Magdeburg and Liberty

The Magdeburg Confession is a remarkable document.  

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 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 was 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.

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.  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.

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.