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Up one levelAn Instructive Mistake on Epiphany
I'm sure you've done the same thing. You're yodelling along with "We Three Kings of Orient Are," enjoying the vivid depictions of the christological significance of each gift, you make your way through the refrain in honor of the star, and then at the very end you choke...
Abortion's "Tragic Dimension"
Dennis Di Mauro has written a helpful book entitled A Love for Life which explores the history of the abortion issue within the Christian Church. A full review of the book on this website will be forthcoming. In a particularly helpful appendix to the book Di Mauro draws together in one place the Abortion related resolutions or doctrinal positions of the major North American Christian Church bodies...
Mary and Forensic Justification
As our Advent blues give way to the blazing white starlight of Christmas, it is good to remember that Luther considered Mary the premier example of forensic justification. Not a cold legal transfer, but the happy realization: the Lord has looked upon me with favor...
De Facto Liturgy
For many of us there are aspects without which worship on any given Sunday would not seem complete: communion, or a confession of sin, or the creed, or the Lord’s prayer. A certain liturgical standard applies and in many cases has been actively cultivated in public piety. But there are other liturgical standards that arise more organically and end up being more rigidly required, in actual practice. For instance, imagine this: telling your congregation that there will absolutely not be any singing of “Silent Night” this Christmas Eve...
The Legacy of Arthur Carl Piepkorn
Thirty-Five years ago on this day (December 13, 1973), The Rev. Dr. Arthur Carl Piepkorn was called to his eternal rest. To try and get a picture of who Piepkorn was is no easy task...
The Pelagian Anthem
A number of years ago while I was on internship and doing campus ministry with the Duke Lutherans at the eponymous university, I had a chance to enter the school's write-a-hymn competition. Curious whether the local Methodists were as Pelagian/Arminian as we Lutherans are led to believe, I composed this hymn...
Advent Contest
Here is your opportunity to win a one year's subscription to Lutheran Forum and its companion Forum Letter, or two books of your choice from the ALPB catalog...
God's Name(s)
I am a trinitarian enthusiast, personally, but I do realize that God's name is not "The Trinity." It bugs me to hear it invoked in worship because it is a conceptual title applied to God, but not God's name. However, another thing that also bugs me is when people suggest that God has but one true name...
Other People's Sins
Already back in 1993 when I was working full time in the pro-life movement, there was a growing realization that Christians had no one but themselves to blame for the increasing number of abortions in this country. Sure abortionists were a convenient and blameworthy target, as were their willing political allies at Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women, but when you looked at the numbers the dirty little secret was that Christians were having more abortions than non-Christians. Planned Parenthood’s own Guttmacher Institute reports that almost 68% of abortions in the United States are sought by Evangelical Christians or Roman Catholics. Clearly Christians need not look any further than their own poorly catechized or poorly supported members to find a way to bring down the number of abortions in the United States.
How to Make a Radical Feminist
Start young. It’s never too early to tell her all the things she can’t do now, because she’s a girl, and all the things she won’t be able to do when she grows up, because she’ll be a woman. Shame her if she doesn’t like playing with children or babysitting. Teach her how gross her body is. Denounce important public figures who are women. Make sure she knows that the only real sin a female can commit is to have have extramarital sex. Make it clear that God is a man...
Reformation Red
In honor of the 491st anniversary of Luther's posting of the 95 Theses, our "skin" on the website today is red. Tomorrow for All Saints' it will be white/gold, and then on November 2nd it will return to green for the rest of the season after Pentecost until Advent makes us blue...
Less than Perfect Children
I have always believed in the equal dignity of all human beings as creations of God, regardless of their mental or physical well being. It is a central theme of my preaching each week to my inner-city high school and junior high students. It is at the core of my pro-life beliefs, and informs my commitment to the social welfare of all people. It is why I find the ELCA social statement on abortion so inadequate, with its belief that the value of a human life is dependent on the willingness of the parents to participate in the sexual activity, the access of the parents to contraception, and the physical health of the unborn child. It was eye opening, therefore, to once again wade into the world of adoption for research on an article that will be appearing in the winter issue of Lutheran Forum. In an industry that is dominated by many well-meaning people, many who share in a pro-life belief in the dignity of all of God’s children, it was shocking to see how children are viewed as rankable commodities...
Include Me Out
A number of months ago I served as the monitor for the hearing on the Sexuality Study for my synod. What was supposed to be an occasion for attendees to speak and me to listen got inverted quickly: I ended up doing most of the teaching, and they did most of the listening, for reasons I predicted awhile ago—no one actually knows what this study is about...
Reorganizing the Church
A Blue Ribbon Task Force has been appointed by the president of the LCMS to address the question of how best to structurally organize the church. Already their initial report, which only presents items for discussion, has generated considerable opposition in the Lutheran blogosphere...
Raise Your Hand If You Hate the Lord
I really thought I was done grousing about ELW. I said my piece about the erasure of military imagery and ran Philip Pfatteicher’s incisive criticism here on the website. But at the time I did both those things I was still using the green book. Of late I have been in a congregation that uses the cranberry book. It’s kind of fitting: real cranberry juice is so intense you can barely swallow it, but the usual stuff you get that claims to be cranberry juice is significantly cut with water, high fructose corn syrup, and other kinds of juice. An apt metaphor for the new hymnal indeed...
Two Intra-Ecumenical Proposals
The ecumenism of the past century has enabled a level of respectful, compassionate dialogue that is without precedent in the history of the church. Who would have thought five hundred years ago that Lutherans and Catholics could sit down to discuss justification without an army in sight? Or Lutherans and Mennonites could talk about public office without the former dragging out burlap bags in case a few strategic drownings of the latter were in order?...
Unforgivable Sex
This month it was announced through his publicist that actor David Duchovny had entered rehab for sex addiction. Specifically it was disclosed that he struggled with internet pornography. The good news for Duchovny is that now that he is on the road to recovery, and as such he is in a better position than the estimated 37 percent of pastors who said in a 2001 Leadership Journal survey that pornography was a struggle for them. Even if that number seems high, Focus on the Family reports that 25% of their clergy support calls are from pastors who are addicted to pornography...
One Last Word on Bad Preaching
This one is the most disturbing of all. I have heard this sermon a few times now. It goes something like this...
Speaking of Bad Preaching
My last post on the dangers of the family anecdote and the philosophical introduction jogged memories of other bad homiletical approaches, so while I’m at it, here are three more...
A PK’s Plea
I’m a preacher’s kid who grew up to be a preacher herself, and the experience of being a PK taught me a valuable lesson about using family anecdotes in preaching: don’t! ...