Northwoods Seelsorger

First it was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy. Now comes more flak over yet another preacher, the Rev. Rod Parsley, well-known TV evangelist and senior pastor of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio. Wright was the fiery and controversial pastor of Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. Parsley, however, did not seem to be the prior pastor of Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain. Instead, it would appear that McCain specifically sought his endorsement in order to court the Evangelical vote. Nevertheless, he is just as fiery as Wright, except with a good old fashioned Pentecostal flavor, as opposed to Wright's UCC old fashioned liberalism. Theology aside (and I could write much on that subject alone), I would have thought that McCain would have learned from the Wright issue that pastors are bad for politics. Of course Wright and Parsley are political lightening rods, to be sure. Still, pastors, by and large, speak a language different tha...

I shouldn't be surprised by anything on the DayStar site. In fact, I should probably anticipate it before it comes. In the latest online installment of The DayStar Journal , they offer articles that revisit the old issue of the form and function of Holy Scripture. In other words, they are calling us once again to question the teaching of the inerrancy of the Bible. In an "introduction" to the 1960 statement of the St. Louis faculty which is reprinted as a second article, the editor make the following remarks: The Easter issue of the DAYSTAR JOURNAL is devoted to theological literature, new and old. The following document on the form and function of the Holy Scriptures was suggested as a possible starting point for discussions on the topic of the “inerrancy” of the Scriptures. Not only has the concept of inerrancy arisen in the current discussion of what Lutherans in the LCMS believe; it also figured prominently in the firing of the Saint Louis seminary faculty in ...

As I listen to the angry couples argue in my office I often wonder - How did they lose that love that first brought them together? Was it a gradual drift from the initial infatuation, settling into the daily routine of work and child-rearing? Or was it personal frustrations and failures projected onto the other partner? The precise answers often elude me, but one thing is clear: they lost sight of that first love in which they pledged their lifelong union. I though about this as I reflected on our Sunday morning Bible study of Revelation where we read about the Lord's admonition to the church at Ephesus: "You have forsaken your first love" (Rev. 2:4). As the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5), it is clear that this love is the love of the Savior Himself. But how could a church forsake this? The Ephesian church is commended for its faithfulness in guarding against false doctrine and their perseverance in suffering for the name of Christ. It seems out of character for ...