Northwoods Seelsorger

Normally I enjoy listening to Bill O'Reilly - when he sticks to political themes.  However, the otherwise erudite commentator strayed into theological waters too deep for him the other night.  The topic:  Is there a hell?  Mr. O'Reilly, a card-carrying Roman Catholic, argued for a limited hell, unfortunately confirming the universalism inherent in post-Vatican II theology.  His view, though, may best be labeled "semi-universalism" as he does not want to admit all to heaven, especially the notoriously evil dictators known to slaughter millions.  Thus, Hitler was up for serious judgment, as were others of his kind.  Yet when one came to Gandhi the rules shifted.  The God he was taught to believe in was far too merciful to exclude this sterling example of peace and goodwill.  Thus, Gandhi was almost certainly 'in.' Mr. O'Reilly made several theological mistakes in his assessment of hell.  Eternal punishment or eternal life is not based on...

"Neither the accumulated wisdom of all the earth and the skies, nor languages, the Church Fathers, and daily reading of the Holy Scripture, nor immense learning and eloquence make a good theologian or pastor if the cross is not added.  Through the cross God purifies, cleanses, strengthens, and perfects the light of His true knowledge of true faith in Christ, of true understanding of the divine promises, proper prayer, hope, humility, and all the virtues which He has first planted in the heart through the Word.  Those are secure spirits rather than real Christians who live each day happily and joyfully, thinking that when they read the lament of an Ezekiel, the prayer of a Jonah, and other Psalms, they are hearing only empty words and vain dreams; therefore they can neither understand these descriptions of a faith struggling under the heaviest of trials nor can they speak of them to others. Accordingly we should equip ourselves for the Cross, which is just as necessary for thos...

"He has shown us great kindness and we should never forget it, but always thank him and find comfort for ourselves, confessing, His pain is my comfort, his wounds, my healing; his punishment, my redemption; his death, my life.  No one can preach it sufficiently; no one can be sufficiently amazed that so great a person came from heaven, stepped into our place, and suffered death for us.  We have been visited graciously and redeemed with a great price." --Luther's Good Friday sermon, preached 1533, at home in the Lutherhalle

In response to the posed question: Will there be a Lutheran church in the 21st century? "When Hermann Sasse tried to wake his slumbering fellow-Lutherans with the question about the very survival of the Lutheran church, he had in mind something else [than the presence of a Lutheran church in the future].  What is the meaning of this question?  For one thing it cannot mean a glib recipe for success, like the popular sacrilege of 'goal-setting,' with the goal of Lutheran survival assured by keeping abreast of the most up-to-date trends with a Pandora's box full of clever methods and techniques.  What will 'survive' in this way may well call itself 'Lutheran,' but it will have nothing to do with the Lutheran confession , which on the contrary will be happily-clappily trampled underfoot to the soft seduction or the raucous savagery of 'Christian music.'  Or course, 'right doctrine and church' will survive - it is built on the Rock and canno...

"The calendar of commemorations is a kind of genealogical exploration of who one's spiritual ancestors have been.  It is a way of encouraging people to examine the personal stories of certain women and men to learn of the richness and the potential of human life lived by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  A study of the calendar is at once a course in theology, church history (and sometimes political history as well), spirituality, and prayer.  Such a calendar can convey something of the breadth of Christian history and provide a rich assorted variety of the young and the old, learned and ignorant, people of action and contemplatives, whose common denominator is simply that the grace of God worked mightily within them." -From: Philip H. Pfatteicher, Festivals and Commemorations: Handbook to the Calendar in Lutheran Book of Worship, Augsburg, 1980, 16.

"Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise.  Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.  It is the democracy of the dead.  Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.  All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident  of death...Tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father." From: G. K. Chesteron, "Ethics of Elfdom," 48 as quoted by Maschke in Gathered Guests.

"We Americans are a-historical.  Most of us know very little about history and probably care even less...Unfortunately, most churches in this country have the same mentality.  This is especially true of conservative Protestant churches...Unfortunately, when it comes to worship, there is a terrible price to pay for this attitude.  When we cut ourselves off from the rich treasury of resources and from the collective spirituality of God's people through the ages, we diminish our vision of God.  We isolate ourselves from what God would do in the world through his church." From Robert Webber, Signs of Wonder: The Phenomenon of Convergence in Modern Liturgical and Charismatic Churches (Nashville: Abbot-Martyn, 1992), 9-10 - Quoted from Dr. Timothy Maschke's book, Gathered Guests: A Guide to Lutheran Worship

If the trends remain where churches continue to adopt alternate worship forms, while distancing themselves more and more from their inherited traditions, what might the future look like 10, 20, 30 or more years from now?  Prediction is always a risky and tricky business, and what follows certainly does not reflect the insights of a trained sociologist.  It is simply a sense of what might be based on personal observations over the last couple of decades. Larger congregations - those with memberships in the thousands - will generally continue to move away from the inherited traditions and will embrace cutting edge change.  Those with blended worship and the few that still accommodate some semblance of a traditional service will abandon those transitional forms as the baby-boomer generation dies off.   Within about 30 years many of these 'mega-churches' will appear little different than any other Evangelical mega-church.  Of course, there are numerous church...

If you are following my latest posts you see a trend here.  Worship and the forms and music we use in its service lie close to my predominant concerns for the church.  Given this concern I did a bit of 'surfing' on the net to see what others thought on this matter.  What follows is a reflection on this and other thoughts. Is music style a neutral issue?  One blogger noted: "There’s nothing inherently profane about rap, hip hop, country and western, or any other style of music."  I respectfully disagree.  I listen to a lot of the newer styles that my son enjoys, so I believe I am not yet completely out of touch.  Many of the styles this author notes evoke emotions and reactions quite foreign to the spirit of worship, especially Hebrews 12:28 which reminds us: "let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe...." I fail to see how rap and hip hop can convey any sense of holy reverence.  Anyone who listens to such music knows that its...

As I reflect on this past week's conference I admit I am deeply frustrated with many in the Lutheran church today who see little to no value in the venerable old hymns.  Still, in all honesty, one can not forget the many who also value and treasure them and use them as part of the church's ongoing catechesis.  Which reminded me of an article published in Concordia Theological Quarterly nearly 18 years ago.  For those interested in the hymns as "teachers of the faith," I commend to you an article by Kantor Richard Resch of Concordia Theological Seminary - Ft. Wayne.  It is entitled "Hymnody as Teacher of the Faith."  Resch's biography from the seminary website is as follows: Richard C. Resch is a native of Rochester, New York. Kantor Resch graduated from Valparaiso University (B.Mus.), the Eastman School of Music (M.M.), and Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne (M.Div.). His organ study began in the Eastman School of Music Preparatory Departmen...

Continuing my observations from the same conference, I was surprised to hear a layperson formally trained in the organ express a tendency to be bored with the repetition in the hymnal's order of services.  In discussing worship we touched on the impact technology is having on the younger generations and how this affects their reception of the liturgy.  It should be expected in a day of instant messaging and texting that some would find themselves impatient with the pace of historic forms.  Yet boredom often arises from a lack of understanding.  It became apparent to me in our discussions that a major culprit in the loss of this generation involves the unwillingness of church leaders to teach the forms of worship.  Over and over again we are told that we need to meet people where they are at and accommodate their tastes, especially in music.  Multiple services are offered at various times, creating a kind of segregation where the folks at 7:30 become a churc...

Over the last couple of days I have been at a district conference on worship modeled after the synodical one in 2010.  Participants from the district offered brief talks on a variety of topics in an attempt to address, in part, the ongoing tension in Synod over the differences in worship.  One speaker, obviously supportive of contemporary worship, made observations about the historic liturgy that unfortunately perpetuate the tendency to repeat stereotypes with no basis in fact.  One of those stereotypes is the so-called the "German liturgy." Because our forefathers worshiped using the German tongue back in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it has become popular to thereby label the entire liturgy as Germanic.  Ironically, the historic liturgy does not receive a similar label in the Catholic tradition when other cultures use it, yet the same historic divine service lies at its core.  However, by thus labeling the liturgy detractors thereby enjoy the o...

The May 2011 issue of Reader's Digest recently reported: "The New American Bible is missing some words with outdated connotations, reports UPI, and now maybe young children will stop snickering when they hear them.  Booty has become spoils of war , and virgin has become young woman ."  This move to deliberately change the meaning of a word was successfully tried way back when the RSV came out and eliminated "virgin" from Isaiah.  I suspect that its removal from the New Testament is now complete as well.  Young children may indeed 'snicker' out of embarrassment from certain words, but they of all people probably know the inherent difference in these words better than we realize.  This is simply dishonest and ultimately attacks the very doctrine of the virgin birth.  Of course, current culture little respects abstinence, so there is little wonder why the word has lost not only its lexical meaning, but its moral one as well.  Another sad day for transl...

In a local paper a church ran an advertisement describing their worship as done in a "casual atmosphere."  This atmosphere was further defined as "friendly, uplifting and relaxed."  Somehow it seems that there is an inherent contradiction at work in the combination of "casual" and "worship."  The word "worship" is of Old English derivation, meaning "worth-ship," "worthiness" or "honor."  Obviously it indicates the respect and honor we render to another, which is still reflected in British usage today.  The book of Hebrews calls on us to "offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire" (12:28,29).  Elsewhere worship is described in terms of bowing down and kneeling, clearly references to deep respect and reverence. Casual, as indicated in the ad, is a state of being relaxed and at ease.  Casual is what I think of when I am lounging in my living room in fr...

Nashotah House Theological Seminary , the place where the Northwoods Seelsorger has chosen to pursue his post-graduate studies for the present, recently updated their website with a much more attractive and interactive setting.   Faculty profiles include video introductions from the dean of the seminary as well as the associate dean of academic affairs, one of Northwoods' professors during the last two terms. While the site is a vast improvement over its previous one, it is obvious that it is still in a state of development. Nashotah House positions itself within the Anglo-Catholic tradition, emphasizing the Benedictine Rule as the specific discipline of its spiritual and communal life.  Although my initial intentions last year included centering my studies in the Biblical Studies emphasis, it turns out that as much of my studies will end up in the area of liturgics, specifically liturgical history, an area that happens to be a unique strength at Nashotah.  This su...