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I once went with a larger group to the March for Life. Nearly everyone on the bus was just going to the march and then to meet with our congressman. But the bus dropped off two people who said that for our sake they couldn't tell where they were going. I believe they were participating in an Operation Rescue event, which would involve breaking the law. Does that make the whole bus worthy of a RICO investigation? Were we knowing material assets to organized crime?

If there was a bad orange man in the bus with you, then absolutely. Straight to Gitmo with the lot of you.

(Sorry, couldn't resist a little gallows humor. Forgive me.)

Who's actually confused somehow when a woman reads a lesson

Is it not, at the very least, understandable that some would find it incongruous to hear coming from a feminine voice, for example, the words of St. Paul speaking, in the first person, about his ministry?

(For the record, if it matters, my own congregation utilizes women as lectors.)

The article itself says that there were slightly over 6000 properly registered to vote, meaning that the 5000 who did vote represent a little over 80% of that number. That, I would say, represents a statistically significant majority of the registered number (not to cause offense, but I don't think the number of non-registered should be taken into account here). Of that number, in a five-way vote, Harrison won a clear majority of the votes on the first ballot. I would actually argue that represents a fairly united Synod, at least in the matter of seeing Harrison as the best suited to continue as President.

I have said it for years. The greatest threat to our democracy, to our freedoms, perhaps to our nation itself, is the influence of this particular man and his cultic followers.
We are not going to be brought down by activities of sexual minorities. We are not going to be brought down by progressive views of government, which will never completely prevail. We are not going to be brought down by the current state of legislation regarding abortion. We are not going to be brought down by black, lives matter or critical race theory.
We will be brought down, I fear, if the activities of the former president and his cultic followers continue, expand, and, God forbid, prevail.
I believe the clergy should be as neutral as possible, when it comes to partisan politics. I have believed that for 60+ years. But these are different times. The movement represented by the former president and his cultic followers are as dangerous to us as the brown shirts were to Germany.
We put ourselves in great danger if we ignore his words and actions and their rhetoric.

Does it not seem that there is a severe disconnect between the title of this thread and your comment here?

Well, if anyone ever asks me for an example of the most grievous form of breaking the 2nd Commandment, I've now got another example to point them towards.

What you cannot do is discriminate against them. (And you cannot legally sustain the monumentally stupid idea that selling a cake means you endorse the celebration at which it is eaten. Our supposedly "sacred" rule of law has said that.)

Let's change the hypothetical, then: I'm a church musician. I have, in the past, been asked to play/sing for services (wedding and otherwise) outside of the LCMS, and I have done so, not as something that I advertise, but for friends/acquaintances who have asked me. Were I to be asked, for whatever reason, to offer musical accompaniment of any kind to a same-sex "wedding service," or for any other form of worship at which I knew there would be a celebration of same-sex values, I would, kindly but firmly, refuse to participate. Should I be sued for doing so? Arrested? Punished in some other way by the state? And why, precisely, would this situation be any different from baking a cake?

EDIT: In fact, let's make this hypothetical even stronger: assume, for the sake of argument, that I am not on the LCMS roster, but am instead simply a member in good standing of an LCMS church, and also assume that I do in fact advertise my musical services in some manner. Does this change your answer? And why?

I never understood how any congregation could issue a call to a pastor that congregational leaders had not met or interviewed. And of course, in the LCA and ELCA, the whole congregation gets to vote on whether or not to call a particular Pastor.

Not attempting to be argumentative here, because I think it is certainly a good motivation, and possibly/probably a good practice today to try to place pastors in situations where they will have the best chance of succeeding...but I do think that there is also something to the idea that it might good to spend less time telling God what kind of pastor we need, and more time letting God tell us what kind of pastor we need, as it were.

Pastor Preus:
If patriarchy is opposed to birth control, abortion, and divorce and remarriage, then I support patriarchy.  Traditional Christianity treats women with respect, elevating the office of wife and mother, honoring women for their domestic labors, and protecting women from harm and want. 
Me:
We are in another "different worlds" situation. Women want to be respected for things other than being wife and mother. Beyond "domestic labors." And they want it clear that they can protect themselves from "harm and want."

Pastor Preus:
Christian patriarchy features fathers who are married to the mothers of their children and who love their wives as Christ loves his holy church and gave himself for her.  Christian patriarchy sets the spiritual needs of the family above the craving for more money, more power, and more status.  The Christian patriarch teaches God's word to his family, sets aside time for family devotions, loves his wife and treats her with respect, disciplines his children with love, and talks theology with his family with enthusiasm and joy.
Me:
Hogwash! Do you think it is only patriarchy that does these things?

Pastor Preus:
This is why the Christian patriarch opposes feminism and its spawn: abortion, divorce, fornication, the gelding of men, and the breakdown of the family.
Me:
See above. Why the insistence on male domination as the necessary factor of order in the universe?

I do not think it particularly important what women (or men) say that they "want," but rather what God has said that they need. What God has said is exactly what Rev. Preus has described. Thus, the insistence, not on male "domination," whatever that may mean, but on male spiritual headship, is only an insistence on what God has clearly said (yes, clearly, despite all protestations to the contrary). Therefore, as it is what God has instituted, it is, in fact, only Christian patriarchy that does these things.

I look forward to seeing these new guns in action against the also newly created knives that will only allow you to stab someone once every four minutes and baseball bats that only allow you to strike someone once every four minutes.

Mr.  Garner:
Your reach in your pastoral office is very limited compared to the reach of a public education establishment that acts as if it owns my kids and exists to protect them from me, their father.
Me:
That's why some of us take our "pastoral authority" out into the world, and become politically and socially active, picking opportunities to teach those who are not in our pews what we believe is the right thing to do.

I don't think anyone has questioned your right to do that, but it still misses the point. The state has resources and laws that render your voice pretty much impotent, especially when the state takes upon itself to enforce a state-sponsored orthodoxy on children who have a legal obligation to be there or find other alternatives.

And when people seek out those alternatives, you denigrate them as you have in this thread.

Your real issue is not that you think it sufficient to just have pastors go into the world teaching what they believe.  Your real issue is you agree with the state-sponsored orthodoxy, and therefore you don't mind it being imposed on schoolchildren who are there to learn (the purpose of compulsory education laws), but are instead being indoctrinated.  You want the indoctrination.  The rest of this is just noise and rhetorical wallpaper.

I'm going to even go one step further: I don't think there is anything, per se, wrong with "indoctrination." I want my children to be indoctrinated into what is right. I hear a number of parents, in various cases, saying things like, "Well, we want our children to learn to decide these things on their own." I understand somewhat the sentiment behind that...but in some ways, it actually ends up as an abdication of parental duty. It's precisely your job, as a parent, to teach your children the truth, and what is right and what is wrong, and, in fact, to "indoctrinate" your child into those truths. And this is why the current public school system is to be avoided at all costs: it indoctrinates children into falsehoods (and yes, I can state objectively that they are falsehoods).

There are many reasons to choose an alternate to public schools and the reason is not always that the are bad.
I don't understand how someone could work in a school that they felt was so bad they would not send their own children there. How could you do that and preserve your own integrity?

Two possibilities: 1) some care not at all about their own integrity, and a whole lot about making money; 2) they stay for the same reason that some clergy stay members of a church body even though they are in complete disagreement with where the body may have moved (on doctrine, on politics, on whatever): because they want to do whatever is in their power to guide those who are in their care, in spite of what is being forced on them from above. (I do not say that I necessarily consider either of these possibilities good and right, just that they are possibilities.)

There is a policy against name-calling and anonymous posters.

I read several websites' worth of commentary by the "Mad Christian." No thanks. Don't know who or where "Rev Fisk" is, but he is "mad," not necessarily in the way he uses that word. He too much loves the "war" that feeds his paranoia.

Okay, then.

Forgive me for my bluntness, but: if there is no Lutheran school option open to me for my children in the future (as there is now), they will certainly be homeschooled, because the public school system at this point is tantamount to widespread child abuse.

Further, I would venture that we could agree that some homosexual behaviors do physical, and thereby social harm to the body. (Without unnecessary detail,  male bodies have suffered damage that causes lasting ailments and has made them prone to infections.) So that would be a second way of acknowledging social harm.

There is, of course, a very good reason that men who have engaged in homosexual sexual acts were not accepted as blood donors until, I believe, very recently...and the reason for dropping that restriction was very obviously societal pressure, not any actual reconsideration of the amount of risk involved.

I would appreciate thoughts and comments, from whatever corner, in whatever form, on this verse. Of particular interest/concern to me in my meditations is the inclusion of "reviler" in the list, and how this relates to my own discourse and that of others, particularly in the context of online and social media. Thank you all.