On October 28, 2024, the West Virginia Council of Churches will host its 143rd Annual Assembly. This year’s theme is “Christ or Caesar: An Exploration of Church and State.” We’ll spend the day reflecting on this relationship and hearing from several thought-provoking speakers, including the Most Reverend Matthew Lynn Riegel, Bishop of the West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
We hope you’ll be able to attend this year’s Annual Assembly and hear the entirety of Bishop Riegel’s keynote presentation. You can register to attend by clicking here, and registration closes on October 21.
But for now, here’s a brief Q&A with Bishop Riegel to give you a taste of what you’ll learn if you attend.
“Ultimately, the only reason we have freedom of religion in this country is because no one religion was dominant enough to call the shots. And the only way we can survive as a nation is to adopt this principle of religious freedom because it’s the ultimate political compromise.” —Bishop Matthew Riegel
West Virginia Council of Churches (WVCC): Talk to me about a theologian who has greatly impacted your thoughts.
Bishop Riegel: I like Philip Melanchthon’s clarity of theological expression and the way he tackles the profound questions of human existence. Right now, I’m reading his discussions on the role of the 16th-century prince-bishop.
So, we actually still have prince-bishops today. The Pope is a prince-bishop. He’s a political leader, in the sense that he’s the head of state of a government, and he’s a bishop at the same time. And Melanchthon explores questions of what’s inbound and out-of-bounds for someone who occupies that dual office.
WVCC: For those of us who aren’t familiar with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is there anyone like the Pope—an individual who serves as both a political and spiritual leader?
Bishop Riegel: There’s nothing quite like the Pope, but my argument would be that when you live in a republic—as we do—you’re a citizen, which is actually an office in the political estate. And then you might also be a pastor or a bishop, which are offices in the ecclesiastical state.
A citizen has political standing. They can vote. They can lobby. So what does it mean to be someone who has political standing and an ecclesiastical officer at the same time? And how do you balance those things?
WVCC: What questions do you think Christians should be wrestling with in today’s political climate?
Bishop Riegel: I’d say the difference between how your faith informs what you think should be done and how that works in the naked public square where not everybody is Christian. What types of arguments are meaningful for civic life?
For instance, let’s say I’m trying to convince the city council to do something. If I walk in and say, ‘Jesus wants you to do this,’ that’s a meaningless statement to anybody who doesn’t actually believe in Jesus. So how is that argument at all useful?
This life that we live in the temporal realm is not governed by Christian faith—or any faith. This is the temporal life. The thing that governs it is natural law. If I were to make an argument that my faith should determine things, then I’m really on the road to theocracy.
WVCC: So, you’ll be giving the keynote presentation at this year’s Annual Assembly. Give us a slice of what folks will learn if they attend.
Bishop Riegel: There are a lot of people who claim that this nation was always a Christian nation, founded on Christian principles. And then there are others who say ‘No, this nation was always founded on the principle of freedom of conscience.’ And the answer is, it’s much more complex.
The Constitution states explicitly that Congress can establish no religious test and there will be religious freedom. But Massachusetts had a state church in the 1820s. So, you can’t make the claim that the entire nation believed in religious freedom and non-establishment of religion, because clearly Massachusetts didn’t. And it was legal for them to have a state church.
Although most of the former colonies had state churches at one point, many got rid of required state church when the American Revolution began and they needed troops. You can’t exactly raise troops if people are mad at you because you arrested their Presbyterian preacher last week. So, there’s this fascinating interplay between political necessity and pragmatism in these questions. Ultimately, the only reason we have freedom of religion in this country is because no one religion was dominant enough to call the shots. And the only way we can survive as a nation is to adopt this principle of religious freedom because it’s the ultimate political compromise.
About Bishop Riegel
The Most Reverend Matthew Lynn Riegel was elected as Bishop of the West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on June 6, 2015. He is married to Tamara Riegel, née Meyer. They have two daughters, Faith (who is the first child ever baptized at a synod assembly of the ELCA) and Grace.
Bishop Riegel holds a Master of Divinity with honors in both Systematic Theology and Church History from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He also holds a Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.), and his S.T.M. thesis explored the doctrine of sanctification as articulated in classical Lutheranism. His primary research interest is the sanctification of ecclesiastical politics, an area which synthesizes theological anthropology, ecclesiology, and sanctification.
Bishop Riegel serves on the West Virginia Council of Churches’ Civic Life and Faith Task Force, which is developing a social statement on government, handles civic engagement, and addresses the relationship between church and state.