tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55088425301180771452024-03-19T04:59:31.994-05:00Mercy Journeys with Pastor HarrisonThe Mercy of Christ in Action Around the World.Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.comBlogger2170125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-29359823218954188542015-02-23T18:00:00.001-06:002015-02-23T18:02:06.647-06:00<br />
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<strong>The First Sunday in Lent, A.D. 2015</strong></div>
Dearest Brothers in the Office:<br />
I greet you in the name of Jesus, our constant hope and consolation in the ministry.<br />
I’ve been re-reading Martin Brecht’s great three-volume biography of Luther.* Luther’s life was full of joy, love for the Scriptures, friendship and great conviviality. But it was also filled with disappointment. Near the end of his life, he described himself as “old, cold, lame and one-eyed.” He was so miffed at his own congregation in Wittenberg that the summer before he died, he resolved to leave town for good. He wrote Katie on July 28, 1545:<br />
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<em>I would like to arrange matters in such a way that I do not have to return to Wittenberg. My heart has become cold, so that I do not like to be there any longer. I wish you would sell the garden and field, house and all. . . . It would be best for you to move to Zölsdorf as long as I am still living and able to help you to improve the little property with my salary . . . I would rather eat the bread of a beggar than torture and upset my poor old age and final days with the filth at Wittenberg, which destroys my hard and faithful work. You might inform Doctor Pomer and Master Philip of this (if you wish) . . . </em>(AE 50:278, 280–81).</div>
Katie did inform them, and the Elector sent Melanchthon out with a reconnaissance party to retrieve the old man, promising to make some improvement in the city. Luther was indeed a grumpy old man by this time, but his frustrations with the congregations in Wittenberg were hardly limited to his old age. There was, of course, the uproar early on, while he was hiding in the Wartburg after his great “Here I stand” speech at Worms. (During this week of Invocavit, you might check out the first of Luther’s “Invocavit Sermons” for a clinic on preaching to people in the pew, especially on preaching “love,” i.e., “third use of the Law!” See AE 51:70–75.) And already from 1526-27 and the time of the plague in Wittenberg, Luther frequently expressed his great frustrations with the city parish, both in sermons and private correspondence. The Gospel did not have the effect among the people that he had hoped, and it bothered him greatly at times. Of course, as he readily admitted, his old sinful flesh only exacerbated the matter.<br />
And so it is with us. One cannot paint the whole Missouri Synod ministerium with one broad brush, to be sure. There are many brothers experiencing excellent times in their lives of service at this moment, and abundantly so. There are also many experiencing the cross in their office, and intensely so. It is, in many respects, like the opening line of Charles Dickens’ <em>A Tale of Two Cities</em>: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . .” It is a great moment in that, while post-modernity has demolished the purely rationalistic and empiricist opposition to metaphysical realities, leaving the door wide open for us to make the case for Jesus, yet the flood of “spirituality” and individualistic fantasy has pulled the populace away from the Church. Sadly, that includes a great many of our own. I don’t need to rehearse here the demographic challenges that we, and all of Western Christianity, face. You know this challenge very directly and deal with it daily.<br />
Brothers, there is consolation, even for ministers of the Gospel. “What God institutes and commands cannot be an empty thing. It must be a most precious thing, even though it looked like it had less value than a straw” (LC IV 8). Luther’s comment applies to us pastors. “Therefore, every Christian has enough in Baptism to learn and to do all his life. For he has always enough to do by believing firmly what Baptism promises and brings: victory over death and the devil (Rom. 6:3–6), forgiveness of sin (Acts 2:38), God’s grace (Titus 3:5–6), the entire Christ, and the Holy Spirit with His gifts (1 Cor. 6:11). In short, Baptism is so far beyond us that if timid nature could realize this, it might well doubt whether it could be true” (LC IV 41). Before you were called and ordained, all that is given in Baptism was yours. And it remains yours, even in times when your “timid nature” might not feel it or realize it.<br />
And there is an even greater consolation precisely in your eternal election to salvation, which was made manifest in your Baptism. You know full well, pastor, all of those “in Him,” “in Christ,” “in the Beloved,” statements in Ephesians 1. “In Him you also, when you heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:13). “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which He lavished upon us . . . making know to us the mystery of His will ...” (Eph. 1:7f.). You are baptized, pastor. That rock won’t move, come what may.<br />
Moreover, you have not chosen your vocation by yourself. Sure, God gave you a desire to study for the ministry (1 Tim. 3:1); you were encouraged along the way by God’s people. Faithful teachers encouraged you. But it was the church, which finally put you into an office, or <em>Amt</em> (auf Deutsch). “St. Paul tells Timothy and Titus to entrust the ministry to faithful and able men (2 Tim. 2:2; 3:2; Titus 1:9)” (Chemnitz, <em>Enchiridion</em>, 28**). The church recognized your gifts, and God’s people in a specific location called you with a “special and legitimate” call. You were prepared, called and ordained to this ministry; you didn’t just start “gassing off” on your own (Rom. 10:15; Jer. 23:21; Heb. 5:4).<br />
It is certainly true that all Christians are spiritual priests and enjoy the full privileges of this priesthood. As Chemnitz wrote, “. . . all Christians have a general call to proclaim the Gospel of God (Rom. 10:9); to speak the Word of God among themselves (Eph. 5:19); to admonish each other form the Word of God; to reprove (Eph. 5:11; Matt. 19:15) and to comfort (1 Thess. 4:18). And family heads are enjoined to do this with the special command that they give their households the instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). But the public ministry of the Word and of the Sacraments in the Church is not entrusted to all Christians in general, as we have already shown (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:12). For a special or particular call is required for this (Rom. 10:15)” (Chemnitz, <em>Enchiridion</em>, 29).<br />
I’ve always loved being a pastor. There is something amazing about being invited into peoples’ lives at their very best times and very worst times, and often in the lives of the very same people! But much more than that, we come into the lives of people with Jesus. It’s all about Jesus. It’s all about Jesus for those who already know Him, and it’s all about Jesus for those who don’t. And as Dr. Walther so concisely and wonderfully stated in Thesis III of <em>The Church and the Office of the Ministry</em>, “The preaching office is not an optional office but one whose establishment has been commanded to the Church and to which the Church is properly bound till the end of time” (<em>Church and Office</em>, 181;*** Walther’s proof text for this is Matt. 28:19–20). The office is not finally about power or even authority in the sense that we usually think of. Jesus, after all, exercised His authority (<em>exousia</em>) by sacrificing Himself (Phil. 2). Thus, as Walther states (Thesis IV), “The preaching office [<em>Predigtamt</em>] is not a special state in opposition to or holier than that of ordinary Christians, as was the Levitical priesthood; rather it is an office of service [<em>Amt des Dienstes</em>].” And we pastors are called to serve up Jesus. “We preach Christ crucified,” or we should not speak at all, frankly. We bring the love of Jesus to the hurting, the weak, the sick, the destitute, the lonely, the aged, the young and everyone in between. And we do so because the Lord mandates that there be pastors after His own heart who do so.<br />
Chemnitz notes several reasons why a pastor must have a legitimate call, and these points provide consolation for us today. It is not merely a matter of human arrangement or good order, he says.<br />
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<li>“God himself deals with us in the church through the ministry as through the ordinary means and instrument. For it is He Himself that speaks, exhorts, absolves, baptizes, etc., in the ministry and through the ministry” (Luke 1:70; Heb. 1:1; John 1:23; 2 Cor. 2:10, 17; 5:20; 13:3). So, states Chemnitz, we have clear proofs that God wants to use pastors as “His ordinary means and instrument.” If God is so minded, will he not hear your prayers pastor? Does he not care for you, too?</li>
<li>“Very many and necessary gifts are required for the ministry (2 Cor. 2:16). But one who has been brought to the ministry by a legitimate call can apply the divine promises to himself, ask God for faithfulness in them, and expect both, the gifts that are necessary for him rightly to administer the ministry (1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6; 2 Cor. 3:5–6) and governance and protection in the office entrusted to him (Is. 49:2; 51:16).”</li>
<li>“The chief thing of the ministry is that God wants to be present in it with His Spirit, grace and gifts and to work effectively through it. But Paul says in Romans 10:15: ‘How shall they who are not sent preach’ (namely in such a way that faith is engendered by hearing)? But God wants to give increase to the planting and watering of those who have been legitimately called to the ministry and set forth doctrine without guile and faithfully administer whatever belongs to the ministry (1 Cor. 3:6; 15:58), that both they themselves and others might be saved (1 Tim. 4:16).”</li>
<li>“The assurance of a divine call stirs up minsters of the Word, that each one, in his station, in the fear of God, performs his functions with greater diligence, faith and eagerness, without weariness. And he does not let himself be drawn or frightened away from his office by fear of any peril or of persecution, since he is sure that he is called by God and that the office has been divinely entrusted to him.”</li>
<li>“Finally, on this basis the hearers are stirred up to true reverence and obedience toward the ministry, namely since they are taught from the Word of God that God, present through this means, wants to deal with us in the church and work effectively among us” (Chemnitz, <em>Enchiridion</em> 29–30).</li>
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Dear Brothers in the office, we have a sacred vocation of service. We serve. Because we bear Christ’s own office, an office our Confessions say is derived from Christ and the apostles, we can expect among the joys and great blessings, thorns, trials, crosses and difficulties. Some of these are brought upon us by the weaknesses of those whom we serve. But the office is an office designed <em>only</em> to serve sinners! This is the way of Christ. Some difficulties, often more than we might like to admit, we bring upon ourselves through our own weaknesses and sinfulness. And I think, especially in my own life, of my sins of discontentment and anxiety. Yet we know, in repentance, that even our own failings are worked for good by our merciful heavenly Father!<br />
I covet your prayers, even as I pledge you mine. I plan to write these letters from time to time to encourage you, not to burden you.<br />
In Christ,<br />
Matt Harrison<br />
Invocavit 2015<br />
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*Martin Brecht, <em>Martin Luther</em>, trans. by James L. Schaaf, 3 vols. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985–93).<br />
**Martin Chemnitz, <em>Ministry, Word, and Sacraments: An Enchiridion</em>, trans. Luther Poellot (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1981).<br />
*** C. F. W. Walther, <em>The Church and the Office of the Ministry</em>, trans. Matthew C. Harrison (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2012).</td></tr>
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Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-5645478198680902002014-11-25T18:31:00.000-06:002014-11-25T18:31:09.751-06:00"From depths of woe" - Thoughts in the Aftermath of the St. Louis Tragedy <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“From depths of woe I cry to thee.” All of us in St. Louis are in shock and dismay. The President of this great nation called for measured action by protestors. Many in the community responded with mayhem and destruction of businesses and property of people themselves totally committed to the community. We pray for the victims of this mess. We pray for the authorities caught in this struggle. We pray for the peaceful protestors. We condemn the senseless violence and its perpe<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">trators. I feel as Martin Luther once felt in the peasant’s war: Outrage at the marauding thugs creating death and mayhem; and deep frustration with the princes for driving the peasants to such frustration. In the case of Ferguson, on one level it’s about a death and an officer; but it’s much more about what we all have allowed to become of this nation.</span></div>
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The problems this nation faces are deep and humanly unsolvable. Hundreds of years of institutionalized and then unofficial racial discrimination mean trust is hard to come by, and when found is fleeting. The deterioration of urban families, civil structures and institutions, and lack of personal accountability and responsibility, render us all but hopeless. Our citizens view this matter almost strictly along racial lines. That’s a tragedy in itself.</div>
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The answers to our challenges lay in a two realms: state and church. We have allowed the disintegration of civil society and morality (state), which most deeply affects areas of socio-economic challenge. We have created systems, which have debilitated and destroyed the family, schools, churches, the very institutions, which are the solution to the challenges. Government has discriminated against parochial schools in challenged areas, forcing hundreds of Lutheran schools alone to close, killing the source of good in neighborhood after neighborhood. We have allowed cities to rot. We have allowed whole communities to be plagued by vacant and dilapidated buildings, poor infrastructure, all inviting, multiplying and sustaining negative activity and miss-trust. We have failed to call each other to account. Our nation continues to play racial politics while lives are swallowed into an abyss of hopelessness. We have created systems, which profit from decay and incarceration, treating mere symptoms while spreading disease. Our nation has chosen through court decision and vote, radical unbridled sexual freedom and it has come at the expense of the most vulnerable. Having local police mirror the racial makeup of the communities they serve is good and necessary, but only treats a symptom.</div>
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This nation is sick unto death. The church has the answer: Jesus Christ. Jesus is neither white, or black. Jesus is the eternal answer for Officer Wilson and Michael Brown, and for all of us. What a mess we’ve made in this nation of the greatest national gift of God in the history of the world. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.</div>
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Matt Harrison</div>
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Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-35102380739453682932014-11-24T09:36:00.001-06:002014-11-24T09:39:29.495-06:00"We Will Not Tolerate Any Little Lutheran Pope" Wyneken<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>On The Office of the Ministry</b><br />
<b>And the Spiritual Priesthood</b></div>
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<b>“We Will Not Tolerate Any Little Lutheran Pope”</b></div>
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<b>1852 Synodical Address</b></div>
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<b>By Friedrich Wyneken</b></div>
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<b>Translated by Matthew C. Harrison</b><br />
<b>From <a href="http://www.cph.org/p-19262-at-home-in-the-house-of-my-fathers.aspx">At Home in the House of My Fathers (CPH)</a></b></div>
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This is an amazing doctrinal address by the greatest missionary giant of the Missouri Synod. With<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaw3Iz62QhviDw-Az4A4Du10O-JXKsjcNex5bf0ANTAhiTILNc0_yQrTZfXiQp9zzt3O673OZzMGaFfTmYQ0R7_-Ez3RydsHPK9AzAlNxza16POh0Wj6HDhvDnJrBdWyqjCsCGklUEPuM/s1600/124386.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaw3Iz62QhviDw-Az4A4Du10O-JXKsjcNex5bf0ANTAhiTILNc0_yQrTZfXiQp9zzt3O673OZzMGaFfTmYQ0R7_-Ez3RydsHPK9AzAlNxza16POh0Wj6HDhvDnJrBdWyqjCsCGklUEPuM/s1600/124386.jpg" /></a> Wyneken’s presidency, the rift with Grabau (1804–1879) and finally with Loehe (1808– 1872) settled into permanent division. The Missourians were adamant about preserving the unique and divinely mandated character of the Office of the Ministry, and at the same time, preserving the divinely given dignity, rights, and glory of the priesthood of the baptized. The limit of the authority of the office is the Word of God. Missouri’s strength was absolute obedience to the Word of God and the guarding of the glorious freedom of the Christian. The pastorate guarded the rights of the laity, and the laity were taught wherein the dignity of the office lay. “Our pastors seek obedience to the will of the Lord and not to their own arbitrary will. When our pastors seek to bring hearts under the obedience of the Word, they simultaneously grant the highest and most blessed freedom,” Wyneken declares.</div>
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“We will not tolerate it that the souls freed and purchased by the blood of Christ be brought again under the yoke of any little Lutheran pope. . . . The dignity, the desire, and the joy of the true co-worker of God is to draw ever more his community of believers into their freedom and its worthy use, to encourage them and lead them ever more in the exercise of their rights, to show them how to exercise their duties that they be more and more convinced of their high calling and that they demonstrate that they are ever more worthy of that calling.” Gold. Pure gold. God grant us repentance and a return to the heritage that is ours, also in the doctrine of the Office of the Ministry and the spiritual priesthood of all. I verily wept as I translated it. It should be read by every LCMS pastor and layperson.</div>
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Translated from Sechster Synodal-Bericht der deutschen Ev.-Luth. Synode von Missouri, Ohio u.a. Staaten vom Jahre 1852, 2nd ed. (St. Louis, 1876), 200–207. —M. H.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqWUpcV8R8bWrugtm17xr6L9QC6Bu028uswjh0qRR8AboLi_GhpvF9oVyHoRLvX6Nun77OyNPNJ0YGv8TbrbO_YSM1pFaMuo5w_pVq6EC5LTQF-JdUuzjdVkU6DLHMlhHPQKXqlY-90pI/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqWUpcV8R8bWrugtm17xr6L9QC6Bu028uswjh0qRR8AboLi_GhpvF9oVyHoRLvX6Nun77OyNPNJ0YGv8TbrbO_YSM1pFaMuo5w_pVq6EC5LTQF-JdUuzjdVkU6DLHMlhHPQKXqlY-90pI/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a>In the name of the most praiseworthy Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. In Christ, honored and beloved brothers in the office and faith! At each new synod assembly that has been granted us by the Lord according to His mercy, our hearts are filled with ever more thanksgiving for the wonder of His love, grace, and faithfulness, which He shows to us even in these last troubled times. It is nothing but a miracle that just a few years ago, there were only few German Lutheran preachers here and there, fighting their way through forests and prairies [Wyneken was chief among them]. With great difficulty they visited the scattered members of their Church and sparingly ministered to them with the Bread of Life. Today a Synod is assembled that has more than a hundred workers—preachers, professors, and teachers—in the vineyard of the Lord. The longer the Synod exists, the more congregations join. They rejoice with the Synod that the light of true doctrine has again been placed on the lampstand, its living beams brightening hearts that love the truth. God has not only provided two institutions [seminaries at St. Louis and Ft. Wayne] led by faithful and capable brothers, in whose midst those whom we regard as the most beautiful hope for the future of the Church are trained; we also have men of more modest ability to bear the name of the Lord among heathen Indians. We must indeed boast: The Lord has truly done great things to us! Indeed, also in this year past, He has done great things to us!</div>
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We lament the loss of our beloved brother Reissner, a diligent worker for the name of the Lord. He was taken home, out of the battle, to eternal peace after a short but very challenging period of work. But more new workers are entering the void left by his departure, and, through the necessary expansion of both of our institutions, the Lord gives us the joyous assurance that He will indeed move more and more young hearts within our congregations who at the Lord’s time will be placed into His ministry, for His battle and His victory on the battlefield.</div>
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These are troubled and tattered times. We are regularly and richly beset with manifold needs and problems. They cause us to lose heart so easily. It is no small gift of grace that, despite it all, the Synod would be gifted with courage and joy through the sending of two delegates by the dear Mother Church in the old beloved fatherland. By being here, you bear witness to how very important the one spiritual fellowship is to you, in which we by the common faith and Confession stand and walk in the closest bond. The dear brothers in Germany have responded to this expressed request. Indeed, they have answered not merely with words but with an actual demonstration of love and help. Herr Pastor Loehe—the dear man of God to whose zeal our Synod already owes so much—and also those associated with him, have done so much for the building up of the Lutheran Church in America by your love and care for your brothers in this distant land. This love has again been active in the establishment of the teachers’ seminary in Saginaw City, as has been reported already to the brothers through our Lutheraner.</div>
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Above all, however, we must praise the Lord of the Church that by His grace, He has until now preserved the hearts of His ministers in His Word, in the correct unity of faith and love. Thus far, the enemy has not succeeded in the controversy that he stirred up against us on account of the truth. So long as the Lord preserves us in the love of the truth and humble subservience to His Word, the mutual free and frank word will be on all sides: “Thanks be to God!” Nor is the future to be feared when, as the Synod grows, there appear here and there minor differences. In our congregations, the Word appears to be sinking ever-deeper roots. Many of our brothers in the Office of the Ministry who have had to carry out their office with heavy sighs are beginning to breathe freely again. They are also beginning to praise God the Lord that He has given them patience and long-suffering, and that in this patience, He has brought His Word the victory.</div>
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To be sure, there are individuals who complain bitterly as much about the recalcitrance and obstinacy, indeed, of entire congregations as about individual members of the same. But overall, their numbers are fewer, and the discipline of an ordered congregational life is coming into place more easily. This happens all the more as congregations recognize that the pastors of our synodical union seek the Lord’s honor and not their own. Our pastors seek obedience to the will of the Lord and not to their own arbitrary will. When our pastors seek to bring hearts under the obedience of the Word, they simultaneously grant the highest and most blessed freedom. In congregations that we have served for a longer time, the obstinate have separated for the most part from the true believing part of the congregation.</div>
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For they saw that this is not a fight against a human power and opinion that lusts for its own honor and power. They saw that they were fighting against the power of the Word and the inflexibility of a conscience captive to God’s Word. Such separations have given space to build upon our most holy faith and for congregations to order their affairs according to God’s Word.</div>
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It is true that the state of general ignorance and lack of discipline renders our path of building the congregations a slow and difficult one. Can and may we accept the basic principles and manner of dealing of our brothers, who level against us the heavy charge of heresy over our doctrine of Church and Ministry [Amt, “office”] and complain to us that we divest the holy preaching office of its divine worth and make it a slave to the fleshly desires for freedom of the congregation? Must we claim, as they do, another authority than that of the Word? It would also be easy for us to begin to compel consciences into external obedience and to introduce a hastier route to discipline and order, one more acceptable to the flesh. But what would that accomplish? It would force an external, legalistic subjection to human authority, which is displeasing to God. But it would not achieve the only thing pleasing to God, namely, the willing obedience of a heart born of God. From this agreeable, uncompelled freedom and glory comes conviction, and from this conviction, desire and love easily flow for the well-being of the whole. Free brothers in fellowship make arrangements to accomplish as much.</div>
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We could perhaps build a beautiful building, pleasing to the eye, but in which free Christians do not dwell with eagerness and love, with free and happy emotion, hearts united with God, living within the wide boundaries of the divine will. As poor slaves with imprisoned, enslaved, and martyred consciences, their hearts would sigh under the pressure of a miserable human yoke, barely scraping along in their stunted existence. They would feel the burden but not be able to throw off the yoke because, according to their misled consciences, their souls’ salvation is dependent upon this slavish servitude. And how long would this building stand? It would last only until the hidden discontent of the forced obedience would break forth and tear to the ground both building and builder. Indeed, what would be gained if it should stand until the world’s end? In the end, the Lord would still have to reduce it to ashes with the fire of His wrath, as will be the case with everything that His Spirit has not built.</div>
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Why are these weighty accusations—that we allow the laity to trample the holy preaching office, that we provoke them to despise it, that we champion the fleshly freedom of the congregation, and similar such things—brought against us? My answer, and as I certainly hope, also your answer, is this: It happens because, according to the knowledge granted by the Lord, we will not tolerate it that the souls freed and purchased by the blood of Christ be brought again under the yoke of any little Lutheran pope. For by God’s grace, they have escaped the disgraceful servitude of the Roman pope and Antichrist. We will protest and warn against this as well and as clearly as we can. Where this newly arisen hierarchy will not let go of its errors, we will seek to restrict its growth. Therefore, because we cannot accept everything as Lutheran that today is set forth under the name “Lutheran,” we will stick to the faith of our old catechism and thereby hold to God’s dear and holy words. According to these, we must absolutely reject the rule of priests [Preisterherrschaft] as absolutely</div>
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un-Lutheran.</div>
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According to our catechism, we believe indeed that the one Holy Christian Church is nothing other than the congregation [Gemeinde] of true believers and saints that is scattered through the entire world, the spiritual body of our one Lord and Head. The Church is recognizable in the pure Word and Sacrament, but its essence is invisible, being the heavenly kingdom of our heavenly King, which He alone rules through His Word and His Spirit. It is not a visible, earthly kingdom, which, according to the manner of the kingdoms of this world, is ruled by external orders, statutes, and regulations of a certain on the spiritual priesthood and the office of the minis try privileged estate and set forth in His name by this estate.</div>
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We believe that in this heavenly kingdom there is only one estate [Stand], the general estate of Christians. There is no other office than that which is common to all Christians. We further believe that this one-in-its-essence, undivided Church, the communion of believers, without the distinction of so-called clergy and laity, is the heavenly Bride. She is wedded to Christ by faith, and through this faith, has been elevated to become the one proper possessor and bearer of all heavenly goods, rights, offices, and authority. It is as the Bride of Christ, and not as the so-called clergy [Geistlichen], that she dispenses the spoils that Christ as the stronger one takes for the strong. For He has given the keys to her immediately, and not to the clergy.</div>
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We believe, in indissoluble unity with the chief doctrine of the Christian Church, that Christ through His own sacrifice redeemed the whole world, reconciled God, and has perfected all who through Him are sanctified; that the Word with His Holy Sacraments—as seals—are the sole means through which the Lord applies to the redeemed the treasures of the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation, and heaven won by Him. These also work faith in the one who lays hold of Christ with all his grace and gifts, goods and treasures. This is so whether this Word be proclaimed by a layperson, preacher—indeed, by the devil himself if, as Luther said, he were so pious and would do it. Everyone who lays hold of this Word in living faith, no matter how it comes to him, how and through whom it may have happened, is one with Christ. Christ Himself—indeed, the entire Holy Trinity— dwells in him. He, as a child of God in fellowship with all saints, is a partaker of all things, including the power and authority over all things, which Christ’s kingdom alone creates.</div>
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Indeed, as a king, priest, and prophet born of God, he is clothed with the highest worth and highest office. There is no higher office or honor in Christianity. Between Christ and His redeemed nothing exists but the Word and faith that lays hold of it, as Luther says (Halle Edition, 19:1545 [The Private Mass and the Consecration of Priests (1533), in AE 38:196; WA 38:237; Aland 770.]): “Where God’s Word is pure and certain, there everything else must be: God’s kingdom, Christ’s kingdom, the Holy Spirit, Baptism, the Sacrament, the office of the ministry, the office of preaching, faith, love, the cross, life and salvation, and everything the Church should have, as Christ says: ‘We will come to him and make our home with him’ [John 14:23]; ‘And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age [Matthew 28:20].’”</div>
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Thus indeed the clergy cannot be essentially higher than the laity. He can be clothed with no higher or other dignity and office than this. For even he is nothing other than a king, priest, and prophet. But he is dignified by the Lord and his congregation to be placed as the householder, guard, watchman, and governor in this divine heavenly household of grace. He is God’s co-worker, among equally entitled and equally splendid brothers, whom the Lord has equipped with the necessary gifts. According to Christ’s mandate, the congregation has called him in view of these gifts. He carries out this office publicly in the congregation; through this office, the Body of Christ is built up until we all achieve one and the same faith and understanding of the Son of God and become a perfected man, achieving the full measure of perfection in Christ.</div>
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There can be no talk of lords and servants, because they all are lords and at the same time all are servants. We can only speak of brothers, one of whom steps to the front with reverence. As the minister of Christ in the Word, however, he is due double honor for the sake of this, his ministry. There can be no rule of a privileged estate. They all are kings and lords. There is only the rule of the Word, to which all are subject. They all acknowledge it as the Word of the Lord, which the pastor speaks and through which he renders them blessed, high, and glorious. Through this Word alone, the undershepherd also consoles, admonishes, warns, threatens, punishes, feeds, and governs the flock entrusted to him. Because the flock knows the Lord’s voice, and in the voice of the undershepherd does not hear the voice of a stranger, therefore the flock happily renders him willing obedience. For it is through him that the mouth of the beloved Lord and Shepherd speaks here.</div>
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But will the office and its divine dignity suffer loss if the preacher seeks nothing other and higher than that with which God Himself clothes him, which is the highest [office] that exists in this heavenly kingdom? Among kings, priests, and prophets, he publicly administers the office of a priest, so that those worthy dignitaries entrusted to him at the same time be fitted to carry out the work of the vocation which has with honor been given to them. Is there a higher honor than being the mouth of the Lord in the midst of the congregation? Than to be a father in Christ, to bring children to Him begotten of the imperishable seed of His Word that He has placed in the pastor’s mouth and commanded him so to preach? Than to be Christ’s co-worker and helper and thus save himself and his hearers?</div>
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Will the office be deprived of its divine authority if it must be established upon the mandate of Christ and be rewarded by the Lord and His congregation with absolute rule according to the Word and through the Word? Is the Word of God in the congregation of God not perhaps a much more effective and stronger support [than anything else]? I for one know and want nothing stronger and better! Is it because among us no one rules or may rule but the One to whom all are happily obedient, namely, the Lord, that there is only a mere fleshly freedom and human servitude like the obedience of a paramour? But among us, there is happy obedience to the Lord, the One who has purchased us, whom our Christians know and love. This Lord not only desires obedience but creates obedient hearts. Is it only such human servitude where no one is acknowledged as a member of the Body of Christ, or is tolerated in the external fellowship of the congregation, who has been revealed to be a stiff-necked enemy of Christ and His Word, and whom the Lord Himself commands in Matthew 18 to be regarded as a pagan and tax collector?</div>
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The Scriptures and the Confessions most definitely teach that in the Christian Church, there is no essentially different office than that to which we are all called in Holy Baptism, and to which we are all anointed, and which is therefore common to all who believe on the Lord. Thus the public pastoral office is not rooted in a particular ordering of Christ for a few privileged members of the Church who continue this order via ordination. The office is rather rooted in the Church itself. In the Church, it is most definitely taught that this office is therefore nothing other than and can be nothing other than the exercise of this common office given to all, as a public service [oeffentliche Dienst]. But the Church determines, maintains, and advocates that the public exercise of this office, which is common to all, must be conferred [uebertragen] to an individual who is found suitable for it and properly called according to the order and institution of Christ. For the Lord still places shepherds and teachers as He once appointed and called the apostles. Now how will the public pastoral office be mixed up with the general priesthood where (not according to the understanding of our opponents), according to the meaning of Christ and His order, both are strictly distinguished, and in the congregation, nothing of such a mixing is tolerated or even hinted at? Is this then to turn the divine call into a merely human one? How can there finally be talk of overturning a divine order where we indeed differentiate between what the Church according to her essence is and has and what she is given to do according to the order of Christ?</div>
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In her essence, she is the Bride of Christ and ruler of all. With respect to the order, she is subject to Christ and His Word. In her essence, she is made up completely of kings, priests, and prophets. With respect to the order, she is to be subject to the public preaching office. In her essence, she has all treasures of the kingdom of heaven and the keys thereto, given immediately to her by her Lord. According to the order, she must confer [uebertragen] the public administration of the same in her midst to the guards and householders established by the Lord. As far as the essence [of the Church] is concerned, there is no difference between men and women, young and old, preacher and laity. According to the order, women must be silent, the youth be obedient to the elders, the minister publicly teach, the hearers hear the sermon and learn. Whatever bases the accusations made against us may have, they cannot be justified by our doctrine of Church and Office, for it is the correct and only scriptural doctrine. And, as you honored brothers will certainly agree, our doctrine presents the office in its correct, high, and divine dignity.</div>
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This dignity is not that one exercises an external authority that is found in the person of the bearer of the office, in his dignity as a ruler, or in his external superiority. For all the lies of the opponents simply regard the office as a privileged estate, which forces external obedience upon imprisoned and servile consciences. But the high dignity of the office is that it operates joyously within the congregation with the living, powerful, energetic Word. That Word sweeps over the congregation and pours out the blessings that the Lord has placed in His Word. The Word brings to souls who trust in Christ ever more knowledge and blessed enjoyment of the freedom of the children of God, freedom from the law, from sin, death, and devil. It reveals ever more the overwhelming treasure and riches of this spiritual, heavenly freedom in which faith becomes lord of all. It will allow itself to bear no yoke of any kind. But under the light yoke of Christ, it endures all and bears all things that do not contradict the faith, [and it] is equipped with love that is possessed of the joy of the glorious freedom of the children of God.</div>
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This office is not about concealing from the so-called laity its sovereignty, patronizing it, and defining ever more narrowly the boundaries within which it may move. It does not clip its rights, limit its heart, close its lips, [or] reduce it to timidity that it remain nice-looking and subject and not dare in any way to impinge upon the sovereignty of the educated and well reasoned pastor. In short, the office does not consist in suppression of the laity in order to elevate the clergy at the laity’s expense, such that the office boasts of sovereignty and it magnanimously leaves the laity to boast of obedience. The dignity, the desire, and the joy of the true co-worker of God is to draw ever more his community of believers into their freedom and its worthy use, to encourage them and lead them ever more in the exercise of their rights, to show them how to exercise their duties that they be more and more convinced of their high calling and that they demonstrate that they are ever more worthy of that calling. He does not live in fear that the laity will overstep its boundaries. For where are the boundaries of true, spiritual, heavenly freedom? He fears that they will exercise their freedom as little as the eagle fears its young will encounter the sun in flight, with the slight anxiety that they might fly too high or above him. For where the flight approaches the boundaries of fleshly freedom, he descends; he does not ascend. There the true watchman of God stands at the boundary with the divine Word, before which the sinking child of God is ashamed, is humbled and turned back. He joyously forsakes the inappropriate rule given to him over the faith in order to be a help for their joy; and he calls out with the apostle: “Would to God that you did rule so that we also might rule with you!” [1 Corinthians 4:8]. It does not suffice here that the office is viewed only out of a false conscience or external respect. He works so that out of the Spirit and through the Spirit, the office is loved and honored, and God is thanked for it, and the obedience to the office mandated by God is willingly brought with the desire of the heart. That is our goal. That is what we work for. That is how carrying out the office leads to [godly] desire and joy.</div>
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In this country we all have struggled with the fleshly freedom that in the beginning affected our German congregations in an unfortunate way. We often worked and suffered with heavy sighs, much angst, distress, and with tears. But I do not fear contradiction from my beloved brothers when I assert in the name of all: We do not regret our sour work, our angst and distress, our sighs and tears! The goal is too glorious! The work toward this goal, even for the sake of this goal, is too blessed! We could not exchange it for the easier route of rule over the children of God and thus rob them of their precious rights won by the Lord Himself.</div>
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Well then, venerable brothers! We will not let ourselves be troubled by the abuse and mockery that the opponents shower upon us! We will not allow the fight to vex us, nor allow ourselves to lose heart in this blessed but tiresome work. Through friction [polishing] comes the shine! In response to struggle, the truth shines all the brighter! The more the enemy seeks to cover the light, the brighter, clearer, and more blessed will it shine, lighting the land with its living power. It will shine in hearts who love the light more than the darkness!</div>
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By God’s grace we have the rich and precious inheritance of our fathers. We do not wish that we or the congregations entrusted to us be robbed of this inheritance. With God’s help, we will champion and advocate it. We will hold to it all the more earnestly in this time of open apostasy, when in the midst of unwholesome division and wavering uncertainty an awakened conscience is endangered and flees into the false security of a hierarchical constitution (be it Roman or old Lutheran style). Not because of our merit, but according to His free grace, it has pleased the Lord to allow us to again commend and advocate the freedom and glory of the Christian man in the correct doctrine of Church</div>
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and Office [Kirche und Amt], as it has come to us from our fathers. We will not be silenced. We will lift our voices afresh and joyously wield the sword of the Spirit, swinging it both against the arrogance of a democratic rule and against the monster of a false hierarchy within the Church. The truth is on our side. And with the truth is the victory of God and all His children.</div>
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Our opponents lie when they assert that we are the bondservants of men, leading the congregations of God to fleshly freedom and the despising of the Holy Office. They should consider how they will render an account to the Lord, who will not allow His servants to be abused unavenged. It does not worry us much. We have the testimony of a good conscience. Not only that, [but] the congregations served by us bear witness that we have done our task well. Stubborn opponents are driven by hatred and scorn because we do not allow ourselves to be mere menial servants [Knechten]. Those won by the Word of God love and honor us as their teachers ordained of Christ and as shepherds and fathers. They trust us from the heart and are willingly obedient. Instead of jealously guarding their rights over against us, they are diligent to uphold the rights of the office and give appropriate respect to the preacher over against anyone who would hazard to infringe upon the office and forsake it. For they know that with determination, we guard their rights and will not suffer infringement upon the grandeur and freedom granted by God to the congregation.</div>
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Therefore, so long as the Word remains the Word of God: “Right must remain right and all pious hearts must agree with it.” We shall and we will implore the Lord that he heal the terrible rift that has occurred between brothers over this doctrine. By preservation of the Confession of the fathers, we should and would be united. But we will not insult the Lord by being concerned with the outcome or by letting ourselves waver in any way. </div>
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The Lord grant it. Amen. </div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-24286502502361361342014-11-18T14:03:00.000-06:002014-11-18T14:03:02.097-06:00Are Doctrine and Mission Antithetical? <div style="font-size: 20px; text-align: left;">
Here's a Sermon by Dr. Walther which was referred to in a recent radio interview on Issues Etc. It's gold. It's taken from <a href="http://www.cph.org/p-19262-at-home-in-the-house-of-my-fathers.aspx">At Home in the House of My Fathers (CPH).</a></div>
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On Pure Doctrine for the Salvation of Souls</div>
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Opening Sermon for the Synodical Conference</div>
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Preached by C. F. W. Walther</div>
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Before the First Official Meeting</div>
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of the Synodical Conference</div>
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Held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin</div>
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July 10–16, 1872</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDBFqOszgd1xuzDRqbtGWFwgjS925QLMTO22x8-gGqV9E3JXKzV_AgTJT8b4ZpJMVmP2DbFLLRH8GzV1IeJ8io0Qek1CNeyhpEmAs5Os6ZxDGVcNtSEoNPsQ0O_jbRCuzKDOnnc1hcovM/s1600/124386.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDBFqOszgd1xuzDRqbtGWFwgjS925QLMTO22x8-gGqV9E3JXKzV_AgTJT8b4ZpJMVmP2DbFLLRH8GzV1IeJ8io0Qek1CNeyhpEmAs5Os6ZxDGVcNtSEoNPsQ0O_jbRCuzKDOnnc1hcovM/s1600/124386.jpg" /></a>Translated by August Crull</div>
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The Synodical Conference was Walther’s greatest ecumenical achievement. Its chief endeavor, according to Walther, was “to save souls.” It included the Ohio Synod, the Norwegian Synod, the Wisconsin Synod, the Missouri Synod, the Minnesota Synod, and the Illinois Synod. Two-thirds</div>
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of American Lutheranism was united in confessional solidarity, in large measure due to the dogged Lutheran determination of Walther and the Missouri Synod. The conference survived the Predestinarian Controversy of the early 1880s in a reduced state and proceeded to thriveuntil its demise in the early 1960s as Missouri was drifting left toward union with moderate</div>
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and liberal American Lutheranism.</div>
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This sermon is remarkable. Walther defies any attempt to play mission against doctrine</div>
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or doctrine against mission. Mission and doctrine belong together. There is for Walther (and</div>
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the New Testament, for that matter) no continuum between two polarities, mission and doctrine.</div>
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The chief aim of the conference, to save souls, required pure doctrine. “As you know, my</div>
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brethren, it is a common saying in our time that the continual urging of the doctrine is a most</div>
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pernicious tendency, only hindering, yea, destroying the kingdom of God. People say: ‘Instead of</div>
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disputing so much about the doctrine, you ought rather to think of taking care of the souls and</div>
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of leading them to Christ.’ But all who speak this way certainly do not know what they say and</div>
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what they do. As it would be folly to chide the tiller of the ground for his diligence to obtain good</div>
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seed, and to demand that he should be eager only to obtain good fruit, so it would be folly to</div>
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chide those that take heed unto the doctrine above all things, and to demand of them that they</div>
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should rather endeavor only to save souls. For as the tiller of the ground must be eager to obtain</div>
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good seed above all things, if he wishes to reap good fruit, so must the Church care for sound</div>
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doctrine above all things, if she wishes to save souls.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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God grant us Walther’s zeal for souls and for His saving doctrine. That is the key to mission.</div>
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“Oh how important it is, therefore, my brethren, that we make the salvation of souls above all</div>
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things the chief object of our joint labor of the kingdom of Christ! Then it will be impossible but</div>
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that we ‘keep a close watch on the doctrine,’ and we will thus be kept from ever violating our</div>
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faithfulness toward the Word of God.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Excerpted from C. F. W. Walther, “Opening Sermon,” translated by August Crull, Lutheran</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Standard 30, no. 19 (October 1, 1872): 145–47. The German original is found in C. F.</div>
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W. Walther, Lutherische Brosamen: Predigten und Reden (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
House, 1897), 567. I have edited the language of this translation slightly for the sake of the</div>
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modern reader. —M. H.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lord Jesus, that we are assembled here today in the unity of faith, and united</div>
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by the bond of charity and peace, is not our work, not a work of man; it is only</div>
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Your work, a work of Your grace. Praise and honor and glory be therefore unto You,</div>
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in time and in eternity! But, O Lord, as You alone have begun the good work in us, so You</div>
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alone can preserve it in us, You alone can crown it with blessings, You alone can perform</div>
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it. Oh, therefore we pray You, since You have united us by Your Word and by Your Spirit to</div>
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labor jointly for Your cause, do not forsake us now; grant us Your gracious presence today</div>
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and always, as often as we meet, and help us; for without You we can do nothing—only</div>
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err, only sin, and only ruin Your work. Therefore work with us, enlighten us, sanctify us,</div>
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strengthen us, bless us, and cause also a blessing to proceed from all our assemblies, for the</div>
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welfare of all our beloved congregations, for the edification of Your whole Church, for the</div>
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salvation of many souls redeemed by Your blood, and for the honor of Your great name.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lord, we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteousness, but</div>
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because of Your great mercies. Hear us for the sake of Your mercy and truth. Amen.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Text: 1 Timothy 4:16</div>
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“Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will</div>
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save both yourself and your hearers.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Reverend and beloved Fathers and Brethren in the Lord!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Christ prayed to His Father for His apostles immediately before His last sufferings:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given me, that they may be one,</div>
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even as We are one” [John 17:11]. And He added immediately: “I do not ask for these</div>
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only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be</div>
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one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the</div>
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world may believe that You have sent Me” [vv. 20–21]. This prayer of our merciful, eternal</div>
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High Priest for the oneness of His followers in Him, which has been heard already so</div>
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gloriously through all the centuries of the existence of His Church, we see today again</div>
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miraculously fulfilled before our eyes.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Behold: a host of representatives of six ecclesiastical bodies, which but a few years ago</div>
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stood in array against each other, indeed, even fought against each other as enemies. To</div>
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day in these, their representatives, they glorify God with one mind and one mouth, even</div>
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the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They have met in order to deliberate, after having</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
strengthened and refreshed themselves in common by the Word and prayer, as members</div>
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of one household of faith, as sons of one Church, and as cherishers of one cause, in brotherly</div>
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harmony, upon the means of attaining that one aim which they all as ministers and</div>
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children of one Church have in view.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Oh blessed, happy day! Our children and children’s children will speak of it and rejoice.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As our former disunion was a very sad spectacle for all friends of Zion, and a cause of</div>
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joy to the devil and all his partisans, so is our present brotherly union undoubtedly a cause</div>
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of joy to God, to all His holy angels, and to all His true children, but a discouraging spectacle</div>
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for the devil and for all enemies of God and of His kingdom, this kingdom of truth</div>
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and peace. Still, we do not regret the fight, which we formerly fought against each other.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the contrary, we rejoice at this warfare; for it was the only proper and blessed means</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of true peace, which now is granted us. But if even the fight was blessed, how much more</div>
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blessed will now be the peace that has been gained by it? With joyful hope, therefore, we</div>
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look today into the future. For the Word of God does not only say “How good and how</div>
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pleasant is it for brethren to dwell together in unity!” [Psalm 133:1 KJV], but it adds, “For</div>
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there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore” [v. 3].</div>
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<br /></div>
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But, my dear brethren, although a conflict is past, which has been crowned with the</div>
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victory of a blessed harmony, we have not yet entered into the Church Triumphant but are</div>
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still in the militant and suffering Church. Therefore what a pious poet sings holds good</div>
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of us also:</div>
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<br /></div>
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Even if one fight has well been fought—</div>
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That matters not!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The flesh, the world, and the devil are and remain our enemies here below. And they</div>
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will try to disturb, yea, to destroy, again entirely the good work that God has begun</div>
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among us. Therefore today already it is necessary that we arm ourselves against these</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
powerful and fearful enemies.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But what is it above all things that will make us invincible? I know of nothing but</div>
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what the holy apostle St. Paul gives utterance to in our text in the following words: “Keep</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
both yourself and your hearers” [1 Timothy 4:16].</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In these words, the apostle, in the first place, instructs his dear Timothy to take heed</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
unto himself and unto the doctrine and to continue in these things. And he promises him</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
that in doing this, he should both save himself and them that hear him. But in so doing,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the dear apostle at the same time shows us that he who, in his labors for the kingdom of</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Christ, has in view above all things the salvation of souls, must of necessity comply with</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
these three apostolic precepts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
196 wal the r</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let us therefore today so apply the words of our text as to consider:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
How important it is that we make the salvation of souls above all things the chief</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
object of our joint labor in the kingdom of Christ.</div>
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<br /></div>
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According to our text, especially three reasons make this so important. For then we</div>
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shall</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
1. take heed unto ourselves, and thus be kept from acting selfishly in our labor;</div>
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then we shall</div>
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2. take heed unto the doctrine, and thus be kept from violating faithfulness</div>
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toward the Word of God; and then we shall, finally,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
3. continue also in these things, and thus be kept from growing weary in trials.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When, my brethren, several independent ecclesiastical bodies unite for joint labor,</div>
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there is, especially if they occupy for the most part one and the same territory, not only</div>
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one of the greatest obstacles to a blessed joint labor, but also, on account of the depravity</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of man’s heart, great danger that each of these ecclesiastical bodies will endeavor above all</div>
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things to enlarge itself, and that it will therefore estimate the blessing of the union chiefly</div>
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by the gain in members, influence, and respect which falls to its share. A deterring, warning</div>
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instance of this is furnished by the Roman Church. At first using her great powers</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
to render only voluntary services to the ecclesiastical bodies connected with herself, her</div>
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bishops subsequently endeavored to improve gradually the contracted alliance for self-aggrandizement</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
only. Finally, revealing themselves as the prophesied Antichrist in the temple</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of God [2 Thessalonians 2:4], they have, as far as God has permitted them, converted the</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
kingdom in which Christ alone shall reign into a kingdom of their own power and honor.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Although I am far from entertaining the sad thought of a similar issue on a small scale, in</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
reference to our union, still, we, too, do not yet possess a fully renewed heart; and therefore</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
it would certainly be folly if we were to conceal from ourselves the fact that selfishness and</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
factiousness, outward as well as inward, threaten us also with danger.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Then what are we to do in order to face this dangerous foe? The holy apostle Paul tells</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
us in our text. For when he promises to his Timothy that he should both save himself and</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
them that hear him, if, in the first place, he “keep a close watch on himself,” he thus at</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the same time shows us that nothing keeps us so much from acting selfishly in our labor</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
for the kingdom of God as when we make the salvation of souls above all things the chief</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
object of this labor.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is so clear that to offer proof seems unnecessary. For you say, “What will be the</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
result if we really make the salvation of souls above all things the chief object of our union</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
for joint labor?”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Then we shall, first, as a joint body, not aim at becoming only a constantly increasing,</div>
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a so-called imposing organization, and at erecting a great, artificially arranged though holon</div>
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low structure. Much less shall we then make use of ungodly means to attain such an end.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the contrary, we shall then willingly be little, yea nothing. And while we endeavor to</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
obtain only this, that of us, as once the apostolic Church, it may be said, “And the Lord</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
added to their number day by day those who were being saved” [Acts 2:47], we shall</div>
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despair of all our own skill, wisdom, and ability, and shall renounce entirely all honor to</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
ourselves for our labor.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And, secondly, what then will every single synod of our union do? Then every one will</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
rejoice not so much at its own increase as at the increase of Christ’s kingdom. And if this is</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
brought about not by itself, but by others, it will say with St. Paul: “What then? Only that</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
[Philippians 1:18]. Yea, if the salvation of souls is above all things the chief object of every</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
synod of our union, then every one will deem it even a deplorable loss if it should indeed</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
gain but Christ would thus lose even a single soul.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But what influence, finally, will it have upon our dear congregations and their ministers,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
and upon their relation to each other, if all acknowledge the salvation of souls as the</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
one chief object of our joint labor? Then they will all work together peacefully and industriously.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Even if controversies of all kinds should arise, the question “What serves the best</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
for the salvation of souls?” will then always quickly give the right solution. How easily then</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
will the boundary lines of every congregation be regulated! Then our dear congregations</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
will say to one another in all such cases, as Abraham once said to Lot: “Let there be no</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
we be brethren. . . . If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
to the right hand, then I will go to the left” [Genesis 13:8–9 KJV]. That which gains</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the most souls for Christ shall decide between us. How far will therefore a congregation</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
and its pastor then also be from gladly receiving as welcome proselytes those to whom holy</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
discipline has been administered by another congregation for the sake of their souls’ salvation!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
How far will we then be from endeavoring to force upon one another such things as</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
are free and may be so or otherwise without detriment to salvation!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In short, as long as our Synodical Conference shall make the salvation of souls the chief</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
object of its joint labor, it will always cheerfully say with St. John the Baptist: “He must</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
increase, but I must decrease” [John 3:30], and every one of our synods, every one of our</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
congregations, and every one of our pastors will act according to the principle of St. Paul:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the more. . . . I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” [1</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Corinthians 9:19, 22 KJV]. And thus the poisonous worm of selfishness will then never</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
gnaw at the tree of our union. And the Lord who has planted it will cause it to flourish, to</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
grow, to thrive, and to bring forth fruit for many to life everlasting.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
II.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But, my brethren, the holy apostle does not only say in our text to his Timothy, “Keep</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
a close watch on yourself,” but also, “and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
you will save both yourself and your hearers.” And thus he shows us, secondly, that, if we</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
make the salvation of souls above all things the chief object of our joint labor in Christ’s</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
kingdom, we certainly shall take heed also unto the doctrine and thus be kept from ever</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
violating faithfulness toward the Word of God.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As you know, my brethren, it is a common saying in our time that the continual urging</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of the doctrine is a most pernicious tendency, only hindering, yea, destroying the kingdom</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of God. People say, “Instead of disputing so much about the doctrine, you ought rather to</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
think of taking care of the souls and of leading them to Christ.” But all who speak this way</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
certainly do not know what they say and what they do. As it would be folly to chide the</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
tiller of the ground for his diligence to obtain good seed, and to demand that he should be</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
eager only to obtain good fruit, so it would be folly to chide those that take heed unto the</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
doctrine above all things, and to demand of them that they should rather endeavor only</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
to save souls. For as the tiller of the ground must be eager to obtain good seed above all</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
things, if he wishes to reap good fruit, so must the Church care for sound doctrine above</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
all things, if she wishes to save souls.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For if we wish to save men, we must make them poor sinners first. But this can be done</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
only by the pure doctrine of the Law. Then we must lead them to the true faith in Christ,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
and preserve, establish, strengthen them in that doctrine. But this can be done only by the</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
pure doctrine of the Gospel. And finally we must induce them also to thank God with a</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
truly Christian life for their salvation, which His free grace has granted them, and to make</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
their calling and election sure by the same. But this can be done only by the pure doctrine</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of sanctification.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, many say: “We acknowledge indeed that for these reasons, it is certainly</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
necessary to cling firmly to those great general truths upon which the salvation of souls</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
depends. But should not liberty be granted to everyone in reference to all other doctrines?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What can the result of controversy about subordinate doctrines be, but that the body of</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Christ is torn and the work of the salvation of souls hindered?” But also all those that speak</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
this way certainly do not know what they say and what they do. For the holy apostle does</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
not say in our text “Keep a close watch on the chief doctrines,” but “Keep a close watch on</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the doctrine,” that is, unto everything that is taught in the Word of God. “For,” he adds,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” For God has not revealed only</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
this and that doctrine but His whole Word for the salvation of man. “Thy testimonies,”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
says David, “are very sure” [Psalm 93:5 KJV], not only this or that testimony. Therefore</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
also the great apostle of the Gentiles testifies: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” [2 Timothy 3:16–17];</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
and in another passage he declares that only therefore he is “pure from the blood of men,”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
because “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable” and “I did</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” [Acts 20:27]. And finally,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Christ Himself says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
from the mouth of God” [Matthew 4:4]. Behold, in every word of God, therefore, life is</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
enclosed as in a germ, namely, temporal as well as eternal life. The Word of God is an immensely</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
rich storeroom, filled with manifold inviting meats for mankind, living without</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
God and without hope. When his hour comes, God invites one man by this meat and the</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
other man by that one. Who are we, then, to dare to despise the riches of God’s goodness</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
and to sacrifice even a single one of His saving words?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Finally, add to this the following: As every doctrine of the Word of God is a heavenly</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
seed of regeneration for everlasting life, so on the contrary, every human doctrine is, in</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
matters of salvation, a hellish seed of satanic birth for everlasting death. Alas! Many a soul</div>
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has been led by a single false doctrine forever into a wrong way to eternity, by a singe false</div>
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consolation forever to a false hope of salvation, by a single false threatening, warning, and</div>
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reproof forever to a false fear and to perfect despair, and thus, finally, to the loss of souls</div>
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and salvation!</div>
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Oh, how important it is, therefore, my brethren, that we make the salvation of souls</div>
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above all things the chief object of our joint labor in the kingdom of Christ! Then it will</div>
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be impossible but that we “keep a close watch on the doctrine,” and we will thus be kept</div>
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from ever violating our faithfulness toward the Word of God. Whatever doctrine we may</div>
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be called upon to conceal, or at least to suffer to be contradicted, or to yield, we then shall</div>
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always declare: Shall we take away from the man who is dead in sin even a single means</div>
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that God has given him which might resuscitate him from death? Shall we take away from</div>
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the man who grieves at his sins even a single consolation that God has granted him which</div>
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might comfort him? Shall we take away from the man who is ill of sin even a single medicine</div>
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that God has afforded him which might restore him to health? Shall we take away</div>
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from the man who struggles for his salvation with sin, the world, and Satan even a single</div>
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weapon that God has tendered him, with which he might defend himself and gain the</div>
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victory? Shall we take way from the man who errs, groping about in the darkness of this</div>
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world, even a single star that God has lit for him, which might be his guiding star to the</div>
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blessed goal? In short, shall we “take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” [Matthew</div>
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15:26]? No. No, we then shall exclaim, as we value our salvation and that of our fellow</div>
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redeemed, that we will faithfully keep the Word, this good thing which is committed</div>
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unto us, to the last iota, so help us God!</div>
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This context for pure doctrine is a blessed test when it has the salvation of souls for its</div>
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motive! It certainly is worth being called uncharitable quarrelers for its sake. Although it</div>
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covers us with disgrace here below, the crown of eternal honor is in store for it above.</div>
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<br /></div>
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III.</div>
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But, my brethren, there is still another reason why it is so important that we make the</div>
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salvation of souls above all things the chief object of our joint labor in the kingdom of</div>
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Christ: namely, because then we shall certainly also continue in the points named, in life</div>
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and doctrine, in labor and combat, in faith and confessing, and thus shall be kept from</div>
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growing weary in trials. For the apostle in our text says to Timothy not only “Keep a close</div>
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watch on yourself and on the teaching,” but also, “Persist in this, for by so doing you will save</div>
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both yourself and your hearers.” And on this subject let me, thirdly, speak a few words more.</div>
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From this point forward, we have a great, difficult task before us. We have been united</div>
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by the mutual conviction that the true Church is not still in search of the saving truth, but</div>
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has found it. She is the possessor and the keeper of it. Therefore, she is always one and the</div>
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same. And so we are also convinced today that she alone is the true Church [today] that,</div>
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in doctrine and practice, is in strictest accord with the true Church of the past, wherever</div>
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she may have been. But at the same time, we are all convinced of the fact that the Church</div>
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of our fathers, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as she has professed her faith before the</div>
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whole world in the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and the other Confessions, is the true</div>
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visible Church of God on earth. And we are resolved in the name of the Lord jointly to</div>
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promote in doctrine and practice this Church, and none other, in this country.</div>
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Thus we oppose all the currents of our time, inside and outside the Church. There we</div>
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can expect nothing else but what the true Church has experienced immediately in the</div>
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beginning and always: namely, that she is that sect that everywhere is spoken against. Not</div>
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peace and rest, but conflict and strife; not honor and praise, but disgrace and abuse await</div>
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us on every side. And it awaits us not only on the side of the unbelieving world, of the misbelieving</div>
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fanatical sects, and of anti-Christian popery, but even on the side of many that</div>
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are, with us, children of one mother, that bear our name and display the same banner of</div>
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confession. But what the result of our joint labor will be we do not know. It rests with Him</div>
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who alone gives the increase to the planting and watering of His ministers, according to</div>
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His good pleasure. Perhaps He may have decreed not only to lead us into much strife, but</div>
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also to grant us but little joy of victory; not only to inflict on us much labor and trouble,</div>
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but also to let us see but few valuable results.</div>
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<br /></div>
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But what can and will certainly keep us from growing weary in our trials? What will</div>
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give us strength to remain bold and cheerfully in battle array, holding in one hand the</div>
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trowel and in the other the sword [Nehemiah 4:17–18]?1 The only sure preservative is</div>
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this: that the salvation of souls is and remains above all things the chief object of our joint</div>
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labor. For if God honors us with being His instruments for that, what else could we desire?</div>
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Does not Christ say “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits</div>
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his soul?” [Matthew 16:26]. Therefore, is not one single soul worth more than heaven and</div>
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earth together, with all their treasures? If every one of us would save even one single soul</div>
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only, what greater and better deed could we even wish for them?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Well then, my brethren, let us henceforth banish forever from our hearts every thought</div>
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of seeking something for ourselves in our union. “We will seek souls and lead them to</div>
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Christ, we will keep souls with Christ, we will save souls”—let that spirit animate our</div>
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Synodical Conference as a joint body; let that fill every one of our synods and every one of</div>
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our congregations, together with their ministers, with ardent zeal. Let this give to our assemblies</div>
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their spirit and their purpose. Let this give to our communion its heavenly, indissoluble</div>
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tie. And He “who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge</div>
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of the truth” [1 Timothy 2:4 KJV] shall always be with us, and even if we had to complain</div>
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with Christ: “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain”</div>
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[Isaiah 49:4 KJV]; still hereafter, the Word and promise of God shall be fulfilled also with</div>
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us gloriously above all that we ask or think: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the</div>
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teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” May</div>
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God the Father grant this to us all by the gracious assistance of His precious Holy Spirit,</div>
<br />
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for the sake of Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior. Amen.</div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-12800442650980464902014-09-23T09:38:00.003-05:002014-09-23T09:38:28.212-05:00What do YOU think? Pew Survey: Nearly Half of Americans Now Say Religious Leaders Should Express Views on Social, Political Issues <h1 style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 7.5pt;">Updated Sept. 22, 2014 7:28 p.m. ET</span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: 7.5pt;">Nearly half of Americans surveyed by Pew Research Center said they support religious leaders weighing in on social and political issues. Pew's Greg Smith joins on the News Hub. Photo: AP.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">The Rev. Sam Rodriguez's sermon about David and Goliath on Sunday included a modern-day connection: "I talked about how we're confronting giants we've never confronted before, not only in the Middle East, but in America, where there is a great intolerance emerging against Christians," he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Rev. Rodriguez, who heads a national organization of Hispanic evangelicals and is outspoken on political issues including immigration policy and gay marriage, may be giving his Sacramento, Calif., congregation exactly what more Americans want. According to a Pew Research Center study released Monday, a growing number of Americans support religious leaders weighing in on social and political matters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">The survey, conducted the first week of September, showed 49% of those polled said they support churches and other houses of worship expressing views on political and social questions—up from 40% in 2012. That still leaves the nation divided: 48% said churches "should keep out" of politics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">The study, which polled 2,002 people aged 18 years or older from all 50 states, suggests a reversal of a decline in support for church intervention. It comes as the nation heads into midterm elections and the early phases of a presidential campaign, and at a time of friction between church and state. Religious groups say their freedoms are under threat by societal shifts, such as the federal health-care overhaul and same-sex marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Protestants and Catholics alike have fought the Obama administration over the part of the Affordable Care Act that requires employers to cover contraception in workers' health-care plans. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that private companies could invoke religious beliefs to avoid offering contraceptive coverage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Many religious leaders—including U.S. Catholics such as Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley —have become prominent voices for changes to immigration law, and have advocated for the rights of recent waves of migrants coming across the southern border, many of whom are fleeing violence in Latin America.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">The study also reveals dueling pressures facing Republicans from within their own party. Members surveyed appear split on whether the party is too conservative or too liberal on issues such as abortion, immigration and same-sex marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">"There are very monumental religious liberty concerns, and marriage culture is shifting. We need to be able to speak with kindness and conviction at the same time," said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Mr. Moore on Sunday hosted a meeting for pastors in Tennessee on support for a ballot proposal that stipulates nothing in the state constitution "secures or protects a right to abortion" and would allow the state to enact abortion restrictions. Mr. Moore and other evangelical leaders have been meeting with potential Republican presidential candidates and said issues around same-sex marriage, abortion and religious freedom "are going to be of primary importance" to evangelicals in upcoming elections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Overall, more Americans believe religious leaders should endorse political candidates—up to 32% from 24% in 2010, Pew said. But most—63%—still believe churches shouldn't back them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Religious leaders aren't permitted to endorse candidates from the pulpit; they risk losing their group's tax-exempt status if they do. But they can discuss social and political issues, and participate in more-direct political speech through outside groups and political-action committees. Many churches are challenging the constraint with an annual "Pulpit Freedom Sunday," launched in 2008 by Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona group, to encourage leaders around the country to "preach an election sermon." This year's event is planned for Oct. 5.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Since 2006, Pew had found falling support for religion in politics. "To see those trends reverse is striking," said Greg Smith, Pew's associate director of research. One reason could be that a growing majority—72%, according to the study—say religion is losing its influence in U.S. life, Mr. Smith said, "and they see that as a bad thing."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">"It could be that as religion's influence is seen as waning, the appetite for it moves in the other direction," he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist and agnostic group working to keep government free from religion, said that while there is a growing minority who support church leaders endorsing candidates, "two-thirds of the public still understands why we've got this prohibition" against it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">According to Pew, six in 10 Americans still want members of Congress who have strong religious beliefs—a number that hasn't changed since 2010. Fewer Americans—30%—believe the Obama administration is friendly toward religion, down from 37% in 2010.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Far more Republicans—59%—support church involvement in politics than Democrats, at only 42%, according to the study.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">The findings reveal a "widening divide" between Americans who identify with a religion and the rising number who aren't affiliated with one, known as "nones." Catholics, Protestants and other religious Americans "have become significantly more supportive of churches…speaking out about political issues and political leaders talking more often about religion," the study says. But the "nones are more likely to oppose the intermingling of politics and religion."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">According to the study, 54% of those who are religiously affiliated support church expression of political views, while only 32% of religiously unaffiliated support that view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">The poll also tracked a slight decline in support for same-sex marriage, which is rapidly becoming legal in more states. The survey shows 49% of Americans support permitting same-sex marriage—a five-point drop from a February Pew poll—and 41% are opposed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">According to the poll, the country is nearly split on the issue of whether a wedding-related business—such as a photographer or baker—should be required to provide services to same-sex couples, despite religious beliefs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president for The Rabbinical Council of America, which represents Orthodox rabbis, said churches and synagogues must be careful when making political stands that may risk causing divisions within the congregation. "Then you sort of lose your spiritual mission. It's a very delicate balancing act between having one's religious commitments inform his or her own world view but at the same time not making it truly political," he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">The Council has taken political positions that mirror conservative orthodox beliefs—including favoring some restrictions on access to guns, and criticizing the U.S. decision to work with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas. "We chose those issues very carefully," Rabbi Dratch said. While conservative Jews are largely unified in their support for Israel, that issue has in recent months split the more liberal wings of the Jewish communities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Mr. Rodriguez, the Sacramento preacher and the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, informally advised <a href="http://topics.wsj.com/person/R/Mitt-Romney/6591" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank">Mitt Romney</a>'s presidential campaign, and has voiced opinions on legislation to ban gay marriage. But he has also criticized the GOP on its stance on immigration reform.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">"We can't be married to the agenda of the donkey or the elephant," he said. "The Republican Party has a problem with communities of color, and the Democrats have a problem with communities of faith. That leaves me as an orphan, but not a silent orphan."</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Write to </span></strong><span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">Tamara Audi at <a href="mailto:tammy.audi@wsj.com" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;">tammy.audi@wsj.com</a></span></div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-27137734662901042402014-09-18T19:46:00.001-05:002014-09-18T19:46:52.756-05:00This is why we are in Wittenberg: "It doesn't really stand for anything anymore. I could just as well join Greenpeace."<header style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 5px 0px 15px; text-align: center;"><h1 class="article-title" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 40px; line-height: 40px; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">
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In Martin Luther’s Church the Pastor Asks: Where Have All the Protestants Gone?</h1>
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<span class="author" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">By <a class="author-name Elisabeth Braw" href="http://www.newsweek.com/authors/elisabeth-braw-0" itemprop="name" rel="author" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-style: italic; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Elisabeth Braw</a></span> / February 24, 2014 7:21 PM EST</div>
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Pastor Johannes Block can consider himself Martin Luther's successor. He's the vicar of Stadtkirche St. Marien zu Wittenberg, Luther's own church. The church is the St. Peter's Basilica of Protestantism.</div>
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Here, Luther preached his incendiary sermons against Vatican corruption that led to the Reformation and the rise of the Protestant movement. It is where Protestant pastors were first ordained.</div>
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But on a typical Sunday, Block looks out over a mere 50 to 100 people in the pews: a tiny number in a city of 135,000, especially one whose official name is Lutherstadt (Luther City) Wittenberg. Indeed, nowhere in Germany is the share of Protestants lower than right here in Luther's homeland.</div>
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According to Detlef Pollack, a professor of religious sociology at Münster University, 4 percent of east German Protestants attend church regularly today, compared to 10 to 15 percent in the 1950s. Between the 1950s and the end of Communist East Germany in 1980, Protestant church membership there dropped from 80 percent of the population to 25.</div>
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The Lutheran (Protestant) church reports that membership in the former East Germany has even dropped <a href="http://www.ekd.de/download/Ber_Kirchenmitglieder_2010.pdf" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ed1c24; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">below that figure</a> now. In the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where Wittenberg is located, only 13.8 percent of the population belongs to the Protestant church; in neighboring Thuringia, the other main part of "Luther country," the figure is 23.6 percent. In a western state like Rheinland-Pfalz, by contrast, 30.5 percent of the population are Protestants, while 44.5 percent are Catholics.</div>
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"People thought the church would grow after the end of communism, but it hasn't," said Block. Some 4,600 Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt residents cancel their church membership each year, while some 13,000 die. The 1,000 persons who join the church each year cannot compensate.</div>
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"In the German Democratic Republic it was difficult [for pastors] to be accepted in society, but people were aware of you," said Diethard Kamm, a veteran pastor who serves as an assistant bishop in charge of the area.</div>
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"Belonging to the church meant taking a stand, to say, 'This is what I believe in and I take the consequences.' Today people think, I'm lord of my own life, why do I need the church? But in times of crisis, for example when the Iraq war began, our churches are full again."</div>
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Here is the paradox: Under East Germany's Communist dictatorship, where churchgoing was frowned upon, congregations were larger. Indeed, the Protestant church and its pastors and members were arguably the most important factor leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall.</div>
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"In [East Germany], the church was a home for those who didn't support the regime, and everything the church did had public significance," said Christine Lieberknecht, Thuringia's prime minister, a Christian Democrat who served as a pastor under the Communists.</div>
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As a teenager in the late 1980s, Jana Fenn attended a Christian youth group in Jena, East Germany because, she explained, "You could say things there that you couldn't say in school, and you learned things there that you didn't learn in school."</div>
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But one day, Fenn said, her teacher wanted a chat: "She asked, 'What do you do on Friday evenings?' I said I went to the Christian youth group. Then she asked who else was there and what we did." Even though attending the youth group meant Fenn and her friends were exposing themselves to official repercussions, they didn't let their teachers intimidate them.</div>
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But today Fenn no longer belongs to the church. "I go to a service every now and then, but the church doesn't have a role in my life," she said. "It doesn't really stand for anything anymore. I could just as well join Greenpeace."</div>
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Added Pollack: "Catholics criticize their church more vocally than Protestants theirs, but they also feel a very strong connection. Protestants don't feel such a strong connection. The Protestant church is seen more as an institution that runs daycare centers and provides social services."</div>
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<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2014/02/28/issue.html" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Private Morales Doesn’t Want to Die for Your Sins" src="http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/cover_thumbnail/public/2014/04/02/2014/02/27/64-2014-2-28-cover.jpg?itok=KC1kKnf_" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(220, 220, 220) 5px 5px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgb(220, 220, 220) 5px 5px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" title="Private Morales Doesn’t Want to Die for Your Sins" /></a><h5 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ed1c24; font-size: 22px; line-height: 22px; list-style: none outside none; margin: 20px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">
<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; display: block; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">More from the</em>February 28 Issue</h5>
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Tolerance and acceptance - who could criticize such benign values? That's exactly the Lutherans' problem. "People don't know what exactly the church represents," said Pollack. "It's having a hard time differentiating itself from other organizations within civil society, from trade unions or political parties."</div>
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In fact, a remarkable number of Protestant pastors are enjoying successful political careers in Germany: President Joachim Gauck; Saxony-Anhalt's culture minister, Stephan Dorgerloh; Lieberknecht's deputy, Christoph Matschie; the former Green leader Antje Vollmer. The European Parliament now boasts a Socialist German pastor, Jürgen Klute. Even Chancellor Angela Merkel is a pastor's daughter.</div>
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How different from the 1500s, when the energetic Bible scholar and Augustinian monk Martin Luther launched his highwire verbal attacks on Rome, accusing the Catholic Church of corruption and selling indulgences. After Pope Leo X excommunicated him, the German firebrand went into hiding at Wartburg Castle - also in Thuringia - where he translated the Bible into German for the first time.</div>
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Today the castle is a popular tourist destination, where staff regularly repaint the spot on the wall where Luther is said to have thrown his ink pot to chase the Devil away. So is the church door on the Palace Church in Wittenberg, where Luther nailed his 95 Theses, documenting unethical practices in the Catholic Church.</div>
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Paradoxically, Luther country has seen tourist figures <a href="http://www.mz-web.de/eisleben/luthergedenkstaetten-mehr-besucher-in-eisleben-und-wittenberg,20640972,21775982.html" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ed1c24; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">rise</a> thanks to the "Luther Decade" that will end in 2017 with the 500th anniversary of the 95 Theses. As a result, on Sundays up to 1,000 joined the regulars at Pastor Block's unadorned Lutheran shrine. "Luther is to Wittenberg what Mozart is to Salzburg," he said.</div>
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But after the visitors leave, the <a href="http://www.ekmd.de/kirche/ekminkuerze/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ed1c24; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">807,000</a> local Lutherans have to fill the pews in their<a href="http://www.ekmd.de/kirche/ekminkuerze/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ed1c24; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank"> 3,927</a> churches and chapels. That's a mere 205 parishioners per church, and almost four churches per pastor. Block faces an existential dilemma: Is he primarily a tourism officer at a Luther theme park, or should he focus on being the shepherd of a small local flock?</div>
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"This is the mother church of the Reformation," he noted. "Being a local parish and a tourism destination often presents a split, but we have to continue Luther's tradition."</div>
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How to grow this dwindling church is, of course, another matter. Ilse Junkermann, the bishop in charge of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, sees great potential in church music: "Half the members in our church choirs are not church members," she noted. "The music of Bach, for example, is like a course in the Christian faith. And being in a choir gives you a community."</div>
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While Pope Francis is enjoying global popularity, pastors like Diethard Kamm continue their heavy lifting. Despite the travails, Kamm says he still loves his job.</div>
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If he met the Father of the Reformation today, he reflected, "I'd say, I disagree with some of the things you wrote, in particular with your opinion about the Jews. But thank you for the Reformation."</div>
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Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-22489458694619886792014-09-17T21:36:00.001-05:002014-09-17T21:36:29.588-05:00Love this 1976 BBC Special on Folk Guitarist Doc WatsonDoc Watson has been gone a couple of years now. I saw him play in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1980, four years after this documentary. It was about this time that my friend Rev. Dr. Fred Baue made<br />
a trip to Deep Gap, North Carolina to visit Doc. It's a marvelous story. Doc live and died a faithful Christian.<br />
<br />
Matt H<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/i5mZlriOogU" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
Here Doc plays Black Mountain Rag in his fabulous flat picking style.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OMH31gI5Lu0" width="420"></iframe>Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-34694629002695589602014-09-17T14:45:00.001-05:002014-09-17T14:45:30.097-05:00This is INSANE<h1 style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 18pt;">America Wastes $22 Trillion In War On Poverty</span></h1>
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<span class="disquscomments1"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/091614-717643-johnson-war-on-poverty-still-hasnt-been-won.htm#disqus_thread" id="ctl00_ctl00_secondaryContent_leftContent_artBody_DisqusComments_lnkDisqus" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank" title="Comment">29 Comments</a></span></span><span style="font-size: 7.5pt;"> Wed, Sep 17 2014 00:00:00 E A07_ISSUES</span></div>
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By <a href="http://www.investors.com/search/searchresults.aspx?source=filterSearch&Ntt=ROBERT+RECTOR&Nr=OR(Author%3aROBERT+RECTOR%2cAuthor%3aRobert+Rector)" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank">ROBERT RECTOR</a>, Investor's Business Daily</div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Posted 09/16/2014 05:50 PM ET</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">o </span><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">The Census Bureau's annual report on poverty, released Tuesday, is noteworthy because this year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's launch of the War on Poverty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">Liberals claim that the war has failed because we didn't spend enough money. Their answer is to spend more. But the facts show otherwise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson's War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that's three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. These programs provide cash, food, housing and medical care to low-income Americans. Federal and state spending on these programs last year was $943 billion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">(These figures do not include Social Security, Medicare or unemployment insurance.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">Over 100 million people, about a third of the U.S. population, received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient in 2013. If converted to cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">But the Census will almost certainly proclaim that around 14% of Americans are still poor. The present poverty rate is almost exactly the same as it was in 1967, a few years after the War on Poverty started. Census data actually show that poverty has gotten worse over the last 40 years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">How is this possible? How can the taxpayers spend $22 trillion on welfare while poverty gets worse? The answer is that it isn't possible. Census counts a family as poor if its income falls below specified thresholds. But in counting family "income," Census ignores nearly the entire $943 billion welfare state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">For most Americans, the word "poverty" means significant material deprivation, an inability to provide a family with adequate nutritious food, reasonable shelter and clothing. But only a small portion of the more than 40 million people labeled as poor by Census fit that description.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">The media frequently associate the idea of poverty with being homeless. But less than 2% of the poor are homeless. Only one in 10 live in mobile homes. The typical house or apartment of the poor is in good repair, uncrowded and actually larger than the average dwelling of non-poor French, Germans or English.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">According to government surveys, the typical family that Census identifies as poor has air-conditioning, cable or satellite TV, and a computer. Forty percent have a wide-screen HDTV, and another 40% have Internet access. Three quarters of the poor own a car and roughly a third have two or more cars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">These numbers are not the result of the current bad economy pushing middle-class families into poverty; instead, they reflect a steady improvement in living conditions among the poor for many decades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">The intake of protein, vitamins and minerals by poor children is virtually identical with upper-middle-class kids. According to surveys by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the overwhelming majority of poor people report that they were not hungry even for a single day during the prior year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">We can be grateful that the living standards of all Americans, including the poor, have risen in the past half-century. But the War on Poverty has not succeeded according to LBJ's original goal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">Johnson's aim was not to prop up living standards by making more and more people dependent on an ever-larger welfare state. Instead, he sought to increase self-sufficiency, the ability of a family to support itself out of poverty without dependence on welfare aid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">Johnson asserted that the War on Poverty would actually shrink the welfare rolls and transform the poor from "tax-eaters" into "taxpayers." Judged by that standard, the War on Poverty has been a colossal flop. The welfare state has undermined self-sufficiency by discouraging work and penalizing marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">When the War on Poverty began, 7% of children were born outside marriage; today, 42% are. By eroding marriage, the welfare state has made many Americans less capable of self-support than when the War on Poverty began.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">President Obama plans to spend $13 trillion on means-tested welfare over the next decade. Most of this spending will flow through traditional welfare programs that discourage the keys to self-sufficiency: work and marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">Rather than doubling down on the mistakes of the past, we should restructure the welfare state around Johnson's original goal: increasing Americans' capacity for self-support.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">Welfare should no longer be a one-way handout. Able-bodied recipients of cash, food and housing should be required to work or prepare for work as condition of receiving aid. Welfare's penalties against marriage should be reduced.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">By returning to the original vision of aiding the poor to aid themselves, we can begin, in Johnson's words, to "replace their despair with opportunity."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;">• Rector is a Heritage Foundation senior research fellow and an authority on poverty, the welfare system and immigration. This article first appeared in The Daily Signal.</span></div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-37339942768772302242014-09-17T07:58:00.000-05:002014-09-17T08:04:39.846-05:00The Culture Nazis Strike in California - Creedal Christians must be liquidated from Public Universities. <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXWwc5mrh4imI8ddzvArh3Te3HAD7qGRV8pJ_CG7A5Lkp1c47FS5MlxDqZphXe6FdLS-PE9yg86UGiRNMWwefDz-f2DYKLtPeZeIPVfaqBJiFgxf3z4qO02np6za5rtjcMAPtoWcbdAmM/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXWwc5mrh4imI8ddzvArh3Te3HAD7qGRV8pJ_CG7A5Lkp1c47FS5MlxDqZphXe6FdLS-PE9yg86UGiRNMWwefDz-f2DYKLtPeZeIPVfaqBJiFgxf3z4qO02np6za5rtjcMAPtoWcbdAmM/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 20pt;">Why Christians Must Repair Religious Liberty</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;">Thursday, September 11, 2014</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Sweet and lovely Mary Hatch was a vandal. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">In the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Mary (Donna Reed) and George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) walk by the deserted and dilapidated house that will eventually be their home. The story went that if you threw a rock and hit one of the remaining windows, your wish would come true. Mary picks up a rock, hurls it, and—<i>smash</i>—happy day.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">The broken window theory, as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-obama-was-blind-to-the-worlds-broken-windows/2014/09/08/ace4a7a6-3780-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #c52505; text-decoration: none;">Richard Cohen explained a recent op-ed</span></u></a>, comes from <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/politics/crime/windows.htm" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #c52505; text-decoration: none;">James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling</span></u></a> who observed, “if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.” </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Thus if we ignore small problems such as broken windows, we will soon face much bigger problems. Wilson and Kelling applied it to criminal behavior, Cohen to foreign policy. It also applies to religious liberty.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Last week, the California State University system announced that InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, for years a campus staple, has been “derecognized” on all twenty-three campuses. While they didn’t ban the student-led Christian ministry, InterVarsity will no longer be an official student organization meaning no free meeting space, no access to students through student activity channels, and diminished standing on campuses.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">InterVarsity, a Christian group, committed the unforgivable sin. It requires its leaders to be practicing Christians who affirm a statement of faith and live according to the Scriptures.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">As Ed Seltzer notes in <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/september/intervarsity-now-derecognized-in-california-state-universit.html" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #c52505; text-decoration: none;">Christianity Today</span></u></a>, “Following the same logic, any group that insists on requiring its leaders to follow an agreed upon set of guiding beliefs is no longer kosher (irony intended) at California’s state universities. This will impact many other faith-based organizations with actual, well, faith-based beliefs.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">And Cal State isn’t alone. Vanderbilt University and Bowdoin College have also “derecognized” organizations that require actual beliefs. It all began when University of California’s Hastings College of Law refused to recognize Christian Legal Society, <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1371.pdf" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #c52505; text-decoration: none;">a case that went to the U. S. Supreme Court</span></u></a>. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">As Tish Harrison Warren, former InterVarsity staff at Vanderbilt <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/september/wrong-kind-of-christian-vanderbilt-university.html?share=HEM3rHy3NoDHiyDTDefd4lNjZn9ixdLt&start=1" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #c52505; text-decoration: none;">wrote</span></u></a>, “Like most campus groups, InterVarsity welcomes anyone as a member. But it asks key student leaders—the executive council and small group leaders—to affirm its doctrinal statement, which outlines broad Christian orthodoxy and does not mention sexual conduct specifically. But the university saw belief statements themselves as suspect.” Ditto for Hastings, Bowdoin, and California State. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Which leads me to three observations. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">First, it’s not about faith. It’s about sex. Tish Warren goes on, “Any belief—particularly those about the authority of Scripture or the church—could potentially constrain sexual activity or identity. So what began as a concern about sexuality and pluralism quickly became a conversation about whether robustly religious communities would be allowed on campus.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Second, the schools are practicing self-deception at its worst. Rather than saying, “Christians and others with creeds and traditional ideas about sexual morality are not welcome,” they manufacture verbiage about “fairness,” “diversity,” and “equality” coupled with actions designed to bring about injustice, uniformity, and discrimination. As New York Times columnist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/opinion/sunday/douthat-diversity-and-dishonesty.html?_r=0" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #c52505; text-decoration: none;">Ross Douthat wrote recently</span></u></a>, “I can live with progressivism. It’s the lying that gets toxic.” </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Third, we need to do something about these broken windows. Note that it began with one school (Hastings) and with the Supreme Court’s blessing spread to two more (Vanderbilt and Bowdoin), and then to the whole California State system. Does anyone imagine that if there are no consequences, it will end here? Or that what started in higher education won’t spread across society?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Repairing the windows will take people who are willing to speak out. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Colleges and universities fear bad publicity. Give it to them in abundance. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">Schools rely on friendly, generous alumni and, as the old saying goes, the one who pays the fiddler calls the tunes. If you’re concerned about religious liberty at your college, tell the people with the real power; tell the development office or (at big schools) the athletic director. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">And while most faculty just want to research and teach, no administrators wants to face tenured faculty and department heads publicly pointing out their foolishness and hypocrisy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;">When George and Mary Bailey repaired the windows of the old house, no one ever threw a rock at them for luck again. These broken windows can also be fixed. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.christianheadlines.com/columnists/james-tonkowich/why-christians-must-repair-religious-liberty.html" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank">http://www.christianheadlines.com/columnists/james-tonkowich/why-christians-must-repair-religious-liberty.html</a></div>
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Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-78404697753438795852014-09-15T08:53:00.002-05:002014-09-15T08:53:42.824-05:00C.F.W. Walther 4th of July speech on Religious Freedom - "Let us... if necessary, gladly shed our blood..."
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue Light"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue Light";">“Oh blessed, and indeed blessed be this day, when once
the cornerstone was laid for the construction of a nation in which the freedom
of religion and conscience has been elevated to a basic national principal!
Blessed be this land, in which we enjoy this freedom! And as this land has
guaranteed early freedom for religion, so may religion bring it its heavenly
blessings. But let us not only faithfully use this freedom, for God will
someday demand a serious account of the use of the inexpressible benefit,
but let us also as citizens of this land look eagerly and fight bravely, and,
if necessary, gladly shed our blood, so that this land remains not only free in
general, but above all that it retains the golden crown of freedom, namely the
freedom of religion, and in this way remains a place of freedom for all who
suffer religious persecution in all the nations of the earth. But, may the Lord
of the nations, Who has clearly watched and ruled over this nation, let His
face graciously shine over our North American free states; may He confound all
attacks which the enemies of this Union of States may make upon its freedom;
raise in this land, to His glory, a pious, free, and happy people; and always
place at its head virtuous men of wisdom and of fearless and strong action!
Hail America! Hail! Hail! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue Light"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue Light";">C.F.W. Walther: The American Luther (1987), p. 20.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-6862720874293787082014-09-14T19:01:00.000-05:002014-09-14T19:01:02.969-05:00Canoe #2 - Thank God for a bit of free time.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifCxmlY5oEahDXZM_yxeXwb5K3uuQJ1am4AQqYWphMbPkCYTE-WVp6ctAwWoq2vyWqPF12bUHwOPNSyDLYLeF-gBIkzfGGsmFvc9xjc8zpKKXdJcp6Z43lMgEPVC8zqJt6z0YBzkKPayw/s1600/get-attachment.aspx.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifCxmlY5oEahDXZM_yxeXwb5K3uuQJ1am4AQqYWphMbPkCYTE-WVp6ctAwWoq2vyWqPF12bUHwOPNSyDLYLeF-gBIkzfGGsmFvc9xjc8zpKKXdJcp6Z43lMgEPVC8zqJt6z0YBzkKPayw/s1600/get-attachment.aspx.jpeg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The circa 1940 Meramec.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After a very good week at work came an all-to-rare weekend without commitments. A few months ago I discovered an old <a href="http://dragonflycanoe.com/wood-canoe-identification-guide/st-louis-meramec-canoe-company/">Meramec Canoe</a> on ebay. Never heard of the brand. The price was low. I offered something quite a bit lower, and behold, bought a canoe. It was located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. With the help of a clergy friend and his congregation, the canoe was stored behind propane tank at a marvelous little country church. After we dropped son number 2 at Hillsdale College in South Central Michigan, I made the three hour round trip to pick up the boat. I bought it for the vintage paddles included, and the vintage Old Town canoe sail. Was there hope for the canoe?<br />
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Turns out the canoe has a very interesting history, and one which originated in my own back yard. It was made in Valley Park, Missouri, just a few miles away. It's a little town, long plagued by flooding, on the beautiful Meramec River. We've been in St. Louis for some 14 years, and have been to Castlewood Park on the Meramec a hundred times. We'd go with the boys when they were small, and walk the cold, clear creek which winds its way to the muddy Meramec, and finally flows into the Mississippi. Snakes, crawdads, fish, frogs, tadpoles, we caught em all. There's fabulous hiking and biking.<br />
<br />
A mile or two up the river there are old foundations from buildings long gone. The railroad line runs from Chicago to Springfield Ill., to Kirkwood (where the LCMS headquarters is), and then along Big Bend Road by the Meramec. The view on the bluffs high above the tracks and river is a favorite of ours. We heard rumors of a resort in days long ago. More of that in a moment.<br />
<br />
Enter one Henry Wickett. Turns out Meramec canoes were built by Henry Wickett. Wickett was building wood canvas canoes in Old Town, Main as a young man. By the early 20th century he was head of the <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19900911&id=mqhJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HA4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=3479,3556611">Old Town Canoe</a> shop. Soon he left Old Town and crossed the river to form the Penobscot Canoe Co. By about 1920 he'd divorced and apparently wanted to get out of town. He'd heard of the resort town of Valley Park, Missouri and came to the St. Louis area. Meramec Canoe Co. was born (later St. Louis Boat and Canoe Co.). He took up residence in a hotel in Valley Park, and soon after an apparent affair wit the proprietor's wife, she divorced, and married Wickett. He died in 1943 and is buried in a cemetery in Kirkwood Missouri, not a mile from the LCMS headquarters.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTtM7zBdk7VbkzoJNHNh6N0vUvaVCeS1b3F2450WvbfzivPYozIlYCxn1lqHuiulcBEqSXLO3fs2-uiPBn8z5LAO95-NS_sen9XiuC9wD344K1qkBf9XQcTCtKErTmz-5ILDOK2qOuDN0/s1600/get-attachment-1.aspx.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTtM7zBdk7VbkzoJNHNh6N0vUvaVCeS1b3F2450WvbfzivPYozIlYCxn1lqHuiulcBEqSXLO3fs2-uiPBn8z5LAO95-NS_sen9XiuC9wD344K1qkBf9XQcTCtKErTmz-5ILDOK2qOuDN0/s1600/get-attachment-1.aspx.jpeg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Decided on Forest Green. Likin' it. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Last year I bought a 1950 Old Town, 18ft. Guide Canoe. With fresh varnish and red paint, it's gorgeous. It has huge capacity and is a pleasure to paddle. This weekend, I attacked the Meramec. The canoe is 16 ft. long, and not nearly as heavy as the big Old Town. Local Wickett expert Wally Hauck believes the serial number (1415 16) places the manufacture date about 1940. It was somewhat sloppily covered with fiberglass (an unhappy thing for purists. The original was canvas). I took a hand held sander to the thing and most of the roughest blemishes sanded out. I followed that with Bondo (auto body filler) filling in the worst problems. A couple of hours of sanding and it was ready to paint today. The varnish on the interior is in tact and in fairly good shape. I've cleaned it and as soon as the fresh green paint is nice and hard, I'll apply fresh varnish to the interior. The oak gunwales were on the edge of irretrievability, but gentle sanding and fresh varnish left them looking gloriously vintage. Praise be to Christ our Lord for a little free time. Looking forward to getting it into the water.<br />
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">More happily "canoed" I
could not be,<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A life's goal an Old Town red to
see,<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eighteen feet, twelve hundred
pound capacity.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet unaware and unarmed was
caught.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A sixteen foot
"Meramec" built in St. Louis bought.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Why? Oh Why? A second canoe? <o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Would not the one 1950 classic
do?<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the price, the price was
good, still I offered much lower.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was a lark, a near joke, as
over Ebay I hovered.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"He'll never take my offer,
it's too low by far."<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then ZAP. <o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He took it. <o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And I carried a sixteen footer
home on my car.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-size: 14pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MCH</span></i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-3495108658226817612014-09-14T08:14:00.001-05:002014-09-14T08:14:56.875-05:00Church and State "should not be confused" <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3cqwJ0okHdNIGPWdhyphenhyphenfk_FMaHsiCyiYhik-_UIOIW7yxans3TXcE0NQ6xujVbht04ZPIfGjpvZ-JXKRKztIbEFkxnOLFphW0PTMDV05imDmQtCZFaX8w8NvjmXRLMzLAOdiIj-GRm8I/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3cqwJ0okHdNIGPWdhyphenhyphenfk_FMaHsiCyiYhik-_UIOIW7yxans3TXcE0NQ6xujVbht04ZPIfGjpvZ-JXKRKztIbEFkxnOLFphW0PTMDV05imDmQtCZFaX8w8NvjmXRLMzLAOdiIj-GRm8I/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="Bodytext" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: windowtext;">Let’s take a glance at the
history of the ancient church. How did the church at that time lose its
freedom? The fate of the church in the age of Constantine [ca. 280-337] first
comes to mind. This era has always been understood to be the great turning
point, and indeed already by its contemporaries. When Constantine, after the
victory at the Milvian bridge, had become the sole ruler of the West, his order
to the proconsul of Africa to grant state funds to the church was among the
first of his governmental measures. For the Christians this was “reparation”
for the injuries which had previously been done them. For the state it was a
self-evident step in its religious politics. For if the other cults received
state aid, why should Christianity, now that it was recognized, be excluded?
For the ancient state, religion was, of course, always a concern of the state.
Fortunately, it had not yet come upon the idea that the school could possibly
also be so. To his great surprise the emperor, in the course of appeals for
funds, received two inquiries from the imperial bank of Carthage. Credit was to
be extended, but there were two churches in Africa adjoining one another in the
same locality. The emperor thereupon had to establish or have established which
church might now be the legitimate one. He never finished with this question,
at least not in Africa. And it became all the more problematic after the
conquest of the East, when the Arian controversy, which divided the church of
the Orient, was added to the Donatist controversy. Thus the first <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Donatio Constantini”</i> [Donation of
Constantine]<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
was followed by that which might be called the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Judicatio Constantini,”</i> [Judgement of Constantine] the claim to
the decision as to which was the true and which was the false church, which he
as the savior of Christendom considered his right and duty. The state-church
system began, that unnatural and therefore unsuccessful marriage between state
and church in which both partners chafed one another to the point of soreness.
From the lament of the Roman Christians of the fourth century, who longed to be
out of the gilded basilicas and back in the simple emergency churches of the
persecution era, continuing through the conflict between the sacerdotal and
imperial power with its misunderstandings, its demoralizing consequences for both
state and church throughout the entire Middle Ages, up to Luther’s solution to
the Gordian knot in his doctrine of the spiritual office and the secular power,
and the classic statement of the Augustana: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Non
igitur commiscendae sunt potestates ecclesiastica et civilis”</i> [Therefore
ecclesiastical and civil powers are not to be confused], the chain of witnesses
who knew that the mixing of church and state must lead to the destruction of
the church and of the state is unbroken. But these voices did not succeed in
carrying through their point of view in Christendom.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Why not?
Upon close examination one notes that even before Constantine the church was on
the road to becoming a state-church, that not the state but the church desired
that unfortunate marriage. Already in the third century Paul of Samosata<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> and others
appealed to the secular authorities in questions of dogma and demanded their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">judicatio</i> even in matters of faith. And
whereas the earliest church strictly forbade its members to appeal to courts of
the world even in civil disputes between Christians (1 Corinthians 6), the
Roman Church even in the third century did not hesitate to go to court with a
secular corporation, before a tribunal of the state which was persecuting (and
occasionally also tolerating) it, regarding a building site where it proposed
to erect a church—one of the first masterpieces of jurisprudence of the Church
of Rome. It did not yet even have a legal existence, but it won a lawsuit. It
carried its demand through with the state. The Roman Church can afford to do
this. For whatever else it may be, it is also something like a state, which
comes to terms with other states. It was that then, and it is that today. Rome
is Rome. But the state-church, which subjects itself to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">judicatio</i> of the state in order on
occasion to demand <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">judicatio</i> over
against the state, was in essence already in existence long before Constantine.
This is not the acknowledgment of the secular authority as an ordinance of God
according to Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2. That is something altogether different.
For “authority” and “state” are certainly not the same thing. “Authority” is
the divine institution, which exists, more or less distorted, in the
innumerable and entirely heterogeneous forms which are called states. It is a
divinely instituted office in that human social structure, the state. It is not
the recognition of the secular authority and obedience to it, as far as it does
not conflict with the obedience to God’s commandments, which is the aberration
of the church from that which it ought to be. That is certainly much rather
God’s will and command. The aberration is the confusion and commingling of the
governmental and spiritual offices and of their functions. In this commingling
the church ceases to be church and the state ceases to be state. This
commingling, however, is obviously not only a temptation which besets the
state. It is also one of the most severe temptations for the church of all
times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Bodytext" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: windowtext;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Bodytext" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="http://www.cph.org/p-21568-letters-to-lutheran-pastors-volume-1.aspx">Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors VII</a></span></div>
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playing with a reference to the so-called Donation of Constantine, an 8<sup>th</sup>
century forgery which claimed that Constantine gave both the temporal power to
the pope and the Roman curia. MH<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> See “Church
Government and Secular Authority According to the Lutheran Doctrine” in The
Lonely Way, St. Louis: CPH vol. 1. Feuerhahn calls this essay “one of the most
thorough discussions of the relation of church and state not only in Sasse’s
corpus, but also in any English language literature.” MH<o:p></o:p></div>
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Heretical 3<sup>rd</sup> century bishop of Antioch. Had an adoptionist
Christology. The incarnate Word – so he held – descended and dwelt in the man
Jesus. ODCC p. 1242. MH<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-21880510572667818892014-09-12T18:18:00.002-05:002014-09-12T18:18:36.494-05:00Cardinal: U.S. ‘Creed’ on Gay Marriage Like Sharia Law - He's right. Matt Harrison<div id="title-wrapper" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Cardinal: U.S. ‘Creed’ on Gay Marriage Like Sharia Law</h1>
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Cardinal Francis George, head of the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago and a former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. (AP)</div>
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<b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(CNSNews.com)</b> – Cardinal Francis George, head of the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago, said the levers of power in government, education, entertainment, and media are enforcing a “public creed,” a “fake church” that requires all citizens to approve of gay marriage and related sexual anomalies or be punished by the State, just “as Christians and Jews are fined for their religion in countries governed by Sharia law.”<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Cardinal George, who was president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in 2007-10, made his remarks in his <a href="http://www.catholicnewworld.com/cnwonline/2014/0907/cardinal.aspx" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #005291; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sept. 7 column</a> for the archdiocesean newspaper. In his commentary, the cardinal explains that America, despite social frictions at certain times, had always strived to ensure religious freedom and respect for different religions.</div>
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The State, in the past, had “kept its promise to protect all religions and not become a rival to them, a fake church,” said the cardinal.</div>
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But that has now changed, he said. “In recent years, society has brought social and legislative approval to all types of sexual relationships that used to be considered ‘sinful,’” he continued. “Since the biblical vision of what it means to be human tells us that not every friendship or love can be expressed in sexual relations, the church’s teaching on these issues is now evidence of intolerance for what the civil law upholds and even imposes.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/image/gay-marriage-44" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #005291; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="gay marriage"><img alt="gay marriage" class="" height="123" src="http://www.cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/medium/images/images_13.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="gay marriage" width="220" /></a><div class="caption" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 10px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
(AP Photo)</div>
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“What was once a request to live and let live has now become a demand for approval,” said Cardinal George, whose archdiocese includes about 2.2 million Catholics. “The ‘ruling class,’ those who shape public opinion in politics, in education, in communications, in entertainment, is using the civil law to impose its own form of morality on everyone.”</div>
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“We are told that, even in marriage itself, there is no difference between men and women, although nature and our very bodies clearly evidence that men and women are not interchangeable at will in forming a family,” he said. “Nevertheless, those who do not conform to the official religion, we are warned, place their citizenship in danger.”</div>
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The cardinal then noted that Americans who objected on religious grounds to the Obamacare mandate on contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs, were chastised by many in the media, including the<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronald-a-lindsay/supreme-court-catholic-justices_b_5545055.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #005291; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">liberal <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Huffington Post</i></i></a>, which claimed the opposition, and the six Catholic judges on the Supreme Court, raised “concerns about the compatibility between being a Catholic and being a good citizen.”</div>
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This was not the anti-Catholic voice of nativists, or the Know-Nothing Party, or the Ku Klux Klan, said the cardinal, but, “rather, the self-righteous voice of some members of the American establishment today who regard themselves as ‘progressive’ and ‘enlightened.’”</div>
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“The inevitable result is a crisis of belief for many Catholics,” said Cardinal George. “Throughout history, when Catholics and other believers in revealed religion have been forced to choose between being taught by God or instructed by politicians, professors, editors of major newspapers and entertainers, many have opted to go along with the powers that be.”</div>
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Holy Bible and cross. (AP)</div>
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“This reduces a great tension in their lives, although it also brings with it the worship of a false god,” he said. “It takes no moral courage to conform to government and social pressure. It takes a deep faith to ‘swim against the tide,’ as Pope Francis recently encouraged young people to do at last summer’s World Youth Day.”<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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The cardinal continued, “Swimming against the tide means limiting one’s access to positions of prestige and power in society. It means that those who choose to live by the Catholic faith will not be welcomed as political candidates to national office, will not sit on editorial boards of major newspapers, will not be at home on most university faculties, will not have successful careers as actors and entertainers.”</div>
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“Nor will their children, who will also be suspect,” he said.</div>
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“Since all public institutions, no matter who owns or operates them, will be agents of the government and conform their activities to the demands of the official religion, the practice of medicine and law will become more difficult for faithful Catholics,” said Cardinal George. “It already means in some States that those who run businesses must conform their activities to the official religion or be fined, as Christians and Jews are fined for their religion in countries governed by Sharia law.”</div>
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Cardinal George went on to argue that U.S. civil law has done much to weaken and destroy the family, which in turn has forced the State to impose more and more restrictions on people and their activities that are unloosed from the “internal restraints that healthy family life teaches.”</div>
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He also says that many of the “tenets of the official State religion” are largely dictated by elements of a certain social class, noting that “’same-sex marriage,’ as a case in point, is not an issue for the poor or those on the margins of society.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/image/family-0" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #005291; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="family"><img alt="family" height="331" src="http://www.cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/medium/images/family-together-in-color.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="family" width="220" /></a></div>
How the situation may end, said the cardinal, is unclear because there are many Americans, “even among the ruling class, who do not want their beloved country to transform itself into a fake church.”<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Catholics and traditional Christians know by faith, said Cardinal George, that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead and the church “will be there to meet Him.”</div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
However, “[t]here is no such divine guarantee for any country, culture or society of this age or any age,” concluded Cardinal George.</div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The archdiocese of Chicago, established in 1843, serves about 2.2 million Catholics through 356 parishes, and with more than 1,400 priests and 1,600 women religious. The archdiocese operates 44 schools and 5 colleges, the latter educating 49,000 students. The archdiocese also oversees 17 Catholic hospitals, <a href="http://www.archchicago.org/about_us/statistics.shtm" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #005291; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">assisting 2.6 million people a year</a>, and helps another 1.2 million people through 150-plus different charities.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-50589281005942473142014-09-01T08:11:00.002-05:002014-09-01T08:11:24.200-05:00"What the Bible says is so offensive..." Sasse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHeHvKEhyphenhyphenwJSymVLGV1iMzm_5dM55eQhMkRllQxJlxGDG8QTa3YebXFMTJc_VNEo_bOpND_z6wHFiw0QB69jZ_mWrWPDsFOVDH4I9-MDQCtJoiporw8CvKl8jQFVwVwmKjvwEgNEDm3qk/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHeHvKEhyphenhyphenwJSymVLGV1iMzm_5dM55eQhMkRllQxJlxGDG8QTa3YebXFMTJc_VNEo_bOpND_z6wHFiw0QB69jZ_mWrWPDsFOVDH4I9-MDQCtJoiporw8CvKl8jQFVwVwmKjvwEgNEDm3qk/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt;">What the Bible says is so offensive, that a
hypersensitive Christianity is constantly trying to circumvent the message
entrusted to the church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Throughout the
church's history, a good deal of theology is dedicated to the task of
readjusting the Gospel to fit what the world expects of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Professional theologians are not the only
ones guilty of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Preaching shows
this same kind of accommodation to the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Christianity is turned into another system of religious teachings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This approach was offered by Schleiermacher
[1768-1834] and Ritschl [1822-1889].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were no different than the Neo-Platonists, the Aristotelians and
Rationalists in turning Christianity into a philosophical system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most widespread evasion was the
presentation of the Christian message as moralistic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This happened as early as the Shepherd of
Hermas [2<sup>nd</sup> cent.] and can be traced through to modern Protestantism
which made the "Golden Rule" the core of the Gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All these searches for meaning can find no
support in the New Testament or in the preaching of the apostles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every reader of the Bible knows the message
which the apostles preached to the Jewish as well as to the pagan world:
"This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. . . . Let all
the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord
and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. . . . Repent, and be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for forgiveness of your sins, and you
will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (RSV; Acts 2:32-38)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"The times of ignorance God overlooked,
but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on
which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed,
and he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead.” (RSV; Acts
17:30-31).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The church's message is the
message of the forgiveness of sins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
indeed God on account of Christ gives this forgiveness as gift to all who
believe on Jesus as "Lord and Christ."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furthermore this message is not a theory
about the forgiveness of sins, but the offer to all mankind to have their sins
forgiven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"So we are ambassadors
for Christ, God making his appeal through us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For our sake he made him to be sin who knew
no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (RSV; 2
Corinthians 5:20-21)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt;">This and nothing else is the message of the
apostles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, and nothing else, is the
message of the church today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever else
the church includes in her proclamation, she does for the sake of this
message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her message is a call to
mankind to be reconciled with God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
has no other Gospel than the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her Baptism is a Baptism for the forgiveness
of sins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Given and shed for you
for forgiveness of sins" - this is the Gospel for the church in the Lord's
Supper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The response to the question of
what Jesus Christ has brought and still brings to mankind cannot be a new
religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus was neither the founder
of a religion nor did he bring the religions of mankind to fulfillment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let no one say that Jesus brought a new law,
new ethical norms and ideals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he
alone and no other person brought, and still brings, is the forgiveness of
sins: "We find abundant ethical principles in Confucianism, a brilliant
hierarchy of laws also with the Dalai Lama, theological scholarship in the
synagogue, war waged against alcoholism among Moslems, a youth movement among
Communists - forgiveness can be found only in Jesus Christ" (Werner
Elert).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under no other circumstances can
the forgiveness of sins be found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
is unique to Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He alone
brings this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He does not merely give
"half of the grace for the forgiveness of sins," but "the full
grace of redemption."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the
negative aspect the positive must be attached.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With the removal of guilt comes a new life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the person who says that he still does not
know what the forgiveness of sins really is and the profound truth contained in
these words about forgiveness, Luther says, "Where there is forgiveness of
sins, there is life and salvation." [Small Catechism]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is nothing more positive than the
justification of the sinner through faith alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To understand this, modern Christianity must
in particular relearn what sin and the forgiveness of sin are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Bible and the Lutheran Church is quite
clear in what she teaches about mankind's sin: "Since the fall of Adam all
men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in
sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is, all men are full of evil
lust and inclinations from their mothers' womb are unable by nature to have
true fear of God and true faith in God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moreover, this inborn sickness and sin hereditary sin is truly sin.”
[Tappert 29; Augsburg Confession II, 1-2]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is only natural that the world would repudiate such teaching as no
more than a long worn out mythology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mankind is so totally depraved it can no longer bear to hear the truth
about itself: "This damage is so unspeakable that it may not be recognized
by a rational process, but only from God's Word.” [Tappert 467, 9; F.C. Ep. I,
3]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For if Christendom itself is so under
the influence of modern culture and its anthropology so lacking in
understanding that it no longer comprehends the depth of human sin, then it is
high time that it earnestly puts this question to the church of the past,
especially the church of the Reformation:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>`Have you ever considered, have you ever pondered the enormity of sin?'<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most important theme which a world
conference of Christian churches could have handled, and at the same time the
most practical, the one which would have penetrated into the depth of the
actual life of humanity today, would have been: "Sin."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An ecumenical conference on this theme would
have uncovered the profound doctrinal differences among the churches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps it would have been the clearest
indication of what was lacking in the churches and confessions of contemporary
Christianity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would have also shown
that these churches must agree in the unity of faith, love and hope to confess
Jesus Christ as their Lord.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt;">Sasse, Law and Gospel (1936)</span></div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-71824713638753956772014-08-30T08:33:00.002-05:002014-08-30T08:33:46.010-05:00Sasse on the Rise and Fall of Nations
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
if this connection between God and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk</i>
exists, if the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk</i> – and indeed “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk</i>” understood in that wide sense,
which results from our view – belong to the communities, which have their
origin in the creative Word of God, then the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Völker,</span></i> like man
in general and all human communities, stand under the law of death, which
encompasses all humanity, and has continued to exist by divine action. “I will
be your God, so you should be my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk.</i>”
Where this vocation to be a people [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk</i>]
is no longer heard by anyone, where man no longer has any sense of the
connection between God and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk</i>, there
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Volksdom</i> die. Then, in the place of a genuine consciousness of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk</i> enters either nationalism, which
increases the nation to absolute value, places it in the position of God, and
at best retains the form of religion, in order to place it in the service of
its earthly ideals. Or that decay occurs, which no longer sees anything more of
the reality of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk. </i>It has
regard<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>only for the individuals, who
“associate,” as it pleases them. Both possibilities are results of a history of
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk</i>, which, no matter how great the
external differences may be, in the final analysis mean the same thing: the end
of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk. </i>Because it has dethroned
God, it is rejected by him and sooner or later it gives way to make way for new
peoples [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Voelkern</i>]. Because this is
so, the history of the world is the history of the rise and fall, the birthing
and the dying of ever-new <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Völkern.</span></i><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;"> No <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volk</i> </span>on earth is
excluded from this law, from the law of death of history. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Sasse, What is the State? 1932; trans. MCH</div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-74706734625234572862014-08-29T07:56:00.001-05:002014-08-29T07:56:11.600-05:00What the desk of the Lutheran Pastor should look like - The last words of Sasse's last Letter to Lutheran Pastors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf8pU7vFiDLtLVUfJinZzUNzRnfu7v6VoweLMPFLtuiqi6c6NQ1kp_SgVX0k1Pag_pCgdW9AIZ-xARwrjkh17l62K420QErCtJmkKi4kgzcXiPN3HoMYW48WxqI4lIdHJkYU1a4my1fmw/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf8pU7vFiDLtLVUfJinZzUNzRnfu7v6VoweLMPFLtuiqi6c6NQ1kp_SgVX0k1Pag_pCgdW9AIZ-xARwrjkh17l62K420QErCtJmkKi4kgzcXiPN3HoMYW48WxqI4lIdHJkYU1a4my1fmw/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></div>
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The power of the Confession lay
in its being the interpretation of Holy Scripture. Its authority consists in
the fact that it is the proper interpretation. The desk of a Lutheran pastor
should look like this: One the one side stands the Bible in Hebrew and Greek
(also the [Greek] Old Testament) and in the mother tongue. On the other side
stands the Confessions in Latin and German and, where necessary, in
translation. A dialog plays out between the two sides; Scripture leads one to
look into the Confessions, the Confessions lead one to search Scripture. So it
should be for sermon preparation, Confirmation instruction and the general
instruction of the church. The task of a bishop would not only be to set a good
example for this, but also [to see to it] that the presuppositions for such
theological work already exist. Just as we need a healthy churchly exegesis for
our students and candidates, so also the course of study must, quite unlike
that of previous years, lead to a well-grounded study of the Confession. As to
how that might be organized in detail we will not enter into here. I will make
but one comment. Today no fundamental study of the Lutheran Confessions is
possible without a true understanding of the confessions of other churches, the
great classical confessions of Christianity. In such study one will clearly
notice that almost all of them have a liturgical background. For every dogma of
the church first appears in the liturgy before it is formulated in the
confession. As we inquire about the “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sitz
im Leben</i>” while doing the exegesis of a biblical book or pericope, one
should also consider that the confession, and the dogma expressed therein, also
have a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sitz im Leben</i> [a historical
context]. Where that is understood, the intellectual misunderstanding of the Confession
ceases, which has caused so much harm on all sides. It is about the living
Confession that we inquire, and the Confession is today something living, even
if we theologians do not always know that. In this sense we should approach the
remembrance of the Confession. And we must never forget that the renewal of the
church and its doctrine has always begun first in small circles. God has always
done his greatest deeds in the world through hopeless minorities as seen from
human eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In complete confidence that the
Lord has not yet pushed aside from their places all the guiding lights of the
Lutheran Church in Germany, and in the world, I greet you in deference as<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Your
most humble<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hermann Sasse [1969]</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-84903952838182550342014-08-28T20:35:00.001-05:002014-08-28T20:35:31.967-05:00Sasse: No one doubts that human society is ill... and is threatening to come un hinged. <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
How
can it be explained that the question of the nature and the orders of human
life in society today occupies the center of general interest, and indeed not
only in scholarly study and teaching, but just as much in the realm of
practical discussion and in the every day lives of men? How is it that this
question moves men today with an immense passion and that the answers, which
are given, divide and gather people? What human society is and should be, how
the orders of life in society come to be and what shall result from them; these
are questions men have thought about since there has been thought regarding the
world and life. Since the days of the ancient world, philosophy has answered
these questions. And Christianity of all confessions has repeatedly sought to
give its answer. But the question today is a different one than in earlier
centuries. It has ceased to be merely a question of scholarly inquiry and worldview.
It has become a question of life itself in the literal sense of the word, that
is, a question that has to do with life and death. The very existence of those
who answer it depends on the answer. This explains why the answers which are
given, indeed, are set forth in the form of scientifically based theories – modern
man never proceeds without science, and even if it is a science he does not
understand, but admires all the more [because he does not understand it]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– but these theories actually bear the
character of confessions of faith. Therefore theoretically [like science],
neither can they be refuted. The Marxist theory has been refuted – with rivers
of printer’s ink in Germany and with rivers of blood in Russia. But for those
who believe in it, it is irrefutable. It is similar with other great social
doctrines, with the democratic and with the conservative theories of society,
or with the new social doctrines of the Twentieth Century such Fascism and
National Socialism. In all these systems a “doctrine” is dealt with, which is something
other than scientific theory, even if they use its form. A doctrine is
presented, which is the expression of a conviction. An enlightening truth is
formulated and conveyed. It must be believed and of course also can readily be
“scientifically proven.” The classic example of such a confessionally
formulated doctrine is “The Communist Manifesto,”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> which
even in its structure (dogmatics, ethics, and condemnation of heretics),
reminds one of a genuine confession of faith. In this sense all the great
doctrines are to be understood which seek to answer the questions of human
society, and around which millions gather, like they once gathered around
religious confessions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">How is this development to be explained? Why have
the great social doctrines become that which were once the religious doctrines?
The reason is this: they seek to answer a real question of life. The social
life of the European people and culture has been shaken. Society is in the grasp
of a process of disintegration. One should not deceive himself about the
seriousness of the situation. The tottering of society, the destruction of all
forms of society have always existed in history. But that which peoples of the
present experience, is something different. Through all the changes of
viewpoints and relationships, within western humanity there has been agreement
regarding certain norms, and all life in society has rested upon their
unbreakable validity. They were so self-evident that they were scarcely
questioned or reasonably defended. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3eUNbSkMhii89OCZA0VLn2vy7B9-mibSqpEH8R9hKo25STG7XGhMiC6NFExsps7ZO71__OUwFFtXXHaonetgEJpv8d1vudpMXPGDhLC9BYr8UYfqr9Bo2OGFTmhD7n-Uc4SJ-YQlKraA/s1600/images-4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3eUNbSkMhii89OCZA0VLn2vy7B9-mibSqpEH8R9hKo25STG7XGhMiC6NFExsps7ZO71__OUwFFtXXHaonetgEJpv8d1vudpMXPGDhLC9BYr8UYfqr9Bo2OGFTmhD7n-Uc4SJ-YQlKraA/s1600/images-4.jpeg" /></a></div>
Men of earlier times were no better than
today, and there has always been injustice [<i>Unrecht</i>].
There had not always been unity regarding what was just and unjust. But at
least people thought in the categories of “right” and “wrong.” Today this is no
longer self-evident. This crisis of all ethics, and not merely of a particular
ethical system, can clarify the deep process of dissolution, which we are
experiencing. And its extent becomes clear when one considers that this
tottering is passing over the entire earth, through all races and in every
corner of the globe. There have always been great upheavals, collapses, and demises
in history. But they were limited to one portion of humanity. Today the old
orders of Asiatic cultures are collapsing. The ancient forms of life of primitive
cultures of the world, which have endured for thousands of years, are drawn
into the crisis of the west. This is a revolution, which must really be called
a <b>global </b>revolution. How one judges this
process with respect to its individual ramifications, where one sees its causes
– whether in intellectual-spiritual or technical-economic developments or in
both – whether one gives up the hope that it has to do with a necessary
illness, which will lead to better, healthier relationships, or whether one
fears that it is a sickness unto death: these questions may be argued. But no
one doubts that human society is ill, that life in society is no longer in
order and is threatening to come unhinged.
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Sasse, What is the State? 1932; trans. MCH</div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848. MH<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-70799826876314050022014-08-28T13:42:00.001-05:002014-08-28T13:42:19.392-05:00Repentance or Dialogue? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOlyB2bD3kPoHOW78t5hpYUUnHmK0Hp7MvVPWVKdXYeaEtvXfzOu7l56qx8lYGFbsrNiXhYy5l2XQKvcd68xvvFkaruabefncPQVELq7Ou6ZT_ko5lmwmwXQEBkbQszi1ulPluMFv5Xk/s1600/images-3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOlyB2bD3kPoHOW78t5hpYUUnHmK0Hp7MvVPWVKdXYeaEtvXfzOu7l56qx8lYGFbsrNiXhYy5l2XQKvcd68xvvFkaruabefncPQVELq7Ou6ZT_ko5lmwmwXQEBkbQszi1ulPluMFv5Xk/s1600/images-3.jpeg" /></a></div>
Today, the church does not call people to repentance but rather to dialogue. And the church forgot that in the past every single renewal of the church began with its own penitence.<br />
<br />
Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors 62 (the Last Letter)Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-73435280938467801742014-08-28T08:33:00.002-05:002014-08-28T08:33:31.452-05:00The Task of the Sermon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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... the task of the sermon is not the communication of 'pious emotions,' of personal religious experiences, or, above all, not of human religion, but rather the proclamation of the objective Word of God given to us in Holy Scripture.<br />
<br />
Sasse, Letter 61Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-9115456491260489882014-08-27T16:51:00.000-05:002014-08-27T16:51:25.235-05:00Sasse on Bultmann<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU8k4o21Rg9kDauz3-pZSgfEhyphenhyphent9kAGndB83xJDCRaLIAL1qIQgsnprK9e9bW7GVQWmJb9qTMdv1jSKnIVdtMcdtFPkLzMLOuoRfJRcXykBc9ce9nowOjAtNYpBb53R-q6g9plu_KmHRc/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU8k4o21Rg9kDauz3-pZSgfEhyphenhyphent9kAGndB83xJDCRaLIAL1qIQgsnprK9e9bW7GVQWmJb9qTMdv1jSKnIVdtMcdtFPkLzMLOuoRfJRcXykBc9ce9nowOjAtNYpBb53R-q6g9plu_KmHRc/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></div>
The time has come in which the theology of Bultmann and his school need to undergo a basic and thorough 'demythologizing.' As a result, it would become apparent that many of their scholarly presuppositions are nothing more than philosophical biases, and that the Jesus that Bultmann sets in the place of the biblical Christ is nothing more than a myth.<br />
<br />
Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors 61Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-49139270959986383742014-08-27T08:19:00.001-05:002014-08-27T08:19:25.934-05:00"There is no confession without confessors." <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Amid the dissolution and decadence of our
church, the Lutheran Confession remains a lively truth that cannot be hidden by
mass demonstrations, anniversary celebrations, theology of glory in books and
church newspapers, sermons and festival speeches. How is that, really? A
confession is nothing when it only stands written in books and remains on paper
<i>de jure</i> in authority. A confession
must be confessed. There is no confession without confessors. Even if the
number of these confessors is small, so small that it sometimes appears that
they no longer exist, from this minority “in this gathering which is called
church,” (compare the Apology to CA 7/8, 10f., BSLK 236, 7f.) there proceeds
effects that no one can explain. The real history of the church is always a
history of the minorities. That should be remembered in an age of mass
movements. That goes for the history of the ancient church from the days of the
apostles onward as much as it does for the history of the Reformation and for
that which plays out in global church history. The minority of those in the
Lutheran churches of the world that have preserved the faith of the catechism
and the Augustana in the heart and that pray for the church is the hope of our
church. The power, however, that the confession holds lies alone in its
contents, that is nothing other than the Word of God that it confesses and of
which it testifies before the world. By the fact that the confession testifies
to the Word of God, it participates in the liveliness and sturdiness of this
Word (Hebrews 4:12).</span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors 60 (1967)</span>Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-5770115704501727792014-08-27T07:48:00.001-05:002014-08-27T07:48:20.668-05:00How Much of Sasse's Critique Applies to Confessional Lutherans Today?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMHYeUYVtlH7JFqxHRyomXMCphD8LaQzY77rs0xE98NdPar3EfKD0f8kEUy5MLFalKv9BjnJZQoVWB9UZ_8GG5rGufbJFFUyKUzNGX5hmDQGOFHQLN2888wmVRgbdIewRN646JCf5diNY/s1600/images-3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMHYeUYVtlH7JFqxHRyomXMCphD8LaQzY77rs0xE98NdPar3EfKD0f8kEUy5MLFalKv9BjnJZQoVWB9UZ_8GG5rGufbJFFUyKUzNGX5hmDQGOFHQLN2888wmVRgbdIewRN646JCf5diNY/s1600/images-3.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">And what do our American brethren say? They say
nothing.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
They perish in amazement at the wonderful achievements of German theology.
Whoever has received the awful degree<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[2]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> of
Doctor of Theology from Münster or Heidelberg can teach just about anything.
And what does the honorable Missouri Synod<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[3]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
say and do, which still existed as the treasury of Lutheran theology but a
generation of men ago? They say nothing and imitate just about everything else.
They stare in rapt fascination at the great anaconda that is the Lutheran World
Federation, until it also swallows them up. And what can one expect from the
other Lutheran churches of America? Certainly, there exists in all these
churches true Lutherans, learned Lutheran theology and true pastors that take
their ordination vows with deadly seriousness. There also exists congregations
and still a few church bodies in which the faith of the fathers is still of
some effect and virtue. But the official church publications with their <i>theologia gloriae</i>, their theology of
glory show clearly that also in America the end of the “confessional age”
appears close at hand. It really does appear to be that way. As, in my last
trip throughout America, I visited the various Lutheran churches from the
“left” to the most extreme “right,” there it became evident to me what
relatively small a role that the <i>Bekenntnisschriften</i>,
the Lutheran confessional writings, still play in those churches. A young
pastor from one of the churches that stands among the farthest to the right
declared at a pastoral conference that these confessional writings do not help
us to answer contemporary questions. He supposedly looked in vain in them for a
comprehensive doctrine of inspiration. I asked him where this doctrine stands
and why there appears no comprehensive article on the matter. The answer is
that, at that time, there existed no one in all of Christianity that contested
this doctrine. We certainly could speak more comprehensively about it today,
yet we cannot do that apart from the things that the <i>Bekenntnisschriften</i> either assume or say directly. Were it
otherwise, then we would be in danger of falling victim to false doctrine. For
it is indeed so that almost all of the questions that move our brothers in the
faith in America today arise from other churches. Reformed fundamentalism has
had a significant impact on their understanding of Scripture. Methods of
evangelization and of governance<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[4]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
have been taken from other churches and sects (Adventism) in part without any
critical assessment of them. One speaks about the Kingdom of God as did the
Social Gospel of Reformed modernism of forty years ago. One lets oneself be
instructed by Anglicans and Catholics regarding the Sacrament and takes from
German High Churchmen the (false) doctrine of justification taught by Osiander.
<i>Bonhoeffer</i> and <i>Tillich</i> excite the theological youth. The hermeneutics of
Bultmann’s school<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[5]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> are
supposed to provide aid toward a proper understanding of Scripture. One learns
from German theology that the clear witness in Scripture of the life of the
soul after death is supposed to be Platonic philosophy. Students appear to love
Anselm of Canterbury [1033-1109] and Thomas Aquinas [d. 1274] more than Luther.
Church government in the sense of Luther and the Confessions is becoming
“administration” in the sense of the operating models of the great business
corporations, as was the case in Europe when the government of the church was
made to work like the former apparatus of state government. And the Ecumenical
Movement, together with Catholic dialog, here also (in America) is supposed to
solve the problems in which man does not wish immediately to play God. So it
seems for American Lutheranism that the confessional age has come to an end.</span>
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<div class="nttx">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""></a>Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors 60 (1967)</span></div>
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Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-23492609155459398412014-08-27T07:12:00.001-05:002014-08-27T07:12:28.852-05:00Sasse: "There exists no via media, no middle way between the assertion and the denial of the Real Presence."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_VbFCJr_f0L6dhzYKqc1siLgniAt_-xUwJA3uCsL-llvI6cwJqyrDQdLD_a8v44sxXG1ePN2kpaANDpXkxetfygnJrPJx5IZzz68ttw4RQl7N2ADtQUIXwIONeTeIRNxuBb21Ulyxdg/s1600/images-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_VbFCJr_f0L6dhzYKqc1siLgniAt_-xUwJA3uCsL-llvI6cwJqyrDQdLD_a8v44sxXG1ePN2kpaANDpXkxetfygnJrPJx5IZzz68ttw4RQl7N2ADtQUIXwIONeTeIRNxuBb21Ulyxdg/s1600/images-2.jpeg" /></a></div>
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Still, we must limit our attention here to the church of the
Lutheran Reformation. Throughout all the ages, both the belief concerning the
sacraments and the praxis that follows from that belief, have shown the measure
of the true condition of churchly life. Protestant theology, as renewed by the
schools of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Karl Holl</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Karl Barth</i>, was a theology of the Word,
but not simultaneously a theology of the Sacraments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it mere coincidence that the great,
earthshaking effects of Karl Barth were finished also in the Reformed churches
the moment that he touched upon the Sacrament of Baptism?<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The inability of the theology of the Luther
Renaissance to renew the church, probably coincides with the fact that it did
not understand the Sacrament of the Altar and that Lutherans who desired this
came under the influence of high-church sectarianism and even under Roman
influence.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Here also lies the basis upon which the churchly renovation in Germany in the
“Confessing Church” came to a halt. Church history already could have taught
the men of the Confessing Church in Germany that all attempts at union between
Lutherans and Reformed had faltered at that point (of confessing the Lord’s
Supper), that there exists no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">via media</i>,
no middle way between the assertion and the denial of the Real Presence, that
we stand at this point in the presence of an “Either–Or” that cannot be replaced
by a “Neither–Nor,” or by an “As–Well–As.” The doctrine of the true,
substantial presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the
Altar is indeed for us no secondary doctrine, about which one might have
differing opinions. That is what the Reformed have always believed, that this
presence is a leftover of medieval Catholic thought, which is not supposed to
exist in Reformed doctrine following the Word of God. So they look upon the
Lutherans with a sort of grim humor. It is much more a doctrine upon which
depends the entire understanding of the Incarnation of the Person of Christ,
the authority of the spiritual Word and the comfort of the Gospel. It is indeed
not a Lutheran doctrine—never had Luther required of anyone that they accept
his theological theses regarding the ubiquity of the Body of Christ—but it is
rather simply that he should believe the words of Christ as they are given and
not fabricate anything else out of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Therefore it was for Luther as it was for the church
in every age, that church fellowship is altar fellowship and altar fellowship
is church fellowship [<i>Kirchengemeinschaft
Abendmahlsgemeinschaft und Abendmahlsgemeinschaft Kirchengemeinschaft</i>] , as
already the “koinonia,” the fellowship in the Body of Christ, encapsulates for
Paul in First Corinthians 10:16f. Thus, Eucharistic doctrine and Eucharistic
praxis have been bound together since early on in the Ancient Church. One can
determine the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper by looking at the praxis of the
Lord’s Supper, and therefore see the position of a church with respect to
orthodoxy. If, however, this rule is indeed correct, then one may look upon the
future of the Lutheran Church only with great worry. It would be the best of
all possible ways to celebrate the coming Reformation festival if, for once,
all sides could decide to see the real situation of our church with complete
honesty and without any illusion, and thus to think about its future. Where do
we stand? Where are we going?</span>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors 60</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5508842530118077145#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> “In the
study of Karth Barth in Bonn once sat a pair of people. I was one. They spoke
about the doctrine of the church. ‘Herr Barth, you are indeed a
Congregationalist. You will end up a Baptist,’ said his colleague K.L. Schmidt.
A prophetic word.” Sasse to Aalen, March 3, 1975. MH<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> Sasse,
“Liturgy and Confession: A Brotherly Warning against the High Church Danger”
(1959) in The Lonely Way II, pp. 299ff. MH</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-77855435856197345612014-08-26T19:03:00.001-05:002014-08-26T19:03:19.814-05:00Sasse: The More Things Change... <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Things have certainly changed in the world since
the first anniversary of the Reformation. Yet the final, do-or-die questions of
theology have remained the same. God has remained constant regarding his wrath
and his grace, regarding his Word in Law and Gospel. Christ the Lord has
remained the same and is present with us in the Gospel and in the Sacrament as
he has been at all times. The Holy Ghost is present and efficacious in the
means of grace, as he has always been. And even man has remained the same in
his misery, although he would not desire to recognize it. For the man of our
times, ostensibly come of age, is really not so elevated above
sixteenth-century man. Claus Harms [1778-1855] compared people of the sixteenth
and nineteenth centuries in one of his theses for the Reformation anniversary
of 1817. “The forgiveness of sins cost money, believe it or not, in the
sixteenth century. In the nineteenth, however, one gets it entirely for free,
for it is self-serve. That time stood higher than ours, because it was nearer
to God.” And what about the progress of modern man on the way to ever-greater
maturity? Who does not think at this point about Kant’s [1724-1804] definition
of the Enlightenment? With such “maturity” comes distance from God, who is not
the God of the wise and clever but of the child (Matthew 11:25). When this
maturity is supposed to have grown so great that, as the message of the
Lutheran World Federation from Helsinki suggests, modern man no longer
understands the question about a gracious God but rather sets up the “far more
radical” question of whether God really exists, then what Luther says in the
explanation of the First Commandment in the Large Catechism remains true: The
question about God is the question about the God that one can “trust and
believe from the heart” and who is ever our sanctuary (<i>BSLK</i> p.560, lines 22f.; p. 564, lines 9f.). Any other question
about God is philosophy. In all of the religions upon the earth, and still
today in idolatry, there is embedded, according to Luther, the great human
question of life, the question concerning the <i>gracious</i> God. Were it the case that this question is no longer
understood today, then that would not be a sign of maturity, but rather of the
spiritual blindness that fosters and precedes spiritual death. Yet every pastor
knows that in the reality of life, the question about the gracious God, the
question about human sin and divine forgiveness breaks forth again and again
and becomes the deepest question of human life.</span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Letters to Lutheran Pastors 60 (1966)</span>Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5508842530118077145.post-48843942427599837482014-08-26T17:35:00.002-05:002014-08-26T17:37:27.736-05:00Is the Credal faith the product of the western mind? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDruIxAEg30xsEN9_InTK9vI5zcsz0jhrjo7ooyoUuZo7Jpu8cAVb4FUmicoTIXDOJypEI2ijNIfSYqJijAHEnGdRVQOOZu7jC-_AVKV5EjbOJt4fWIo_APm_wSRPmKnBgUUBMR1HWpJA/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDruIxAEg30xsEN9_InTK9vI5zcsz0jhrjo7ooyoUuZo7Jpu8cAVb4FUmicoTIXDOJypEI2ijNIfSYqJijAHEnGdRVQOOZu7jC-_AVKV5EjbOJt4fWIo_APm_wSRPmKnBgUUBMR1HWpJA/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">When just the reform of the liturgy and canon
law includes the danger that the various realms of emerging Catholicism will
become independent structures, which no curia can hold together any longer,
what will happen if Thomistic-Aristotelian philosophy no longer forms the bond
of unity! One questions the
self-understanding of Catholic theologians today who say that people in
Africa or in India think in other categories and that the content of the faith
must appear there in new formulizations. We recognize this from Protestant
world missions. We know what it means to say that the Nicene Creed is the
product of the Greek mind, a western confession, which one can not demand of,
or overtax the Asian man with. That means the end of the Christian faith. The
Nicene Creed was written in Asia, by men of Near Asia [the Middle East] and
Egypt. It was written in the universal language of the day, which happened to
be Greek. We westerners have to accept this fact, precisely as we have to
accept the dogmas of sin and grace of the African Church, which at that time
happened to speak Latin. For these dogmas belong not to a particular nation,
race or culture. They are “<i>secundum
scripturas</i>” (according to Scripture). Absolutely every sentence of the <i>Nicaeum</i> is taken from the New Testament.
Where this doctrine is given up, there the church ends in syncretism. That is
the fate of wide stretches of Protestant world mission and the “young
churches,” which it produced. Shall it also become the fate of the Catholic
mission churches? With what would we then guard the unity of the church, if not
with the Word of God?</span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors 59.</span>Rev. Matt Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00830258949212483670noreply@blogger.com0