Northwoods Seelsorger

The new DayStar site has now published two journals online, catching up from last Spring. I have yet to read and review, and will do so as time allows. However, if you wish to see what the most liberal section of the Synod is thinking, this is the place to go. They now provide the articles in a choice of Word or pdf formats.

When my wife returned from a visit to the Netherlands a few years back, I realized this was not a conservative country. Prostitution and sexual promiscuity were accepted as quite normal, with many of the 'ladies' showcased in storefront displays. It stood to reason that the Christian Church likewise would be a similarly 'open' institution, lacking the strong absolutes we are accustomed to in the States. However, even this story in the April issue of Christianity Today surprised me: 'ATHEIST PASTOR' ALLOW TO KEEP POST The Netherlands - A special church assembly has decided that a Dutch preacher who wrote a book titled Believing in a God That Does Not Exist can keep his preaching post in the towns of Middelburg and Zierikzee. Klaas Hendrikse, a pastor in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, claims in the book that he believes in the idea of God but not in the existence of an actual God. The assembly said Hendrikes's views are similar to those of...

Recently I was informed by email of a new document from the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod that gives guidelines regarding the ELCA decision this past summer that legitimized the full participation of active homosexual clergy. Having reviewed the document I believe that this document offers a firm, biblical, confessional, and balanced approach not only to the issue at hand, but the practical ramifications for churches and clergy dealing with this on a more local level. You may find the paper Theological Implications of the 2009 ELCA Decision on the LCMS website by clicking the title with the link provided above. One aspect of the document I appreciated was the appeal to understand this issue in its "catholic" dimensions. Lutherans, while existing as a confessional church, also take seriously the "catholic" witness of certain fundamental teachings and practices of the church throughout the ages. The ELCA decision has clearly broken with that time-honored und...

I will not claim to understand the intricacies of this new health care bill. As such, commenting on it includes high risk on my part. Normally political issues of this sort would be off limits for this blog, unless they impact the Faith or general issues of morality. Well, one of those issues came into view as this bill came to its final vote on Sunday. As many are undoubtedly aware the question of whether the bill would include federal funding for abortion became a hot button issue, threatening to even derail its passage if lawmakers such as Bart Stupak , a heretofore staunch pro-life Democrat, decided to vote no. Much to the surprise of many (especially in the Catholic community) Stupak voted yes, supposedly with the assurance from the president that an executive order would keep federal funds from ever directly paying for abortions. According to Stupak's official government website , we read: Since last summer Stupak and other pro-life members of Congress insisted th...

It amazes me how one article in this blog has received so much attention long after it was originally written. However, it points out an ongoing tension many Christians still wrestle with, namely, how to reconcile science and faith, a struggle that is played out well in the recently published DayStar Reader referenced in a previous post (which reflects a minority debate within the LCMS.) I would encourage you, if you are interested in such a discussion, to go to the link above and read the comment section. The viewpoints there represent a wide range, each trying to find a way to have the philosophical approach to science ( naturalism ; especially metaphysical naturalism) reconcile with the message of Holy Writ. However, in the process, my contention is that the seeming reconciliation results in a compromise and an inconsistent hermeneutic. To adopt Evolution 'as is' requires us to let naturalism dictate how we will interpret Genesis, and for that matter, all of the B...

After mentioning in the February 20 post and before that the DayStar folks said nothing about this new "reader" or had neglected to update anything since last Easter, it now appears that a major change is in the air. They even have a way to order the Reader. They are also constructing a brand new website at: http://www.daystarnet.org/. If you follow them at all this is the one to bookmark since the old site is basically gone.