{"id":781,"date":"2010-04-23T09:39:54","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T16:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=781"},"modified":"2010-04-23T09:39:54","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T16:39:54","slug":"rogness-%e2%80%9cstate-legislators-are-to-be-theologians%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=781","title":{"rendered":"Rogness: \u201cState legislators are to be theologians\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sensational story!<\/p>\n<p>Did ELCA Bishop Peter Rogness really say this?<\/p>\n<p>Of course not.<\/p>\n<p>But in a <a href=\"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/2006\/rogness.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">letter<\/a> to the editor, Rogness <strong>anoints himself<\/strong> as a morally superior lobbyist to the state legislature. He announces his special concern for \u201cthe poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.\u201d He claims unnamed \u201cfaith communities\u201d hold to what is \u201cjust\u201d in contrast to \u201cthe dominant \u2018What will work most to my advantage?\u2019 outcome presumed by so many citizens and politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How lucky to be morally superior and wise, too!<\/p>\n<p>Bishop Rogness and his fellow Minnesota ELCA bishops <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elca.org\/Who-We-Are\/Our-Three-Expressions\/Churchwide-Organization\/Communication-Services\/News\/Releases.aspx#&amp;&amp;a=4477\" target=\"_blank\">lobby<\/a> the legislature: \u201cWe alone are for justice!\u201d \u201cWe alone are concerned for the poor!\u201d \u201cWe are the good people. If you disagree with us, you\u2019re not!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To the contrary: The church is not a lobby. The church does not have a lobby.<\/p>\n<p>Rather: The church is a gathering of the faithful led by experts in Word and sacraments, with individual members who are experts in economics, law, and sociology, individuals with a calling to be active as Christians in their fields of expertise.<\/p>\n<p>The legislature? It is made up of elected representatives from all factions, called to care for all factions and for the larger and long-terms needs of all factions. Among these are Christians of various political parties who disagree about public policy matters. But it is not <strong>as if only \u201cfaith communities\u201d care for the poor<\/strong>, as Rogness suggests.<\/p>\n<p>If he really is a morally superior expert in public policy, then by all means he should step down from his pulpit and run for political office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sensational story! Did ELCA Bishop Peter Rogness really say this? Of course not. But in a letter to the editor, Rogness anoints himself as a morally superior lobbyist to the state legislature. He announces his special concern for \u201cthe poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.\u201d He claims unnamed \u201cfaith communities\u201d hold to what is \u201cjust\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}