Not long ago in a faculty setting I heard my colleague, Professor Jan Rippentrop, boldly state that she understood herself to be a political theologian. Being excited to hear her say this I asked for a post saying more. She responded to my request in a creative fashion, using a top 5 “You might be a political theologian if…” framework. In this post, she demonstrates her Lutheran bona fides by demonstrating one of the many possible models of public church leadership. In particular, her own model is as a Lutheran political theologian who strives to give theological grounding for public church leaders to both advocate for or protest against public policy, as well as to construct substantive policy substitutions when necessary. Be it the targeting of immigrants and refugees from Muslim-majority countries, the rescinding of guidelines for the treatment of trans students in public schools, to the potential horror…