Messages

1

Your Turn / Re: Political/cultural/religious division

« on: January 19, 2022, 02:08:54 PM »

I don't share the views of those who put Jimmy Carter up on a moral pedestal.  When campaigning in Iowa for the Democratic Party nomination for president, he appealed to his "born again" experience and identified as pro-life.  Later, he revealed his true colors as pro-choice.  I don't think I've ever seen a more cynical use of religion for political gain than what we witnessed from Jimmy Carter during the 1976 presidential campaign.  Nobody would accuse Trump of claiming sainthood for himself.  Carter marketed his religion toward political victory in 1976, but it wasn't enough to overcome his incompetence in office, which is what kept him from being reelected in 1980.

2

Your Turn / Re: Political/cultural/religious division

« on: January 18, 2022, 04:46:06 PM »

I also voted for Trump twice.  The first time I was voting against Hillary Clinton.  The second time I was voting for Trump.  Whenever I watch Biden talk on television, I wonder how the American electorate could have voted him in as president.  He makes Jimmy Carter look positively competent!  Oh well, we get nothing worse than what we deserve.  Not wanting to pry into the hidden will of God, I alternate between thinking that God's having a real good joke on America and thinking that He's punishing us for our national sins.  Maybe both.

3

Your Turn / Re: Lutheran Architecture

« on: January 15, 2022, 05:40:41 PM »

President Fondow is a classmate of mine, albeit from the "other" seminary.  If he went straight through college and seminary after high school, he would be sixty-eight.

Thanks for the correction -- I guess all you guys look old to me. 

Last Sunday, my pastor told me I was old.     I should tell him to come onto this site.  Most of the most prolific writers are a lot older than I am! 

4

Your Turn / Re: Lutheran Architecture

« on: January 15, 2022, 04:31:23 PM »

President Fondow is a classmate of mine, albeit from the "other" seminary.  If he went straight through college and seminary after high school, he would be sixty-eight.

5

Your Turn / Re: Seminex Profs

« on: January 01, 2022, 06:14:43 PM »

During "Operation Outreach," after the walk out, some students from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis were speaking at an open forum at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.  I was a student at Concordia, St. Paul at the time.  During the Q & A, I asked the three students if any of them had had as teachers at the seminary: Martin Scharlemann, Richard Klann, Lorenz Wunderlich, Ralph Bohlmann, or Robert Preus.  They looked at each other.  None of them had.  Then one of them said that his roommate had had Martin Scharlemann.  Why had none of these students taken any of these five professors?  I know why.  I'm just wondering if any of you men who supported Seminex know why.   

6

Your Turn / Re: Book Review of Bretscher's "Christianity's Unknown Gospel"

« on: December 31, 2021, 06:02:41 PM »

I remember him when I was a boy.  I grew up on the campus of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.  He was at the seminary for a while.  I didn't know what he was doing there: maybe getting a degree or teaching.  I don't know.  But I do remember that he had a lot of children.  They were nice kids.  I knew a girl at Concordia St. Paul in the early seventies who had him as her pastor.  I read a couple of his books.  While I didn't agree with some of the things he said, I thought he was worth reading.  I was shocked and very saddened to hear that he had denied the deity of Christ. 

7

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 29, 2021, 08:37:19 PM »

Thanks for the advice.  I edited it.  Would you please edit your also?  Thanks!

8

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 29, 2021, 06:26:44 PM »

I’m 12 years older than you are, Pastor Preus:
I experienced as a teenager the decade in which you were born. It was great. Early rock ‘n’ roll was terrific.
But it was also a time of learning about the world and our society. Racism. The Cold War. The “police action“ in Korea. The nuclear threat. Polio and other medical difficulties. Mocking put downs of women, gays, and anyone not like we white folks. The church expanding its scope from previously narrow parameters of faith and worship. The church stepping out of our ethnic ghettos into a multicultural world.
Today, Pastor Preus, I’ll bet you and I would be on the opposite side of almost every question that would arise, Including the “goodness” of the 1950s, how to eat a pizza and what kind of girl we would like to go bowling with.

Let's see.  How to eat a pizza . . . With a knife and a fork?   

9

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 29, 2021, 06:21:07 PM »

Grandchildren Birthdays (last updated in December of 2021)

Jacob
Hans
Jewel
Rebekah
Magdeline
Hannah
Samuel
Paul
Katherine
Rolf
Andrew
James
David
John
Anastasia
Lena
Nadia
Severin
Christine
Jacob
Christian
Abraham
Søren
Idella
Elizabeth
Anne
Isaiah
Solveig
Noah
Martha
Sophia
John
Clara
Leif
Louisa
Kristiana
Andrew
Mary
Mark
Thomas
Elizabeth
Andreas
Job
Christopher
Robert
Kristin
Isaac
Heidi
Daniel
Eve
Abigail
Emily
Sarah
Marian
Lars
Moses
Matthew
Joseph
Herman
Dorothy
Pricilla
Stephen
Madeline
Naomi
Anna
Cephas
David
Sonja
Lucy
Peter

10

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 29, 2021, 12:53:13 PM »

As far as the American popular culture goes, I would welcome a return to the fifties.  I was born in 1953.  Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954.  Racism was on the wane a decade before MLK and the civil rights legislation of the sixties.  Besides repudiating racism, which I believe should be repudiated, I can't see any area where we have advanced culturally.  I see little good and much bad having resulted in the feminist and later the GLBTQ movements.  Granted, there were laws that were unfair to women that needed to be changed.  But look at what we have today!  A man who is a champion swimmer claims to be a woman and competes against women who have no chance of beating him because he's really a man.  I much prefer the country I was born in in 1953 to the country my grandchildren have been born in in the 21st century.  btw, my 71st grandchild was born on December 19 and born again at the Divine Service on Christmas Day.

11

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 26, 2021, 09:24:38 PM »

Rev. Austin, you wrote above: "Pastor Preus, Your use of the word “perverts” and “perversions” here means that our exchange on this matter is over." 

Later, you wrote: "Now many of us have a different understanding of sexuality. And even those who do not share our understanding should - if they are paying attention to the real world - be able to have some compassion for those whom they believe to be disordered. Dismissing them as "perverts" or linking them to child molestation therefore seems especially cruel."

So "our exchange on this matter is over," but it's not really over, is it?  I've struck a nerve!  You won't talk to me, but you'll talk at me.  You defend a perversion that God's word condemns while you point the finger at me and accuse me of being cruel and lacking in compassion.  You say it is cruel to link homosexuality with child molestation.  There is a fine line between the adolescent boy and the young man.  How young must the victim of the homosexual predator be before you would grant that what he is doing is perverted?  Sixteen?  Fourteen?  Twelve?  Ten?

I know you won't answer me directly, but perhaps you could do so indirectly.  Do you believe that Jesus died for perverts?  I do.  Do you believe that God loves perverts?  I do.  Do you believe that God wants perverts to be saved?  I do.  Do you believe that God, in forgiving a pervert, has the power to change him on the inside so that he can fight against his perversion and, by his grace, overcome it so that even if it rises to claim his affection, he can drive it away by the power of his baptism?  Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, Rev. Austin, real sinners: perverts, prostitutes, liars, thieves, and arrogant religious know it alls like you and me. 

12

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 25, 2021, 11:58:45 PM »

No, I don't feel smug.  I feel sorry for you.  You are so blinded by the false standards of the popular culture that you become angry when someone uses a word  -- pervert -- that not so long ago was commonly used by to describe homosexuals.  I have so angered you by breaking a "woke" rule that you won't discuss the matter with me further.  But I am always willing to talk with you, even when you embrace the standards of a godless culture. 

13

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 25, 2021, 09:40:00 PM »

Pastor plPreus:
Let me answer your question with a question.  Do you care if the people you may see on the street or meet in the supermarket or barbershop are child-molesters?

Me:
What does that have to do with their gender or knowing whether or not they are gay?

I'm just trying to test the limits of your approval of perverts.  You say I should not care if someone is a homosexual or a tranny.  Clearly, you think that such perversions are of no concern to me.  What about child molesters?  Where do you draw the line? 

14

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 25, 2021, 05:00:58 PM »

Rev. Austin asks, "I repeat the question I posed to Pastor Preus. Why do you care what the gender or transgender or sexual orientation is of people you may see on the street or meet in the supermarket or barbershop?"

Let me answer your question with a question.  Do you care if the people you may see on the street or meet in the supermarket or barbershop are child-molesters?

15

Your Turn / Re: ELCA Transgender Bishop in the News

« on: December 25, 2021, 12:03:42 AM »

Does anyone remember "Pat" on Saturday Night Live?  Was s/he a man or a woman or something else?