Martin Luther (1483–1546) was greatly influenced by Augustinian thought. Luther maintained that the gospel is to be placed in heaven and the law on earth, erecting a barrier between the two. Humans are to obey the laws on earth, even when those laws dehumanize others. When peasants fought for the abolition of serfdom, Luther reminded them that earthly kingdoms can exist only if there is inequality, where some are free and others subservient. Repudiating the oppressed peasants’ demand for their full humanity, Luther wrote to them: You assert that no one is to be the serf of anyone else, because Christ has made us all free…. Did not Abraham and other patriarchs and prophets have slaves?… A slave can be a Christian, and have Christian freedom, in the same way that a prisoner or a sick man is a Christian, and yet be free. [Your claim] would make all men equal, and turn the spiritual kingdom of Christ into a worldly, external kingdom; and that is impossible. A worldly kingdom cannot exist without an inequality of persons, some being free, some imprisoned, some lords, some subjects. (1967, 39) Luther went so far as to advise those in authority to “smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly” the rebelling peasants, who like “mad dogs,” must be killed (1967, 50). According to Luther, political stability, even if maintained through the oppression of the marginalized, takes precedence over the humanity of the marginalized.
With suspicion, those on the margins approach scholars like John Calvin (1509–1564), who insisted that those who are marginalized, specifically the poor, should respect and honor those who are economically their superiors because God in God's wisdom bestowed the “elect” with special material gifts. In the political realm, Calvin called citizens to submit to governments regardless of how tyrannical their rulers may have been, because it is up to the Lord to avenge such despots, while it is up to the citizens to simply “obey and suffer” (Institutes 4.20.31). Furthermore, Calvin stated that the “poor must yield to the rich; the common folk, to the nobles; the servants, to their masters; the unlearned, to the educated” (Institutes 3.7.1– 5). Clearly, Calvin ignored the connection between the amassing of power and privilege and the marginalization of the poor, the common folk, the servants, and the unlearned. Thus, for ethicist Sharon Welch, the danger of our present society is the assumption that those in the center of society, understood to be God's elect, possess “the prerequisites for moral judgment and that other groups [the poor, the common folk, the servants, and the unlearned] are devoid of those same prerequisites” (1990, 126).
Miguel A. de la Torre. Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins By Miguel A. De La Torre (Kindle Locations 653-661). Kindle Edition.