Northwoods Seelsorger

His enemies have been plotting against him for three years. There have been attempts to arrest and assassinate . At times he has remained low key and away from heavily populated areas. But now he is heading south again to the capital city. Jerusalem, the heart of Jewish worship, is swelling with tens of thousands of pilgrims from throughout Palestine, a place one could easily blend into, if that was your plan. But he does not want to be anonymous, even though it would be safer. There is talk about the recent event in Bethany: a resurrection of a man named Lazarus. A growing crowd streams in from Bethany and those now approaching Jerusalem, forming a massive parade of well-wishers as he reaches the gate at the corner of the Temple mount. This miracle is all the buzz. More and more people hear of it. There is excitement in the air. He could slip into the city buried in the mass of humanity, but he chooses to ride in on a donkey, a symbol no pious Jew could miss. He is en...

Although the volume and intensity of protest is not to the point that it was in the Vietnam era, there has been a rising unrest among the masses. Driven in part by the media and in part by the natural tiring from the costs of war, it seems that more and more people are now staging rallies and events at which they might show their disapproval of the war in Iraq and their lack of support for the sitting president. In a democratic country this is part of the right of free speech. However, for the Christian, we might wonder: If I do not agree with the government, am I still obligated to obey it and honor it? What are my responsibilities to the government under the Law of God? The following essay, which I originally wrote in September of last year, addresses the Christian's obligation of obedience to the governing authorities, especially in light of Romans 13. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Romans 13 and Submission to the Go...

In his most recent op-ed piece, George Will indicates that anger is "all the rage" in America today. From political attacks to the anger on our nation's roads, anger appears to be an acceptable and expected part of our culture, which is quite different from earlier eras when polite restraint was the rule of the day. Mr. Will indicates that the blogosphere is especially rife with anger. In the Sunday paper I read that the blogs in the Episcopalian sector are very red with ecclesiastical wrath at the moment, as competing parties debate the issue of homosexuality in their church. I suspect that anger has always been with us, although its expression has usually been tempered by society itself when people were forced to deal with the issues face-to-face. The Internet , from my perspective, has been a unique outlet for anger which is protected by its semi-anonymous two- dimensional existence. In other words, you can write scathing and hateful words to people you ne...

Perceptions of heaven and eternal life are varied, and too often full of misunderstandings. The title of this post represents one that I have heard over the years, namely, that when we go to heaven we become angels. Aside from the fact that angels and humans are distinctly different creatures, one being spiritual and one being corporeal with both body and spirit, the scriptures never once hold out any hint that such a transformation takes place once the deceased are parted from their bodies. Yet that doesn't matter. Many views on heaven and the life after death are formed quite apart from the clear witness of God's Word. They sound nice. And that's enough. Which was well illustrated in the Sunday paper I was reading this morning. In the obituary section it is customary for people to offer not only the highlighted details of a person's life, but also a heart-felt thank you or other statement at the end. In the case of the one for Willis, they went so m...

How should a Christian handle the subject of the wrath of God? How should we view it, even in light of the cross? Pastor Peterson on his blog site CyberStones has posted a sermon he preached at Kramer Chapel in Ft. Wayne on the Lenten text from Luke 13:1-9. It is entitled "A Little Lenten Vinegar." In this sermon he addresses the role of the wrath of God and its connection to natural disasters and other tragedies. I agree with his assessment that one should always view such events as salutary warnings not to take for granted the grace of God, but to live a life of ongoing repentance , as Christ encourages. Our Lord, in the text from Luke 13 does not address the place of God's wrath in the tragedies of the Pilate massacre or the Siloam tower collapse. He simply calls on his hearers to repent, lest they perish, and in their case eternally. But again, how should we view these catastrophes in light of God's wrath? Pastor Peterson makes an interesting note...

People in the church have varying ways of handling personal hurt from other members. Some lash out with tongues on fire looking to exact pain to compensate for their own hurt. Others become quiet and distant and eventually pull away from the fellowship. Still others turn in on themselves and torture their inner emotions in self-doubt and personal condemnation for perceived but nonexistent faults. As a pastor it has been a challenge to overcome or avoid these popular routes, although, more often than not, I have probably fallen for the third option above. Thus, the pain first received grows beyond itself by our own inward torture. For many pastors there is also the temptation to lash out at those who oppose us and use our position as a place to leverage power or dominance. Recently while reading a post by Rev. McCain on Cyberbrethren , I found some verses by the beloved hymn writer Paul Gerhardt that addressed this very issue. The hymn takes us to the cross first, and then, in...

I will confess that my devotional life needs improvement. However, I am trying. Every morning I am fairly disciplined to check my emails, so recently I have Incorporated a brief devotional moment at that time by reading the Daily Devotion on the LCMS website. It includes a psalm and one additional reading, plus a short devotional thought on the second reading. There are many fine devotional resources available, and I have tried several. One of my favorites is the four volume set For All the Saints: A Prayer Book For and By the Church (First Printing 1996). It is published by the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau . The full text for Morning and Evening Prayer is included in each volume, along with the entire psalter and four readings a day, again the full text as opposed to just the reference. The four readings include an Old Testament reading, an Epistle reading, a Gospel reading and a fourth reading from a Christian theologian or writer, embracing many from ancient times...

My last post was prompted by some comments I heard from a fellow pastor. It seemed to me that his view was that it wasn't overly important whether one believed in the literal six days or in those "days" being millions of years, which really surprised me. I would think that people would see that there are theological issues at stake here. The article which follows was my own statement some years back in connection with an adult instruction class and similar questions. While it addresses the theological issues, it also does not shy away from addressing scientific support for a young earth either. Why I Hold to a Literal Six Day Creation and a Young Earth The most natural interpretation of the Genesis 1 Creation account(1) favors the translation of “ yom ” (Hebrew) as “day,”(2) indicating a 24 hour period. The first “day” is marked out in relation to the newly created light and its subsequent separation from darkness, with the boundaries being “And there was evening and ...

Is it important to the Faith whether the creation of the world took place in the span of six literal days, or in epochs spanning millions or billions of years? Some seem to think that it is not. The important thing, they would claim, is simply affirming the fact that God was the divine creator. Aside from that the details are not all that important. But I would affirm that they are. If you affirm evolution as a viable theory into which one must fit the creation of the world, several problems present themselves: 1.) The normal reading of scripture is made to bend to the current scientific understanding. Reason is placed over revelation. 2.) The uniqueness of man as a special creation made in the image of God is compromised. Man 'happens' instead as a process. He develops from something else as a progression of events. He appears on the the stage of cosmic history not as a deliberate act of a divine being, but because he was allowed to happen as a consequence of o...

On February 18 I had written a post on the nature of the absolution and what it meant for the pastor to say "I forgive you..." In Bible class this morning we were again discussing the topic and it was mentioned that some people have refused to join the Lutheran church based on the fact that they misunderstand the absolution. That is, it seemed preposterous to them that a mere man could claim to do what God alone could do. Now the class did not disagree that there is scriptural support for the absolution (John 20, et . al .). But some wondered why we would use a form of the absolution that had the potential for such misunderstanding, and why we didn't just use another one. In doing some research I found it interesting that the declarative form (I forgive you) has not historically been a universal practice among Lutherans. In the Service Book and Hymnal of the old ALC and LCA , the indicative use is exclusive (simply indicating that God has forgiven us, rather t...

On ABC's Good Morning America this morning, a story was featured about a new Christian men's movement. Move over Promise Keepers, and step up Godmen . The founder and host of the Godmen events (I don't think they call it worship), is comedian Brad Stine . With only 4 in 10 church goers nationwide being men, it is claimed that Christianity, as it is usually practiced, is too feminine. Now there is a movement that will make men out of Christians. Brad Stine already has an article on Wikipedia , which is informative, although brief. The inaugural 'event' of his new movement was held in October of 2006 and the second one was supposedly held in January. Mr. Stine also has his own blog site called Brad Stine's Blog Nation . There is also an official web site separate from this. Mr. Stine describes the origin of the movement on his blog: "Last year my manager and I began to formulate a conference for men called Godmen . We wanted to do something uni...

Over on the Consensus website, David Pierson has offered a brief article entitled "Solving the Worship Wars." I certainly agree with his solution, and I bemoan the damage uncontrolled variety has done to our church's identity and witness. However, I am sure the author knows that this dilemma in our church body is beyond "solving." Views on both sides are very entrenched and immovable. The 2004 convention of the LCMS even instructed the Commission on Worship to intentionally develop more diverse worship resources for those who ecshew hymnals and traditional liturgies. The LSB in another day and time might have been the answer to the unity we dream about today. But the damage is done. We can only hope and pray that in time fads will fade, and the benefits of our beloved heritage will again be found, treasured and appreciated.

According to a recent RNS report, "Lutheran church membership soared in Africa and Asia between 2005 and 2006, but continued its steady decline in the modern West according to the Lutheran World Federation..." RNS did not speculate on why this has occurred , but there are certainly theories easy to come by. For one thing the West, here speaking mainly of Europe, has been in a "steady decline" morally and theologically for generations. Why join a church that stands for nothing and believes even less? As for the West in our country one can see that the church is becoming more and more materialistic and culture- accommodating . Africans and Asians often live in some of the poorest and most war-ravaged areas of the world where faith is uncomplicated by "health and wealth" preachers and church malls and other trappings of our western so-called comfortable Christian culture. Suffering and death is part of their theological understanding of the Chris...

[I had written the following back on September 7 of 2005 for an adult instruction class and posted it to another site. We had talked a lot in that class about the sacrament of Baptism, its necessity, infant faith and many other topics related to the sacrament. I reprinted two other articles from the class on infant faith and infant baptism back in mid-February, which should be in the archives. Recently the issue of Baptism's necessity came up again at church, and I was reminded of what I originally wrote. Note that the numbers in parenthesis are footnotes referenced at the end of the article.] WHY IS BAPTISM IMPORTANT ? An Apologia for the Lutheran Practice If I had no more than the command to baptize I would be compelled to gladly obey. For the force of God’s Word I cannot, in true faith, resist. I am God’s servant; my will is subservient to His. And even if I could not understand, I would nevertheless carry out his command in trust of what He has promised. His ways are beyond o...

Are you biblically literate? On his daily talk show at Relevant Radio, Drew Mariani posed a simple ten question quiz for his call-in listeners. For an active Christian engaged in some kind of regular Bible study it was quite easy - at least the portion I could hear before I drove out of listening range. And, I might add, it was geared to Catholics, who I suspect may be less familiar with the Bible, traditionally, since they were not encouraged to study it until recently (last 20 years or so.) The one question on the second pope tripped this Lutheran easily (I would have said Clement, but it was Linus, c. 66-c. 77 AD.) The quiz did make me think about the biblical literacy, or perhaps we might also add "doctrinal literacy " among Lutherans. I add this last category because I don't think that being able to identify Seth as the third son of Adam and Eve or Andrew as Peter's brother is as critical for our people today as knowing why we believe in the real prese...

In the Third Word from the Cross (John 19: 26), Jesus commends his mother to the disciple John. From my study on this text for my midweek sermon last night, I discovered again that there is a dispute as to the exact nature of Jesus' family. I brought this up in a previous post regarding the perpetual virginity of Mary, as claimed by some. Admittedly it is curious why Jesus' mother and her sister and John are by the cross, and the rest of Jesus' family is missing. True, if those so mentioned in the gospels were his brothers, they did not yet believe in Jesus as the Messiah (John 7:5). This is one reason used to explain why Jesus chose John to care for his mother instead of the so-called siblings. It is clear that Joseph is now deceased by this point. He is omitted from discussion from the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. Jesus is the eldest, and it is responsibility to care for Mary. Committing her to John's care would be one reasonable argument to expl...

This is an area that the Lutheran church has spent little time examining, and probably has little interest to do so now. Recently I obtained a copy of Darrell McCulley's book The House Swept Clean: A Biblically Balanced Pattern for the Diagnosis, Exorcism, and Pastoral Care of the Victims of Demonic Possession (2002), which explores, to some degree, the reason for this lack of interest. I have yet to digest its contents, so a review of it will have to come later. To date I have not found a parallel to his work. Currently I also picked up a copy of The Vatican's Exorcists: Driving Out the Devil in the 21st Century (2007) by Los Angeles Time's writer Tracy Wilkinson. So far it's an interesting read. My interest in this area goes back several years, but it is also born of pastoral experience and concerns. My one and only STM paper concerned the role of exorcism and Baptism, which seems to be the only place this is seen in Lutheran practice . Other than ...

Although his lecture was one of the few that I missed at the Symposia , Robert Benne has done me a favor by writing of his experience in the most recent issue of the Forum Letter (March '07). I had heard that his remarks were not all well received, and it made me curious as to what he really said (and disappointed that I chose that lecture to skip!). In short, he both praises and criticises the participants at the Symposia . The faculty and students he has high marks for (as well as for the Ft. Wayne seminary.) Several of the participants, which I imagine included many clergy, were less kind. So what prompted the negative comments? Dr. Benne , it would seem, is not what I would label as a "confessional ELCA " person. These I have met and studied with, and now reading his remarks in Forum , I can see why some participants were upset (although admittedly their remarks could be seen as "boorish," as Benne describes them.) Benne , even though he sees h...