Calling a killer what he is

Following the Orlando terrorist attack, there's been plenty of social media and political hay made of whether we call the killer an "extremist Islamic terrorist" or an "extremist homophobic terrorist." In the midst of the conversation someone argued that we have to use the former label because it accurately represents who the attacker was and because we Lutherans (to use a phrase of Luther's) "call a thing what it is."

It's important to address things directly. But using Luther's words as a rationale is to bend his phrase to a purpose he didn't intend. Luther wasn't talking about truth-telling in regard to matters of the kingdom on the left. If we want language for that, it's better to take up the 8th commandment where testifying honestly is the focus. But Luther is after bigger fish (theological sturgeons, I think).

The language of calling a thing what it is comes from Thesis 21 of Luther's Heidelberg Disputation. He's referring to an earlier thesis in the disputation where he discounts the assertions that works ("doing what is in you to do" — especially doing the good work of participating in the church's sacramental life to gain merit) apply to salvation and that free will is anything other than a fiction..

So in Thesis 21 when he says "The 'theologian of glory' calls the bad good and the good bad," he means that they see good works as meritorious and the Cross is foolishness, They can't imagine that God could work in Christ's suffering or in ours. He continues that "the 'theologian of the cross' says what a thing is." This theologian regards Christ as having taken care of it all on Calvary. Then in Thesis 25 he shows himself to be a theologian of the cross: "The one who does much 'work' is not the righteous one, but the one who, without 'work,' has much faith in Christ."

So what Luther does with this language is to draw the distinction between what is Christ (the only one who saves) and what is Not-Christ (everything else in all of Creation including the best things we could think of, none of which can save). And it all comes down to who it is that receives your trust.

That's Luther for you. He takes me right to the brink of needing a preacher. He forces me to admit that none of my schemes that I think are going to secure my future (whether, in the current conversation, they come from either the Left or the Right, including eliminating a certain category of weapon or bomb the hell out of the Islamic State) has the power to do what God's will really is or provide any real, trustworthy safety.

So Luther moves in the direction of Romans 10 by delivering Christ in a way that creates new hearts and the new obedience that come with faith — and which engender the fruits of the spirit on the part of my enemies that are what I'm really after in dim vision of peace through vengeance. Thus, Luther tells us, "The law says: 'Do this!', and it never is done. Grace says: 'Believe in this one!', and forthwith everything is done."

If I truly want a change in my enemies, although they seek to use the Law of terror, threats, and murder to force me into their religious camp, for instance, the faithful response is not more of the same (the move of a theologian of glory) but a bestowal of the gospel (the calling of a theologian of the cross) that brings the barely imaginable future of the lion lying down with the lamb, toddlers playing safely near Florida alligators, and me and my neighbor being raised from the dead.