelicalism”?

In terms of basic facts, “American evangelicalism” isn’t a denomination or ancient church body to which a Lutheran flock could be legally attached. Maybe RNS should have switched the references to “affiliated” and “associated” in that sentence, since the very progressive congregation (even on creedal doctrines) that Walz attends is legally part of the ELCA.

At the Deseret News, religion-beat veteran Kelsey Dallas offered this: “What Tim Walz has said about his faith.”

America, meet Minnesota Lutherans.

A member of this unofficial subset of Christians, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was added to the Democratic presidential ticket … by Vice President Kamala Harris. Walz has referred to himself as a “Minnesota Lutheran” multiple times in recent years. …

On social media, he’s referenced attending Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul, but the references are few and far between.

Pilgrim Lutheran Church is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a mainline Protestant denomination that’s theologically liberal compared to other Lutheran denominations active in the U.S., such as the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church.

The church’s website highlights its effort to build an “inclusive Christian worshipping community,” and lists “living sustainably” and “doing justice” among the congregation’s core values.

So what are reporters supposed to do when negotiating ecclesiastical mazes of this kind? 

During the podcast, I suggested three basic steps: 

1. Ask a candidate to identify the specific church/denominational group with which they are affiliated. Reporters can then seek out the “What We Believe” (or words to that effect) page for the specific group — such as this, for the ELCA, or this for the LC-MS.

2. Ask the candidate to cite her/his church’s doctrinal stance on a specific issue that is currently in the news. At this moment in time, the status of “gender affirming care” for children would be a worthy topic (leading, for example, to this ELCA website this material with the LCMS).

3. Finally, ask candidates if they agree with their church’s teachings on whatever issue is currently being discussed. Why or why not?

The bottom line: Doctrine matters. Church history matters. Also, journalists need to realize that not all issues of doctrine are “political,” but some ancient doctrines (consider the Didache) do have political implications that will be debated in the modern world.

Finally, in a remarkable show of restraint, I didn’t open this podcast post with material from one of the most infamous essays ever written on this topic — sociologist Christian Smith's "Religiously Ignorant Journalists," which ran in Books & Culture (RIP) back in 2004. Early in the 20-year life of GetReligion.org, I addressed some of his concerns in this post: “Are journalists too ignorant to cover religion news?"

Please note that we are primarily talking about what happens when important religion topics, especially those linked to “politics,” are covered by reporters with zero religion-beat experience.

Anyway, here is the overture of Smith's piece:

Today I received a phone message from a journalist from a major Dallas newspaper who wanted to talk to me about a story he was writing about "Episcopals," about how the controversy over the 2003 General Convention's approval of the homosexual bishop, Gene Robinson, would affect "Episcopals." What an embarrassment. How do I break the news to him that there are no "Episcopals"? Actually, they are called Episcopalians. Of greater concern, I wonder how this journalist is going to write an informed and informing story in a few days about such an important and complex matter when he doesn't even know enough in starting to call his subjects by their right name.

What I have learned, however, over the years, is that this journalist is not alone in his ignorance. As a scholar of American religion promoted to journalists by my university's PR department as an alleged expert, I constantly receive inquiries from reporters wanting background, quotes, and contacts for religion stories they are writing. Usually they have one or two days to complete the story. As often as not, the journalist mispronounces the name of the religious group he or she is covering.

"Evangelicals" is one of their favorites to botch. Often in our discussions, journalists refer to ordinary evangelical believers as "evangelists" — as if the roughly 70 million conservative Protestants in America were all traveling preachers like Billy Graham and Luis Palau. ... Other journalists simply cannot pronounce "evangelicals" at all. They get confused and flustered, and after a few uncomfortable tries at "evangelics" and "evangelicalists" they give up and resort to referring to evangelicals simply as "them."

Wait for it.

These are the knowledge-class professionals who are supposedly informing millions of readers about religion in America. ... I find it hard to believe that political journalists call Washington think tanks and ask to talk with experts on background about the political strategies of the "Democrizer" or "Republication" parties, or about the most recent "Supremicist Court" ruling.

Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it along to others.