Nuclear Family

[James J Eivan]

I don't think he was removed for abuse. If I recall, he was removed for making the forum worse for everyone and for ignoring repeated pleas to quit. Some time later we allowed him to rejoin. It isn't a sin and forgiveness situation.

A lifetime ban actually just means an indefinite ban. The forum lets you ban people from posting a a day, a week, or whatever. Or it lets you just revoke posting privileges altogether, which is what we did. I don't keep the minutes of these kinds of decisions, but either way, this isn't a congregation, I'm not anyone's pastor here, and posting privileges are not granted based on whether people are properly repentant for their sins. It is strictly a matter of what makes for a good forum. Even atheists post here without a test of faith or true contrition so long as they post relevant, interesting things.

In private messages with an LCMS poster, we noted that during Charles absence, when they didn't have him to kick around, there was more infighting among the LCMSers.

Are you referring to the recent voluntary absences or the involuntary absences a few years ago?

[Steven W Bohler]

Well, maybe our lysis is the lessening of the "dis-ease" inflicted by the presence of people who would hold us back and the osmotic pressure is doing for us what it does for water - filtering out some of the crap.
The church will change even more in the decades ahead and the ELCA and LCMS will survive, but in different forms. We will be glad, B Hughes and hyper-Missouri preservationists, that we said "no, thanks" (several times) to your efforts to "save" how you thought we should be.

Same to you fella. We parted company about half a century ago and been tracking in different trajectories. Many of us are glad that we said, "No thanks" to your efforts to save us from the horrors of traditional Lutheran theology.

Some of us believe that we have recaptured the essence of traditional Lutheran theology by removing it from much of its cultural trappings.

And some believe that Mrs. Clinton won the last presidential election.  But it ain't so.  In either case.

Mrs. Clinton did receive the highest number of votes. In most other elections, she would have been declared the winner (or at least been in a runoff if a majority of votes was necessary for the win). That isn't how we elect the president. The electoral college elects the president, not the people. She won the president election. She did not win the popular vote. Should we be surprised that we have a president who is not popular with a large segment of the population?

You continue to be wrong: she did NOT win the presidential election. 

[James J Eivan]

Well, maybe our lysis is the lessening of the "dis-ease" inflicted by the presence of people who would hold us back and the osmotic pressure is doing for us what it does for water - filtering out some of the crap.
The church will change even more in the decades ahead and the ELCA and LCMS will survive, but in different forms. We will be glad, B Hughes and hyper-Missouri preservationists, that we said "no, thanks" (several times) to your efforts to "save" how you thought we should be.

Same to you fella. We parted company about half a century ago and been tracking in different trajectories. Many of us are glad that we said, "No thanks" to your efforts to save us from the horrors of traditional Lutheran theology.

Some of us believe that we have recaptured the essence of traditional Lutheran theology by removing it from much of its cultural trappings.

And some believe that Mrs. Clinton won the last presidential election.  But it ain't so.  In either case.

Mrs. Clinton did receive the highest number of votes. In most other elections, she would have been declared the winner (or at least been in a runoff if a majority of votes was necessary for the win). That isn't how we elect the president. The electoral college elects the president, not the people. She won the president election. She did not win the popular vote. Should we be surprised that we have a president who is not popular with a large segment of the population?

You continue to be wrong: she did NOT win the presidential election. 

Rev Bohler... there is a communication gap ... in a presidential election, there is an difference between winning the popular vote and the election.

[Charles Austin]

You continue to be wrong in not noting that we refer to the popular vote. She won that. Because of our oddball electoral college system, where votes from a couple dozen people and a handful of cows in North Dakota count more than votes of individual people in California or Pennsylvania she did not win the presidential election.

[Pastor Ken Kimball]

You continue to be wrong in not noting that we refer to the popular vote. She won that. Because of our oddball electoral college system, where votes from a couple dozen people and a handful of cows in North Dakota count more than votes of individual people in California or Pennsylvania she did not win the presidential election.

I believe Trump got more votes from individual people in Pennsylvania than Clinton did.  I'm pretty sure Pennsylvania didn't count votes from cows or a few dozen people in North Dakota.

[D. Engebretson]

In fairness the Electoral College is not an 'oddball... system".  For some it guarantees that each state has somewhat of an equal representation.  If we went with a pure popular vote count, as in the case of Clinton in 2016, the midwest would largely be disenfranchised and the election could be determined mainly by a few very large, metro areas like LA and NY. 

[Charles Austin]

So the once sacred "One person, one vote"should not apply? The electoral college was contrived to keep the slave states in the original 13.
But here, now, this is an unsolvable situation.

[Dan Fienen]

So the once sacred "One person, one vote"should not apply? The electoral college was contrived to keep the slave states in the original 13.
But here, now, this is an unsolvable situation.

Could you point out where in our founding documents, the Constitution, or even the Declaration of Independence the sacred "One person, One vote" is established as a principle of the Republic?


The election was conducted and decided upon in accordance with the rules and procedures established by our agreed upon constituting documents. That the results were not to your liking is irrelevant. Your continued whining and griping is as relevant as you considered the whining and griping of those in the ELCA who complained about the decision to ordain partnered homosexuals. If you do not the way the election was decided, change the rules, there is a procedure to do just that. If your complaint is that efforts to do that are likely futile, I'll remind you of the similarities between that complaint by you and the complaints of those displeased by the decisions of CWA 2009 and the sympathy that you gave those who complained.

[D. Engebretson]

The creation of an electoral college as a system for electing the president was not based on the issue of slavery.  How the actual electoral votes were to be assessed was influenced by slavery - the so-called "three fifths compromise."

Perhaps the solution is not to abolish the electoral college but rather to reassess how the electoral votes are assigned.

https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention

[Steven W Bohler]

You continue to be wrong in not noting that we refer to the popular vote. She won that. Because of our oddball electoral college system, where votes from a couple dozen people and a handful of cows in North Dakota count more than votes of individual people in California or Pennsylvania she did not win the presidential election.

But the popular vote is NOT the election.  You know that.  Even Mrs. Clinton knows that, now.  So Rev. Stoffregen (and you) should stop with the untruths.

[Pastor Ken Kimball]

So the once sacred "One person, one vote"should not apply? The electoral college was contrived to keep the slave states in the original 13.
But here, now, this is an unsolvable situation.

I believe that is a French notion.  A much smaller geographic territory.  The U.S. is a sprawling continental nation.  The founders recognized that--even with just the 13 original states.  As B. Franklin noted at the end of the Constitutional Convention, we have a democratic republic with a federal system of states.  Each person's vote counts in their state.   I think it has served us well.  And I think (and hope) there are enough like me in at least 14 states to defeat any attempt to make it otherwise.   The United States is more than just its coasts and dense urban areas.  The founders were suspicious enough of majoritarian tyranny to include the Bill of Rights as well.  Majorities under the passion of the moment lend themselves to tyranny. 

[James_Gale]

So the once sacred "One person, one vote"should not apply? The electoral college was contrived to keep the slave states in the original 13.
But here, now, this is an unsolvable situation.

How in the world did you concoct this fiction?  The electoral college was a compromise among delegates who proposed everything from having Congress select the president to holding a national election. Slavery was always a lurking issue. But to say that it was the reason for the electoral college is not correct.

[readselerttoo]

The Hebrew word ahad is used to describe the "love" that David and Jonathan had for each other.  The same Hebrew word is used to describe the love that all Israel had for David (see 1st Samuel 18:16).  The Hebrew word ahad in these and similar contexts has the meaning of the Greek word  philía which describes a dedicated brotherly or family love (unlike the Greek word érōs which describes romantic or sexual love).

I note that in the LXX ἀγαπάω, φιλέω, ἐράω and related words are all used for אהב. It can be used for friendship, for self-giving love, and for romantic or sexual love.

So what?  I am not a Jew.  This history has no bearing on me.  If we really want to talk about love we should be looking to the New Testament not the Old, in this case.

According to Paul, you have been grafted onto the Jewish tree. The Jewish Scriptures are also our Christian Scriptures. It should matter to you.

I don't think it is a Jewish tree I (or Gentiles, in general) am grafted into.

[peter_speckhard]

I deleted about a page and half of pointless posts from this thread, but found that even with all the whining between James and Charles deleted it is still a thread largely devoted to the election. If anyone wants to post about the nature, origin, or purpose of the nuclear family, this is the thread for it.

[Randy Bosch]

Several decades ago, a prominent American led the charge of "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child".  Naysayers pointed out the Soviet system of taking children from their parents in rural and semi-rural areas to educate and raise them in communal utopias.  Others pointed out the then well-underway destruction of the two-parent family in poorer, dense American urban areas thought to be accelerated by misdirected governmental paternalism.
Where are we now?