Images of Thomas Paine, Juvenal, and Trofim Lysenko all taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

This Bleeding Heartland post offers four perspectives on the dreadful Iowa legislature and on fears of the outcome of the November general elections. Three small doses come from Thomas Paine, known as the poet or penman of the American Revolution; Juvenal, a poet in First Century Rome; and Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet agronomist, who was not much of a poet and even less of a scientist.

The larger fourth dose is the draft of A Social Statement on Civic Life and Faith. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is considering this draft for September adoption by the Task Force for Studies on Civic Life and Faith. The text is relevant to laws approved by Iowa lawmakers or pending in the state legislature, and to political campaigns now under way across the country.

The ELCA is one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations with about 4 million members in almost 10,000 congregations. Iowa has some 400 ELCA congregations with about 185,000 members. (I’m one of those.)

Given the mood of the Iowa legislature, I found this draft refreshing and worth sharing.

But back for a bit to Paine, Juvenal, and Lysenko.

Paine was born in England in 1737, but befriended the U.S. ambassador there, Benjamin Franklin. Thanks to Franklin, Paine came to the colonies in 1774 and was a key person in urging independence and revolution if necessary. Most of us recall him best for this opening line: “These are the times that try men’s souls,” written to inspire George Washington’s bedraggled soldiers in Valley Forge in December 1776.

The full opening is “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” Those words resonate well in times of crisis—like, say, today.

Juvenal preceded Paine in characterizing the political affairs of his time, way back in the first century A.D. The phrase that tried his soul was “bread and circuses.” While Paine criticized the English crown, Juvenal decried the “selfishness” of the common people who neglected their civic duties so long as the emperor kept them content and happy with food and games. (Another observation attributed to Juvenal is “Who will guard the guards themselves?”)

For me, one contemporary aspect of “bread and circuses” would be the frenzy that the news media and we subjected ourselves to over the romance of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce and a football game. More recently, with issues like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and other worrisome developments meriting coverage, why did NBC-TV lead an evening newscast with a story about the Princess of Wales (and future queen of England)? Supposedly she had doctored a family photo to show her and the three children looking a bit better to mark the British Mother’s Day.

But to not make me the crank of this piece, let’s turn to the villain of our “small-dose” perspectives, Lysenko. He turned science from investigating and understanding life to serving the state. His disdain for genetics as having anything at all to do with the production of crops led Josef Stalin in Russia and Mao Tse Tung in China to enforce agriculture practices to follow state edicts. That resulted in crop failures and the starvation deaths of tens of millions of people—millions in Russia and estimates of 15 to 55 million in China—and in Russia the execution of scientists who questioned “Lysenkoism.”

Given much of the above, it was refreshing to turn to Tom Paine’s “These are the times that try men’s souls” and some of the “Common Sense” —the title of Paine’s pamphlet calling for independence — evident in the ELCA draft.

Speaking of which, here are some excerpts from the summary of the ELCA draft, with minimal additional comment and a few links to topics addressed by the excerpts. Bleeding Heartland readers are well-versed in the work of the Iowa legislature thanks to editor Laura Belin and other contributors. 

EXCERPTS FROM THE ELCA DRAFT

(Article 21) …Power expressed as mutual self-determination enhances people’s lives and is a presumption that should be encouraged and respected by government and others… (Mutual self-determination may sound contradictory, but I take it to mean cooperative, bipartisan decision making which is sadly lacking in the Iowa legislature.)

(Article 26) The United States is not a “Christian nation.” It was not founded on specifically Christian principles, though Christians and Christianity did influence its ethos. The premise of the Constitution and its ratification is that the sovereign is “we the people,” not “we the Christians.” (In contrast, the MAGA movement is steeped in Christian nationalism.)

(Article 37) The ELCA understanding of civic life and faith is at odds with Christian nationalism because the latter seeks to fuse the exercise of political authority with a selected set of supposed “Christian” ideals. It also asserts that Christianity should be a privileged religion in the United States. Such core beliefs represent a political ideology of religious nationalism, whether explicitly acknowledged or not. In its hardline strains, only white, U.S.-born, Christian believers are considered genuine U.S. citizens. Christian nationalists pledge allegiance to their version of the United States, first making the U.S. into an idol and seeing God’s plan in U.S. society as including only those whose religious beliefs fuse with a certain view of that society. (I previously wrote about a bill approved by Iowa Republican lawmakers, which represents the collusion of church and state.)

(Article 46) The ELCA calls for renewed emphasis on comprehensive civics education as an essential element for robust and revitalized civic life. Such education should teach the whole story of U.S. history in its aspirations, successes, and failures so that it might shape well-informed, thoughtful, and wise citizens. (Iowa legislators have their own ideas about history instruction.)

(Article 47) No single solution will reduce the increasing, fevered polarization or mend the damage that endangers the U.S. social fabric as a representative democracy. However, robust civic participation is critical for democratic self-governance, for support of public servants, and for well-crafted policies. The ELCA urges both its members and all U.S. residents to renew their efforts toward such a robust civic participation, guided by concern for the well-being of all.

[And the summary concludes] (Article 48) … May we, as forgiven people in Christ’s church, respond boldly and join all others of goodwill to work toward the aspiration and responsibility of “we the people” through wise civic participation.

And a final word from Paine’s December 24, 1776 message: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”