All Grace

Where Lutherans are Most Zen: distrust of action. Works Righteousness is the label we stick on stuff we don't like when we want to shut down all discussion on the topic. Lutherans recoil at the thought of their actions counting for something.
The way Kant said it, actions cannot be ethical in themselves. Only intentions can be judged good or bad.

(I'm not really sure I'm doing justice to Kant here. You should get used to having me misinterpret philosophers. If you write a comment on this like, "Kant never said . . . " followed by lots of yadas, you missed the point. Maybe Kant never said it or meant it, but he should have. Or somebody should have. We need people to be wrong in helpful ways.)

Oh, and by the way: Intentions are always bad.

So that kind of sets us back. People like to think they can do the right thing; but it seems pretty obvious to the Zen Lutheran that they don't. If the only hope for humanity is more humanity, well, that's where hope gets flushed.

This is going to end up being quite existential. You do remember Kierkegaard was Lutheran, right? I'll get around to misinterpreting him later. For now just remember the father of existentialism was a Danish Lutheran.

Zen Lutherans are failed romantics. A romantic is someone who dreams that things can be better. When they don't get better, they come to us.

But don't look here for pessimism, cynicism or despair. Just look for grace.