Preliminary Note: This essay is critical, and severely, of the theology of an event recently held at Concordia University Wisconsin. It is important, however, to make plain beforehand that the theology faculty at the university, the new President, and some other faithful leadership at the university are not intended to be critiqued in this essay. While we must pursue First Commandment loyalty to Christ as will be addressed in this essay, we must try to avoid injuring innocent allies with “friendly fire.” Outside of the Concordia International Center itself, please do not interpret this essay as criticizing anyone. Much good is under way in reforming CUW. Much of that is internal with the quiet but active engagement of synodical leadership, and we must avoid painting with an overly broad brush.
Editor’s Note: The original posts by CUW about this “holi” celebration have been taken down.
The Small Catechism teaches the Six Chief Parts of Christian doctrine. The first part is the Ten Commandments. The First Commandment is:
The First Commandment
You shall have no other gods.
To talk about the First Commandment is not a case of majoring in minor things.
Let us consider a recent event officially sponsored on the campus of Concordia University Wisconsin – Mequon in connection with the First Commandment.
“The Concordia International Center welcomes Indian students with a fun-filled cricket workshop and a traditional Indian Holi celebration.”[1] “We are pleased to have all Concordia students participate in the Holi festival and cricket tournament.”[2] “We invite you to our joyful Holi celebration & Cricket. Please grace us Holi with your presence.”[3] Besides being promoted by the university itself and its international center, it also was promoted by alumni[4] and the Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Association (ECSGA).[5]
What is Holi? Why is this a First Commandment matter?
There are various stories about the origin and meaning of Holi. They include the stories of:
- The demoness Holika
- The burning of Kamadeva
- The divine love between Krishan and his consort Radha
- Driving out the ogress Dhundi by revelry and insults
Pick any of them and Holi is about religion, the overcoming of evil with good. It is about theology proper, that is, about God. Each of the stories is about true and false gods, about greater and lesser gods, or about victorious and defeated gods. The apparent namesake of Holi is the demoness, Holika. The throwing of colors, colored powder, and the use of fire are about these theologies and the religion of purging evil. Fire, rather than the blood of Christ, purges evil.
Of course, people could concoct some watered down or dumbed down version of the celebration that they might claim made Holi “neutral.” That only means that the celebration is inauthentic. It would not live up to the billing Concordia University Wisconsin gave it of a “traditional” Holi celebration. Besides, this is supposed to be a university, not a dumbed down middle school pizza party. It won’t do for a university to say, “We are innocent because we are ignorant and superficial.”
What of the prayer to Holi (Holika) to “Please grace us Holi with your presence?” Is that supposed to mean just a bidding that spring would arrive or an aspiration for a generic era of good feeling? Again: inauthentic and superficial.
To get a better idea of what an authentic and traditional celebration of Holi involves, see Anna Kroupina, “Welcoming spring by celebrating Holi,” The Concordian, March 29, 2016.[6] Read that and then try to publicly contend that it is not religion, not about God, not about good and evil, not about sin and salvation, and not idolatry against the First Commandment. As just one snippet, look at this praxis of Holi from Kroupina’s article, a photograph with the caption, “Concordia students got to celebrate the Hindu festival Holi at the Shree Ramji Temple in Montreal.” (Be careful to note that this is not a Lutheran school in Canada called Concordia. The name is coincidental.)
In these kinds of events, someone usually says there is no First Commandment problem because the participation was only an external, outward, bodily involvement. There was no inward, spiritual involvement as a matter of the heart. Let us consider this in two respects:
- The implicit Gnosticism of that justification, rejected at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.
- Luther’s explanation of the First Commandment in the Large Catechism.
A major corruption of Christianity that arose before the New Testament was finished being written was Gnosticism. We see rejections of it in various places in the New Testament such as 1 John (with regard to the person of Christ, his being true God and true man) and in the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 (with regard to Christians and bodily holiness).
What is Gnosticism? Just as Judaism and Christianity are denominationalized, so Gnosticism is denominationalized. There are varying kinds of Gnosticism: Docetic Gnosticism, Cerinthian Gnosticism, etc. Therefore, generalizations about Gnosticism suffer from some problems. But in the space available within this essay we may say that Gnosticism divides spirit and matter in the world, and spirit and body in humanity. In one variation of Gnosticism, knowledge and the spirt are good while matter – including the body – is evil. That leads to asceticism – denial of the body because it is evil. That is a false way of dealing with the problem of sin. In another variation, knowledge and the spirit are real while matter – including the body – is illusion. That leads to antinomianism – violating God’s Law in the body because, since the body like all matter is not real, what is done only in the body is unreal, not important, and not dangerous. In short, bodily matters cannot be sin, so we need not concern ourselves with God’s Law as it relates to the body.
Very early, Gnosticism corrupted Christianity. Some early Christians contended that they could do things involving the body such as fornicate without sin because it is only the body doing it. It is a mere external, physical engagement that does not engage the spirit. As long as one did it while having the gnostic knowledge within the spirit that made them free of the illusion of the body, they were innocent.
A lot is at play in the Council of Jerusalem, and I do not mean to reduce the issues nor the outcome of the council to just what we are considering here. But along with legalism, Gnosticism of the antinomian type was a play. The council arose when Gentiles were converting to Christ. Some urged that they must keep Moses’ law, especially circumcision. That is legalism. Others said God did not give the Law to the Gentiles, so the Gentiles are entirely free of the law. That is antinomianism. The outcome followed neither of those two positions.
I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath. (Acts 15:19-21)
Clearly, the urging by some that the Gentiles must obey as much of the Law as had been binding upon the Hebrews was soundly rejected by the Apostles. But just as clearly, the antinomian Gnostic doctrine that mere physical participation via the body is innocent also was soundly rejected by the Apostles. One cannot join one’s body to the body of a prostitute without spiritual engagement and injury.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:15-20)
In the decision of the council of Jerusalem quoted above, note that just as fornication is a matter of the body (and the spirit), so are the other three things from which the apostles taught us to abstain. Participation in things strangled, blood, and things polluted by idols were activities of the body. Unlike Gnosticism, however, Christianity teaches that they are not only matters of the body. They are matters also of the spirit and of who is one’s god.
The commandment to abstain from sexual immorality, from blood, from things strangled, and from things polluted by idols cannot be a word of the Gospel. The Gospel never commands anything. The Gospel never threatens. The Gospel promises and gives. It is the Law that commands. The outcome of the Council of Jerusalem was that the Law still has something to say to Christians not only about their need for Christ’s atonement but about how to live as Christians.
The idea that we could participate in a Holi celebration with its counterfeit theology (doctrine of God), its counterfeit hamartiology (doctrine of sin or evil), and its counterfeit soteriology (doctrine of how evil or sin is cleansed or overcome, doctrine of salvation) as a mere bodily participation without the spirit is implicit Gnosticism. The body is real. What we do with our bodies matters. Both spiritual idolatry and bodily idolatry are against the First Commandment.
We move now to the second aspect of our consideration of the implicitly Gnostic justification for the Holi celebration at Concordia University Wisconsin, namely, Luther’s explanation of the First Commandment in the Large Catechism. Speaking there about the First Commandment, Luther says:
What does it meant to have a god? Or, what is God? Answer: A god means that from which we are to expect all good and in which we are to take refuge in all distress. So, to have a God is nothing other than trusting and believing Him with the heart.
Someone might say there was no matter of the heart in the Holi celebration at Concordia. No one was expecting any good from it. No one was trusting or believing in it. There was no rivalry with trusting and believing in God.
Oh really? Unless one has been living under a rock, one is aware of pressures on universities. Most colleges and universities are in economic distress. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel[7] and other news outlets have just reported that, facing financial deficit, the Concordia University Wisconsin will lay off employees at the end of the current term. According to the news reports, the university president wrote in a letter last week that cuts at both the Mequon and Ann Arbor campuses represent about 4% of each campus’ employee base.
Pressure is on universities for:
- Enrollment
- Tuition revenue
- Accreditation
- Government funding
- Approbation of the world
The university has a large contingent of foreign students.
Hence its international center. In and of themselves, those things could be not
only fine but very good. But in the Indian Holi celebration, were those things
only in and of themselves? Was there no expectation of good in the Indian Holi
celebration (and other things at the university) regarding maintenance of enrollment,
government funding, tuition revenue, accreditation, and the approbation of the
world? What are we trusting for the sustenance of the school, God, or our
program of currying favor. Can we see no First Commandment issue?
[1] Concordia University Wisconsin, March 26, 2024 at 11:33 AM.
[2] Concordia International Center, February 29, 2024.
[3] Concordia International Center, March 21, 2024 at 11:17AM, https://www.facebook.com/cuwinternational/posts/pfbid024fxtMjTVjvVXNXgd7GUbyWJWaXx8fp9ebuuudavXLLuhmB45cDkzWet2F8UbrPQgl
[4] “The Concordia International Center welcomes Indian students with a fun-filled cricket workshop and a traditional Indian Holi celebration.” Concordia University Wisconsin Alumni, March 27, 2024.
[5] https://www.instagram.com/p/C4onQBxpr95/
[6] https://theconcordian.com/2016/03/welcoming-spring-by-celebrating-holi/.
[7] Kelly Meyerhofer, “Facing financial deficit, Concordia University Wisconsin to lay off 24 employees,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 2, 4:26 PM,