St. Antony’s Cave

This being a presidential election year politics is amped in the secular news.  This being an “off” year in the LCMS with neither District nor Synod conventions (Honestly, who but bureaucrats isn’t thrilled by this?) means in LCMS-ville politics are now ramping up.

Abraham Lincoln, so the story goes, once won a court case by saying in his summation to the jury nothing more than, “The prosecution has the facts of the case 100 % correct, but they have come to the wrong conclusion.”  (more…)

 ”Jeremiah was a bullfrog.  He was a good friend of mine,” so sang “Three Dog Night.”  Well Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn’t a bullfrog, but he was a good friend of Senator Baraak Obamba.  Keep reading; this isn’t a political screed but a diatribe on the relationship of pastor and people. (more…)

 Several members sent me Radio Silence by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway in the March 28 Wall Street Journal.  Here is what troubles me: (more…)

Don Williams sang in 1980 that he didn’t “believe that heaven waits for only those who congregate.”  With due respect to the truth of country music in general and Don Williams in particular, I disagree. (more…)

Four years seems long enough to wait before writing a critical review of a movie that the church for the most part praised.  It was thought to be a great vehicle for evangelizing, a great way to bring the Passion of Christ alive.  I called it at the time “spiritual pornography,” and I stand by that judgment. (more…)

Having recently published a letter, I didn’t think The Lutheran Witness would, I decided to publish this article Higher Things wouldn’t.  To be fair, it’s not that they didn’t think it worthwhile.  They just thought it too risky, perhaps risque.  You decide for yourself. (more…)

  The following is a letter I sent to The Lutheran Witness in reference to an article in their February 2008 edition.  I don’t think it will see the light of day, so I thought I would give it some here.

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  Our Large Catechism addresses the education of our children under the Fourth Commandment: “For all authority flows and is propagated from the authority of parents. For where a father is unable alone to educate his child, he employs a schoolmaster to instruct him(141).”  We confess that the first, the preferable, way to educate children is for the father to do it. If he, in conjunction with his wife is unable to do it, then he should employ a schoolmaster.  Lutheran education should be seen as flowing not from the state or church, but from the home. What every Lutheran pastor and church, even those with day schools, should be doing is admonishing parents to take personal responsibility for the education of their children. Lutheran homeschoolers have done just this, and the fact that our synod doesn’t mention and promote this is telling. (more…)

A wiser man than I said, “For every current book you read, read five at least 100 years old.”  I would modify that a bit and say, “For every 19^th, 20^th, or 21^st century book you read, read five from before then.”

One old book worth reading is Plutarch’s Lives of the Nobel Greeks (His Lives of the Nobel Romans is good as well.).   In his entry about the hero of Athens’s, Pericles, he begins with this rather stunning observation by Caesar: (more…)

 I was celebrating the Lord’s Supper one Sunday about 4 years ago.  I said the dismissal, “Now may this Body and Blood strengthen and preserve you in the true faith unto life everlasting.  Amen.”  As I said, “Amen,” I heard a visiting communicant say in a loud, affirming voice, “Amen!”  I was taken aback. (more…)