We US Lutherans are weathering a scathing season of debate on sexuality.
Don’t want to pick that scab and re-kindle the same tired scripts on both sides of the debate.
But I am fascinated by how little mention (during the debate) has been made of Martin Luther’s landmark essay on this very topic.
In German:
Vom ehelichen Leben

English (Click on for Text) Translation:
The Estate of Marriage








Never the legalist, Luther sees (in crushingly potent typically Luther-esque prose) the establishment of marriage in the Genesis order of creation.
Far from being an idle academic treatise, Luther fully intends to re-make Europe around his new non-monastic ideas. His essay is an ideological invasion.
And he succeeded.
You don’t have to read the whole thing; but a few pages will give you the idea.
We have somehow lost the idea of to-be-promoted biologically generative procreation within covenant Adam/Eve marriage families with earthly non-disposability.
We have bought into the myth of overpopulation (i.e. more people is bad), and have embraced the overuse of birth control and abortion (1/3 of conceptions in the US) as corollaries.
Luther is earthy, alive, and strident in his essay. Vintage Marty. Seriously, I dare you to read it, no matter where you stand on things.
Meanwhile, we (and most Mainline Christian groups) are dying out, only to be replaced by more biologically assertive faith families, who actually believe enough in their way of life to see it thrive.
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