Northwoods Seelsorger

It's hard to believe that these two weeks represent my final courses in the program.  Although I will return again to work and consult on my thesis later this year and into 2012, I seems strange to realize I will not enjoy the same community experience as one has during regular class sessions.  In part this tempts me to think about the possibility of continuing on for D.Min work.  I have enjoyed the convenience of distance (3 1/2 hour drive from home), and the unique mix of students and professors, some coming from far distant corners of the globe to this tiny outpost in southern Wisconsin.  In one of my classes we have students from Nigeria, Kenya, and Barbados in the Caribbean, as well as a Chinese professor from a seminary in Canada on sabbatical.  Besides my professors they are privileged to have on campus a visiting scholar who serves as principal of St. Stephen's Hosue at Oxford, teaching on their theology faculty, the Rev. Canon Dr. Robin Ward.  My...

More than a week has passed since returning from the Higher Things conference in Illinois.  After regrouping at home for Sunday worship and a voters' meeting to follow (yeah!), I packed up again and headed off to Nashotah House for my two week intensives.  A separate post will follow on that subject.  Before moving on to my Nashotah experiences this year, it seems appropriate to wrap up my reflections on Higher Things first.  As noted in the previous post, my impressions for a first time attendee were positive overall.  I extend my commendations and gratitude to the hardworking staff of pastors and laypeople who managed to pull off what can only prove at times to be a logistical nightmare.  Yet the reward of seeing so many young people engaged in God's Word and participating fully in the liturgy more than compensates. For the record they handled the predictable glitches with competence and kept the program running in smooth fashion the whole week.  Lor...

After an absence from the computer since Monday, I finally gained access to one here at the Illinois State University Library.  I left my laptop with my wife at the motel and decided to go free of technology for a few days.  Now that I have a moment before supper it seemed a good opportunity to post a brief initial update on my experience here at the Higher Things conference in Bloomington.  In general I have only good things to say.  Although billed as a youth conference, let no one fool you - this is great for adults!  The plenary sessions with Pr. Cwirla the first two days offered both theological stimulation and great entertainment.  Who thought that Lutheran clergy with collars could be so fun?  The sections have proved equally engaging and I have personally found the two I took in with Dr. Joel Heck of CU-Austin to be exceptionally informative.  I purchased his most recent book on Creation at the first session and will post separately on th...

By this time next week I will already be well into my first Higher Things conference - Coram Deo .  Although a general invitation was offered to participate possibly as a sectional leader, I elected to pass this time around. I am hoping to do something I seldom do: sit, listen, enjoy, reflect, relax.  It's also a goal to gather information and impressions to take back to the other youth of my congregation and maybe even a neighboring parish or two.  Perhaps next year we will have to commandeer a large van to transport our group.  It's a hope.  My group this time around consists of my son David.....and me. Big group! He will be a senior next year and given that my daughter was able to experience one of the conferences in 2006 ("The Feast") at about the same age, it seemed time again.  I am truly looking forward to the experience and connecting again with fellow Lutherans.  Perhaps one of the readers who drops by this blog will be there and I can put a f...

Last summer while at Nashotah I met some wonderful people, the majority of them Anglicans, many of those Anglicans members of the Episcopal Church.  Like some of the confessional folks I have met within the ELCA, the people who came to Nashotah seemed rather conservative compared to some of the high profile actions of their own denomination.  Naturally I wondered what kept these fine people within a church body so filled with liberal theology and practice.  I don't have a clear answer to that question and suspect that the answer varies from person to person.  Some may see themselves as positive leaven hoping to change the substance from within.  Others may stay out of a sense of ownership, as in "This is my church too, why should I leave?"  Others fight small concentrated battles with liberal leadership keeping the voice of dissent alive for future generations.  Still others may stay because it is convenient and comfortable compared with the insecurity...

Reflecting the old maxim of Prosper of Aquitaine Dr. David Scaer noted that "Dogmatics springs from the liturgical life of the church and dogmatics find its ultimate fulfillment in the liturgical life of the church" (Springfielder, Dec. 1971).  He specifically applies this to the hymnody which he said "serve(s) to broaden out the people's theology." They do so for the simple reason that they contain solid theology.  "Hymns from the earliest centuries of the church and from the Reformation reflect the highest degree of doctrinal development," he writes.  "Ambrose, Luther, Origen, John of Damascus and others were also great theologians of their time.  They were aware that the best way to teach dogmatics or doctrine to the people was through the hymns.  I would even endeavor to say that more can be done through hymns than through sermons; and the liturgical life of the church in some centuries and generations was the church's only salvation....

For one raised in the shadow of the Civil Rights Movement of the last century, the topic of slavery remains a sensitive issue.  With the official emancipation of African-American slaves in the 19th century, dealing with the issue of slavery in modern America concerns discussions of past events more than present realities.  Recently Dr. Matthew Becker, in a tribute to Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), decided to invoke the subject while inserting a passing jibe at the founder of his synod.  He writes: At a time when people like the first president of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, C. F. W. Walther, who was born in the same year as Stowe, argued that slavery was ordained by God and a positive, biblically-grounded good, Stowe set forth a minority position that was also biblically-grounded: slavery is contradicted by the Bible's teachings about human equality and dignity, about human freedom and responsibility, about Christ's love for "the lowliest members of ...