This is for pastor’s only. If you are a layman, turn around now. I’m not kidding. I’ve shared such thoughts below in Bible classes and it bothered some. I can’t blame them. It bothers me. But you don’t need to be bothered at all. Turn back now. Don’t click the read more.
Continue readingJapanese businessmen wishing to break into the then lucrative Christmas card industry began selling their own. The image they chose for their first offering? Jesus kneeling in prayer and in agony in Gethsemane. In the immortal words of St. Maxwell, Smart that is, “They missed it by that much.”
Read moreRight off the bat let me say that I heard the Vicarious Atonement, Universal Atonement, and the Bible is the Word of God mentioned. The Nicene Creed was confessed and the Lord’s Prayer prayed. So, an unbeliever could have entered this church and walked out a Christian, but it is doubtful anyone could come out or stay a Lutheran here. Why? It’s the little things.
Continue readingForty Autumns, the story of East Germany and Germans inside and out of that dystopian regime is worth the read. It illustrates why the most effective way of undermining an Iron Curtain is not an effective way for spreading the Gospel. The ubiquity of Zoom services and Facebook streaming not withstanding.
Continue readingRecently my congregation stopped funding a local prolife pregnancy center because they provide birth control to the unmarried. When I told this to the center this is how they responded:
Continue readingThat’s the title I saved this under in 2011. I think this is the writing of his I am referencing https://steadfastlutherans.org/2011/03/acelc-conference-the-divine-service-and-daily-offices-by-rev-rick-sawyer/ . As always from the original Seelsorger of the web, good stuff.
Continue readingIn the category of truth is stranger in fiction, we find that Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mocking Bird, and author and gadfly Truman Capote grew up together.
Continue readingNo, not the Pope but Alexander Pope, the turn of the 18th century English poet who some consider better than the Bard. He told us how we would come to embrace LGBTQ. And boy have we.
Continue readingI had to look this word up when I first read it. Uxoriousness means to be “excessively fond of or submissive to a wife”. It’s from the Latin for wife uxor (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uxorious ). In his 1999 book The Church Impotent, Roman Catholic scholar Leon Podles observes: “Not tyranny, but uxoriousness, is the chief danger of patriarchy” (73).
Continue readingWho knew that this saying is no older than 1976 and comes from Texas Tech sport’s information director, Ralph Carpenter, when the Aggies tied the Red Raiders in the conference finals? The actual quote is: “The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” (Based on my research, I think the jury is still out as to where, when, and who first said this.)
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