Note: This is a reworking of a post to my personal blog Father Hollywood, Magdeburg and Liberty with a link to its sequel: Magdeburg and Liberty Continued.

The Magdeburg Confession is a remarkable document.  As a teacher of fourth year high school students at Wittenberg Academy, I have added a study of the Confession into our Paideia IV course (which includes Christian Apologetics, Economics and Government, and Modern Literature)

This Lutheran confession lays out a theology of resistance to tyranny based on the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate.  The brave autonomous city of Magdeburg, with its spirit of political independence and theological insistence on adhering to Lutheran theology, come what may, arguably saved the Reformation in the year 1550.  The city stood alone in refusing to surrender the Lutheran confession to Charles V's so-called Augsburg Interim.  Magdeburg paid for its tenacity by being put under military siege for a year, until the imperial forces (led by the side-changing Duke Maurice, Elector of Saxony) backed off and negotiated a settlement that allowed the Lutheran confession to coexist with Roman Catholicism in the Empire.

The Confession is a theological treatise, but it happens in a very real political context - and thus the narrative has not only ecclesiastical and doctrinal implications, but also serves to teach us political lessons in our world today.

Indeed, the world was very different in 1550.  At the time, there was no Germany.  That would not come until the late 19th century.  Europe was feudal, comprised of a patchwork of small governments.  What we call Germany today was part of the so-called Holy Roman Empire.  As is often said, the HRE was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.  It was a crazy-quilt of kingdoms, principalities, duchies, and free cities in what is today mainly Germany and Italy.  The emperor was actually elected by certain elector princes.  

The HRE was more a loose confederation than an empire, one which offered maximum liberty because of the concept of competition.  There were no passports.  The countries were small.  The German language was spoken across a large swath of the Empire.  And so, if a prince was abusive, raised taxes too high, or impeded free markets - people could vote with their feet and move.  It didn't involve emigrating hundreds of miles away, securing work visas and a path to citizenship, and learning a new language.  

The economist and philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe argues that Europe's successes in science, exploration, economics, scholarship, and the arts were due to this vast decentralization.  He argues that a Europe today "made up of thousands of Liechtensteins and Swiss cantons, united through free trade, and in competition with one another in the attempt of offering the most attractive conditions for productive people to stay or move" is a far better alternative to the European Union, which he describes as "a gang of power-lusty crooks empowering and enriching themselves at other, productive people’s expense."

This kind of political decentralization existed in the HRE and it made the Reformation possible.  Had Charles V been an actual emperor instead of a figurehead overseeing a loose confederacy, he would have had no problem capturing and executing all religious dissidents.  However, the confederal nature of the Empire made it possible for local German princes to interpose in order to protect Luther and other reformers - to the frustration of both Charles V and the papacy.

Indeed, it was Frederick the Wise’s courageous interposition that saved Luther’s life following his condemnation at the Diet of Worms. And Luther’s friend Nicolaus von Amsdorf was involved in the “kidnapping” that brought Luther to safety. Amsdorf was to become the leader of the Magdeburg resistance and the first signatory to the 1550 Confession.

The Reformation flourished, at least in human terms, owing to the economics of free competition in the marketplace of ideas.  Not only did churches and universities spread the faith of the Evangelical confession (as Lutherans were known in those days), but also the printing press and merchants who were free to sell printed material - thanks to free markets and capitalism.  Magdeburg became a hub of Lutheran theology and publication of theological books and pamphlets. A centralized state would have had far better success in banning books and pamphlets and crushing dissenting opinions than a confederation of small sovereignties.

It's no wonder that dictators and tyrants always have imperial dreams.  Managing a single massive bureaucracy is far easier than "thousands of Liechtensteins" when  it comes to exercising authoritarian control.

One can hope that Brexit will lead to other defections away from European centralization and a restoration of the polity that made Europe a great civilization: the envy of the world.

If Americans truly value their liberty, they too will look to find ways of decentralizing the country back to its original federalism, instead of the nationalism and consolidation that has taken root instead.  One path toward such a devolution is nullification (sometimes called "interposition") - which is what the Magdeburgers pioneered in 1550.  With our own patchwork of state and local jurisdictions, our spirit of political independence, and our constitutional system of federalism, we could conceivably restore the republic and become, once more, heirs of Magdeburg. The fact that a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court can impose unlegislated national laws on all of the people of all of the states that enforces doctrines contrary to Scripture, natural law, and reality itself, not to mention the ongoing holocaust of the unborn that the people of the States are unable to outlaw suggests that we are in a similar boat as the 1550 Magdeburgers.

And so we stand at a crossroads. 

Will we move in the direction of centralization, stagnation, and slavery?  Or will be be sons and daughters of Magdeburg?  We should study this history and confession in both its theological and political frameworks.

Here is a link to the Magdeburg Society.  And here is a link to Issues, Etc.'s program: "Lutherans, Political Resistance and the 1550 Magdeburg Confession" with Dr. Ryan MacPherson, a professor at Bethany Lutheran College (ELS) in Mankato. Dr. MacPherson also wrote an article entitled “The Magdeburg Interpretation of Romans 13: a Lutheran Justification for Political Resistance” that demonstrates the far-reaching effects of the Magdeburg Confession. CPH published Tyranny and Resistance: the Magdeburg Confession and the Lutheran Tradition by David M. Whitford in 2001, with a newer edition published in 2014 (paperback and Kindle). I highly recommend this book. Here is a recent podcast from the Reformed perspective on the Confession. And there is even an alternative rock song called Magdeburg’s Confession. It was released this year, and the lyrics allude to the Interim (“accept the proclamation”) and to the “werewolf” (also known as the bearwolf), Martin Luther’s symbol of tyranny that makes its appearance in the Confession and appears on the cover of the English edition.

A soldier’s song from Magdeburg from the year 1548 also mentions the bearwolf:

Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, just as we read:

But how much more so for the Lord God!

As long as he does the Lord’s will, and lives in peace,

Caesar’s office we must honour;

Should he transgress, he is no more

Emperor or lord, but an outlaw

And a bearwolf against which we must guard.

Here are some of my own further thoughts from the political side of the Magdeburg resistance.

The Magdeburg Confession, to our shame, was not translated into English until 2014, and it was not even translated by a Lutheran scholar. Where were all of our scholars? The only English translation in existence is available here (paperback and Kindle). I suspect that the translator - through no fault of his own, being from outside of our tradition - has probably not translated certain Latin terms the same way that our English language tradition of rendering 16th century Lutheran theological terminology typically does. Again, it is shocking that our own scholars left this important historical and theological work - one that is timely today - on the table for others to translate.

But be that as it may, the Magdeburg Confession is a provocative and interesting part of our history, heritage, and theological tradition - one that has indeed proved a blessing to Christians from outside of our tradition and even to non-Christians in dealing with tyrannical government in opposition to human dignity and flourishing according to God’s will and providence.

It is definitely worth a read.