John Frederick Steinbruck (October 5, 1930 – March 1, 2015) was an ordained Lutheran minister who served for 28 years (1970–1997) as senior pastor at Luther Place Memorial Church in Washington, D.C.Castaneda, Ruben, "Retiring, But Not Shy, Activist Pastor Is Stepping Aside," The Washington Post, February 6, 1997. Luther Place is a historic, red-stone church located at Thomas Circle, 1226 Vermont Avenue, N.W.,"Our History." Luther Place Memorial Church. Retrieved 2015-09-29. in the heart of Washington's red-light district. The church sits less than a mile from the White House.Reid, Louise A., "Luther Place: A haven 'for those who are exiles of the community,'" The Washington Post, April 21, 1977. Print.McCarthy, Colman, "A Home At Last," The Washington Post, December 7, 1996. Print.
Steinbruck received many honors and much media recognition, and he was occasionally the instigator of controversy and acts of civil disobedience. To admirers, he was a "prophetic visionary" out to remake the world;Ehlers, Mark J., "A Saint in the City: The Life, Faith, and Theology of John Steinbruck," November 20, 2009. Retrieved 2015-09-29. to detractors, he was an "unbending, self-righteous true believer with a Messiah complex."
Early life and family
The son of working-class German immigrants, Steinbruck was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He suffered many health ailments as a child, including rickets, food allergies, a weak left eye and a hernia that required him to wear an iron truss, and his German heritage in the 1930s and 1940s subjected him to the very forms of prejudice he would later oppose in his Christian ministries."Interview of John Steinbruck." Personal Interview (Mark J. Ehlers). February 13, 2006. While growing up in Northeast Philadelphia, he attended Lawndale Elementary School, Wilson Junior High School, and Frankford High School, from which he graduated in 1948.Email Correspondence with John Steinbruck (Mark J. Ehlers). December 28, 2009. An exceedingly thin child, at a young age he could not participate in competitive sports, though he would develop into a large, husky man with a football player's build. Steinbruck excelled at reading and developed into a good student, which would eventually lead him to college and post-graduate education. Following a two-year stint in the United States Navy, in 1949 and 1950, Steinbruck was accepted into the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied at the Wharton School of Finance. He graduated from Penn in 1954 with a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering."John F. Steinbruck, Biographical Sketch." June 24, 1997 (Luther Place Memorial Church Archives).
Early theological influences
By the summer of 1953, as a 22-year-old Penn student at the Wharton School of Finance, Steinbruck realized he did not fit into this "seminary for capitalists", as he would later call it. He was a man without direction, no sense of purpose, and casual faith. A bit of a hell-raiser, he frequented seedy bars and hustled money throwing darts. One afternoon, feeling down and out, having just ended an ill-fated romance, he walked into a corner drug store. There, among the trashy romance novels and magazines, was a single paperback copy of Out of My Life and Thought by Albert Schweitzer. The book cost him thirty-five cents. He would later say that it changed his life."Interview of John Steinbruck." Personal Interview (Mark J. Ehlers). February 13, 2009.
In Schweitzer, Steinbruck found an embodiment of moral virtue, a role model for a life of devoted service. Although Schweitzer enjoyed life as a philosopher, musician, and biblical scholar, he was plagued by "the thought that I must not accept this happiness as a matter of course, but must give something in return for it."Schweitzer's Struggle Article That so many people in the world were "denied that happiness by their material circumstances or their health" led Schweitzer, at the age of 30, to enroll in medical school. He would eventually build and re-build a hospital in Gabon, West Africa, and devote the remainder of his life caring to the medical needs of Africa's poor.Albert Schweitzer - Biography
Steinbruck's spiritual search led him as well to Martin Wiznat, a Lutheran pastor in Philadelphia with a powerful speaking voice and a magnetism that engaged people, traits that would later be attributed to Steinbruck himself. Wiznat's theological world view was unlike any Steinbruck had ever heard. Steinbruck had been raised in the literalistic religion of his German immigrant parents, in a little known sect called the Faith Tract Mission. A pietistic movement, the Faith Tract Mission was a fundamentalist brand of Christianity that was in rebellion to the more formal, established Catholic and Lutheran churches of Europe. Steinbruck found it a religion of self-denial that encouraged a detachment from the world. Through his relationship and talks with Wiznat, Steinbruck "suddenly discovered," as he told the Washington Jewish Week in 1990, "that religion and faith could be respectable and did not require believing in three impossible things before breakfast every morning."Deutsch, Judith Sloan, "John and Erna Steinbruck: Hosting the Homeless," Washington Jewish Week, March 1, 1990. Print.
Seminary education
Wiznat saw something special in Steinbruck and remarked that God may have larger plans for him. Inspired but somewhat reluctant, Steinbruck, an industrial engineer by day, began to dabble in seminary courses by night. His continued discomfort in the world of American commerce led Steinbruck eventually to enroll full-time in the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. There, Steinbruck was taught by energetic young professors who had studied under the top theologians of Europe - men such as John Reumann, William Lazareth, Robert Bornemann, and Theodore Tappert, intellectual leaders in the Lutheran Church in America. Steinbruck learned critical thinking in biblical analysis from these scholars, who took seriously Schweitzer's Quest for the Historical Jesus. Steinbruck's theological studies helped him to raise important questions concerning aspects of doctrinal Christianity, with an eye toward re-defining that which was truly fundamental to the faith. It was the beginning of Steinbruck's personal quest to engage Christianity as a worldly faith tradition, one that did not shy away from the realities of life; one more interested in saving lives than saving souls. "I don't need to resort to miracles to confirm my faith," Steinbruck said in 2006. "I am to deal with the realities in the world – racism, war and peace. If 45 million people have no health care, then it is my obligation to do something about it."
Steinbruck graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1959 with a Master of Divinity degree, and he earned a Doctor of Ministry from the seminary in 1979. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the concept of biblical hospitality, on the church as a place of refuge, modeled on the biblical motif of "welcoming the stranger" and the "sacred obligation" to help others.Miller, Lori, "Ancient Ethic of Sanctuary Seen Reemerging as Moral Issue," The Washington Post, January 6, 1970. Print. In exercising hospitality, one person shields another from harm. As he later explained this concept, "As we are hospitable to each other, we will thrive as a country."
Marriage
In June 1956, Steinbruck married Erna Guenther, a native Philadelphian with a passion for justice. Light years ahead of Steinbruck in her devotion to the church, Erna worked long hours volunteering at a Lutheran settlement house in Northeast Philadelphia, where she assisted young children and helped displaced refugees. Years later, when the Steinbrucks had put into place a consortium of shelters and clinics servicing the homeless in Washington, D.C., it was typically Erna who worked tirelessly behind the scenes preparing the food, fixing the plumbing, keeping out the rats, and making the beds. "John Steinbruck talks it, Erna does it," was a common refrain. John and Erna Steinbruck together had five children, Mark John, John Andrew, Elisabeth Ann, Michael Paul, and Mary Katherine, and remained married for 58 years. They resided in Lewes, Delaware.
Early years as pastor
Following seminary, Steinbruck became an assistant pastor at St. John's Lutheran Church, in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. It was not a good fit, and he always seemed to find himself in trouble. When he downed a few beers at a local watering hole following a church softball game, he offended the teetotalers of the congregation. When he rode his motorcycle through town in his clerical collar, he challenged the congregation's image of a small-town pastor. When he refused to join the Lions and Rotary Clubs, he disrespected local custom. "After that," Steinbruck told the Washington Post in a magazine profile in 1985, "I thought it was healthier to move on."Rosenfeld, Judith, "John Steinbruck: The Shepherd in Combat," Washington Post Magazine, December 15, 1985.
Steinbruck thereafter sought city churches, which he believed were great arenas from which to practice his brand of theology, and which offered many opportunities for creative ministry. He found that urban churches reflected the suffering and afflictions of their surroundings - poverty, crime, decaying neighborhoods. It was in the city that Steinbruck found his true calling, confronting the effects of racism, discrimination, homelessness, economic inequality, and the injustices of American society.
Steinbruck served for ten years at St. John's Lutheran ChurchSteinbruck served from 1960-1962 as Pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Easton, Pennsylvania. Following its merger with St. John's Lutheran Church, Steinbruck became Pastor of St. John's, which he served officially from 1962 to 1970. "John F. Steinbruck, Biographical Sketch." June 24, 1997 (Luther Place Memorial Church Archives). in Easton, Pennsylvania, a depressed industrial town with a melting pot of cultures and ethnicity. It was the early 1960s and the civil rights movement was in its infant stages. As some of his congregants were working-class blacks, Steinbruck became sensitized to issues that most suburban pastors avoided - racially discriminatory practices in every aspect of the community - that required action more than prayer.Trexler, Edgar R., "Interfaith Adventure in Easton," Allentown Sunday Call-Chronicle, December 10, 1967, F-6 (re-printed from The Lutheran magazine). Print. Steinbruck was the first white minister to receive the Pastor of the Year Award from the NAACP, and St. John's was the first church to take a life membership in the NAACP."Rev. Steinbruck Accepts Thanks of Community," The Express (Easton, PA), February 16, 1970, page 5. Print.