Messages

1

Your Turn / Re: Coronavirus news

« on: September 12, 2021, 04:16:04 PM »

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/11/us/covid-vaccine-religion-exemption.html?searchResultPosition=1

Good reporting by Ruth Graham in New York Times:  'Shot Mandates Drive  Holdouts To Cite Religion.' Graham notes that  religion claims "cannot be based only on Social  or political beliefs. That means employers must try to distinguish between primarily political objections from people who may happen to be religious, and objections that are actually religious at their core. They, cannot, however, be based only on social or political beliefs. That means employers  must try to distinguish between primarily political objections from people who may happen to be religious, and objections that are actually religious nat their core. For many skeptics, resistance tends to be based not on formal teachings from an established faith leader, but an ad hoc blend of o line conspiracies and misinformation, conservative media and conversations with like-minded friends and family members."

2

Your Turn / Re: God and Time

« on: August 19, 2021, 09:29:11 AM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjdM9vDnR_M

I think that it  is relevant in this thread to consider Bach's cantata Lobe den Herr.  It is a workshop with detail on the music and the theology of Bach.  The concluding remarks by the theologian is that we get beyond the theodicy of evil (e.g. Auschwitz, Hiroshima) but rather consider what God has done for me and praise him.

3

Your Turn / Re: President Harrison to Japan Lutheran Church

« on: August 08, 2021, 09:27:38 AM »

This development demonstrates the two trajectories which Prof. Pless described in the thread re David Preus. I followed the response  to President Harrison's letter in a Missouri synod publication.  Respondents appeared to be supportive, except for one: EUGENE MOSSNER AUGUST 2, 2021 AT 2:51 PM

"What an arrogant and condescending letter our LCMS President has sent to the President of the Japan Lutheran Church! Unbelievable! It clearly indicates that he has no understanding whatsoever of Japanese culture or the Japanese mindset. He sounds like an uncaring, overbearing school master lecturing a young child! It probably will do more to set back Christianity in Japan than anything else in the past 100 years. Because the JLC has voted to allow women pastors, he is now willing (and perhaps eager) to sever altar and pulpit fellowship with a church that we founded back in 1948 — as if this were the defining issue in Christianity in the year 2021. He seems to forget that it was WOMEN that first brought the message of our Savior’s rising from the dead on Easter Sunday to MEN (The Disciples). Many Christians and many Lutherans (including members of the LCMS) disagree with our Synod’s position on this issue. Yet Dr. Harrison seems to think that the LCMS has the final say on this matter — here on earth and perhaps in heaven. I truly feel sorry and saddened with people who have such a super- elevated view of their 'theology.' "

4

Your Turn / David W. Preus

« on: August 01, 2021, 08:36:57 AM »

https://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/0000398188/?fullname=david-walter-preus

A well-known Minnesotan has passed, David W. Preus.

5

Your Turn / Re: Lutheran Levity

« on: July 30, 2021, 07:25:15 AM »

A recent Festschrift recalled an old joke by my late father on the weather in Minnesota.   "Many are cold, but few are frozen."

6

Your Turn / Re: Guns, Government. and Gospel

« on: July 18, 2021, 06:05:09 AM »

I want to clear up a common misconception.  Teigen Hall on the campus of Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato MN is not named in honor of Norman Teigen, who currently resides in Hopkins MN.  Teigen Hall is named for Bjarne Teigen who faithfully served many years in the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.   

7

Your Turn / Guns, Government. and Gospel

« on: July 17, 2021, 05:13:11 AM »

The June 2021 Forum Letter arrived in my Hopkins MN mailbox yesterday.  I was drawn immediately to a compelling argument written by ELCA pastor Peter Jonas.  Pastor Jonas had written an open letter to oppose the enactment of a 'Second Amendment Sanctuary' in his county.  His argument is well-written and persuasive. The issue was to be resolved on June 14th.  I am happy to report that this resolution was defeated according to a news account in the Trempealeau County Times.  Whew!

Pastor Jones deserves some kind of reward for his logic and reasoning.  The editorial response to Pastor Jonas was tepid and unenlightened.   For further reading on 'Sanctuary' go to www.elca.org/sanctuary church.

8

Your Turn / Re: Chick-Fil-A at Valpo

« on: July 15, 2021, 10:38:31 AM »

Consider the topic to be Public Accommodation.  There is a lot to study here.

9

Your Turn / Re: Coronavirus news

« on: July 15, 2021, 10:36:48 AM »

Your comments defy comprehension.

10

Your Turn / Re: Sermongate

« on: July 14, 2021, 10:20:33 AM »

A retired Baptist minister's letter was  published by the Times:  "When serving a church whose congregation included theological scholars, I wrestled with whether, or how, to identity the sources of my references without punctuating my sermons with verbal footnotes.  Seeking. the counsel of one of the scholars, I was told, 'Most people don't mind learning that their pastor has read a book.' "

11

Your Turn / Re: Sermongate

« on: July 07, 2021, 08:37:59 AM »

Conclusion:

"What is certain is that the temptation to crib on Sunday mornings is not new. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin wrote of his admiration of a young Presbyterian preacher much respected for his preaching, which was apparently delivered extemporaneously. When a doctrinal dispute erupted in the congregation, however, an adversary recognized that a passage delivered by the preacher had been lifted from an uncredited source.

"Franklin stuck by the plagiarist. “I rather approved his giving us good sermons composed by others,” he wrote, “than bad ones of his own manufacture.”

12

Your Turn / Re: Mid-South District of the LCMS rejects Critical Race Theory (CRT)

« on: July 06, 2021, 02:03:02 AM »

Reading suggestion:   Clint Smith, "How the Word is Passed -  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America,"  2021.

From today's NY Times:  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/05/opinion/anti-critical-race-theory-laws-are-un-american.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

"Let’s not mince words about these laws. They are speech codes. They seek to change public education by banning the expression of ideas. Even if this censorship is legal in the narrow context of public primary and secondary education, it is antithetical to educating students in the culture of American free expression.

"There will always be disagreement about any nation’s history. The United States is no exception. If history is to judge the United States as exceptional, it is because we welcome such contestation in our public spaces as part of our unfolding national ethos. It is a violation of this commonly shared vision of America as a nation of free, vigorous and open debate to resort to the apparatus of the government to shut it down."

13

Your Turn / Re: Lutheran Levity

« on: June 29, 2021, 11:38:13 AM »

Good one.  My wife bought me a t-shirt on a shopping trip to St. Paul.  "The Bible talks about St. Paul but doesn't mention Minneapolis."

14

Your Turn / Re: Self Defense

« on: June 29, 2021, 11:27:11 AM »

In the 1980s I was a member of a Missouri Synod church on the south side of Des Moines.  I was physically assaulted by the pastor of that congregation.  I didn't call the police.  I didn't resist. I transferred my membership to another Missouri Synod church on the north side of Des Moines.  When I asked the pastor of the north side church to take me in as a transfer, , he asked me why.  When I told him that I had been assaulted he said that non-resistance was the wise thing to do.  He said that he and other pastors in the Iowa-District West knew that this man was a problem and that he would take it up with the District President.

15

Your Turn / Re: Comments on Luther biography

« on: June 09, 2021, 02:25:22 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Q8fWJcyyw

Interesting lecture by Lyndal Roper on Lutheran visual propaganda. She discusses 'Living I was your plague...'

See also her lecture on the Peasant War.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuB6mNJEjVc&t=771sWar

Thank you Father Slusser, for bringing this scholar to our attention.