Russell displays a complete misunderstanding of he Two Kingdoms that amounts to the traditional Reformed caricature of the Lutheran position. The Kingdom of the Left is also God's Kingdom, and membership in a political party is not the same as taking a position contrary to God's Word!

The situation of a person having "little or no health insurance" does not arise here, and I'm confused by Russell's apparent belief that it somehow does. . The question is whether people should or can be compelled to violate their consciences and their religious beliefs in order to provide insurance for a specific purpose which they believe violates God's Law.

While I do not share the opposition to birth control which lies at the heart of this issue, I certainly support the right- and, indeed, duty- of Christians "to obey God rather than men." M. Didaskalos is exactly right. To take a position supporting abortion or same-sex marriage is to take a position in opposition to God's Word, and no consistent Christian can do so. Moreover, as Luther pointed out again and again, it is the church's divinely-appointed task to proclaim the Law as well as the Gospel, to government as well as to individuals. President Harrison has faithfully carried out his duties not only as president of the LCMS, but as a pastor, in proclaiming God's word to a degenerate and apostate generation.

If the LCMS failed to speak God's word to the abandonment of the Fifth Commandment as respects the unborn or the abandonment of the institution of marriage as defined by both Testaments and by Jesus Himself, it would be in the same position as the German church during the years of the Third Reich, which by and large remained silent when its duty was to speak precisely on behalf of "the least of these." Nor does the Supreme Court decision mean that women are deprived of birth control. They can always seek employment at a place whose owners have no scruples against it, or pay for it some other way. Perhaps Russell would start a fund to do precisely that.

One thing is clear, though: under neither the Constitution nor the Law of God does the government have the right to demand that we defy our own consciences and our understanding of God's Law.