July 4, 2001

Presbyterian moderator Jack Rogers has an unenviable task over the next 12 months. As a part of the General Assembly’s surprising recommendation, by a 317-208 vote, to allow gay and lesbian ministers, elders and deacons, Rogers was directed to write a pastoral letter to congregations “interpreting” the turnabout proposal endorsed by 60 percent of those who met in Louisville, Kentucky, in June.

Like many Americans, my family will celebrate July 4 by sharing a picnic with friends. After the usual greetings, jokes, and anecdotes about our children, we’ll no doubt find time for a political discussion. And since most of us are Democrats living in a very Republican county, my husband and I won’t have much trouble triggering a good argument with strong opinions. We are also children of the 1970s, after all, shaped by that era’s skepticism about the military and government.

When Martin Luther asked “Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved,” he was struggling to find a theologically defensible balance between two competing demands. As he penned the 1526 essay, he was feeling the force of the New Testament’s condemnation of violence and Christ’s exhortation to nonresistance of evil. But Luther also faced the demands of political reality. The survival of the Reformation, he realized, was dependent on the fighting power of the German princes.

Social policy is inscribed on the landscape. And perhaps the most telling such inscription in U.S. cities is the public housing project, an inscription that is currently being erased. In the history of the building and unbuilding of these structures—particularly the most massive projects such as Columbia Point in Boston or the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago—one can read the story of the anemic American welfare state and the profound unease with which we have met the plight of the poor.