Northwoods Seelsorger

For my 51st birthday my wife blessed me with the gift of a Nook , the e-book reader created by Barnes and Noble.  Many of you have probably long since discovered this technological tool, but the Seelsorger often lags behind the pack (Confession: I have yet to send a text message from my phone.  Goal for 2012.)  At any rate I have come to truly appreciate the benefits of this device.  Not wanting to spend a lot and finding the Barnes and Noble site very workable to find books, I began to explore the many offerings available for bargain prices.  What an amazing treasure trove of classics!  Works by Luther and other reformers, plus an abundance of works by several church fathers, are all accessible for just under a dollar.  Admittedly, the translations are not the most recent, and many of the books are public domain, some dating back many decades.  Nevertheless, for a small budget you can amass a nice portable library with the flexibility of adding ...

Christianity Today has once again announced its top ten news stories for the past year.  Do you remember any of them? 1 - Rob Bell tries to legitimize universalism, prompting huge backlash.  He later announces leaving Mars Hill Bible Church. 2- States adopt 80 abortion restrictions in their 2011 legislative sessions, an all-time high (the previous record was 24). 3 - Mideast Christians conflicted about the Arab Spring , especially a anti-Christian violence follows Mubarak ouster in Egypt. 4 - John Scott , evangelical statesman, pastor, and builder of the global church, dies at 90. 5 - Beijing's Shouwang Church holds outdoor services for more than six months, enduring mass arrests as it leads China's booming house churches in unprecedented demands for religious freedom. 6 - HarperCollins, which already owns Zondervan, buys Thomas Nelson ; it now has about 50 percent of the Christian book market. 7- How best to translate "Son of God" in Bibles for the Musl...

My wife also blessed me with a couple of smaller works from Reprisination Press, Why? A Layman's Guide to the Liturgy by Burnell Eckardt and Johann Konrad Wilhelm Loehe: Portrait of a Confessional Lutheran by D. Richard Stuckwisch.  I have purchased books from Repristination before and have watched as their inventory has grown over the years, eventually branching out from reprints and translations into more recent original publications.  I get regular updates and sales offers, so I see the works as they become available.  They have been especially helpful in providing valuable reprints and translations of Gerhardt and other authors from the Age of Orthodoxy.  If you are unaware of them or have never visited their site, take a moment and peruse the many fine offers at Repristination Press .  The introduction on their main page reads: Repristination Press was started in Fort Wayne, Indiana in June of 1993, beginning publication with several books by Wilhel...

After seeing the book at conferences and bookstores and passing it up, I finally determined that it was high time to stop neglecting it.  So when my dear wife asked for suggestions for Christmas I put Charles Porterfield Krauth's The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology on the list.  Even as the holiday quickly approached she was able to locate a copy on Amazon.com and I am now the proud owner of this 800+ page tome.  Having given her the CPH information I was surprised when I opened it up and looked for Dr. Larry Rast's preface and it was not there.  Come to find out this theological gem is part of the public domain and more than one publishing company has printed it.  My copy comes from Nabu Publishers, published in 2010, and is a public domain reprint. One reviewer of the CPH reprint notes that "They simply reprinted the old book, they didn't bother scanning it, OCR-bridging it and then using a cleaner typeface, which would make this much more readabl...

According to an AP article today, "Dreams of a white Christmas are hanging by a thread in the North, where unusually mild weather has left the ground bare in many places...."  Well, for those suffering with a green or brown Christmas, those of us up here in the "Northwoods" tundra section of the lower 48 will have a white Christmas.  Sorry to rub it in if your place is unseasonable mild, but northern Wisconsin is once again magically blanketed with a pleasant covering of frosty white.   To all who stop by to read - Merry Christmas!

Recently a Lutheran church participated in a gun buy-back program in New York in the wake of the tragic shooting of a career police officer.  It is run by the New York Police Department in an effort to get more guns off the streets.  As an NRA member such programs admittedly raise questions for me, especially regarding effectiveness.  I believe that guns should be used safely and legally and support any effort that will strengthen that discipline.  However, it would seem that this well-meaning (but misdirected) effort is not as effective as supporters would like it be.  On the site NewYorkDefenseLawyer.com the author notes: "It’s true that offering $200 for a weapon will likely draw people to bring in their firearms. But, more interestingly, how many of these people are bringing in all of their weapons and how many are simply bringing in the ones they don’t have a desire to use anymore? It is difficult to measure the actual effectiveness of these programs a...

As reported in an earlier post, the Freedom from Religion Foundation decided to put up a 'nativity scene' at the Wisconsin capital to counter one placed by a Christian group.  They put up their 'scene' on Wednesday.   According to a recent AP article it depicts Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein.  What the article did not report were the other figures and captions, including a child in a manger with the sign "Heathen's Greetings," and a female figurine announcing "It's a girl!"   According to The Blaze : "In the atheist version of the nativity, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein are the three wise men. The baby, an African girl, is intended to represent the birthplace of mankind. The beloved angels are an astronaut and the Statue of Liberty." Because the Christians put up a display the atheists insist they needed to have their views represented as well.  So, let's see if we can interpret their message as a...

As I reported earlier, OWN opened a Facebook page for the purpose of supposedly fostering discussion, even though the title of their group indicates the opposite.  As of yesterday they felt constrained to 'turn off' regular posting to the wall because of what they termed "spaming."  Experienced FB uses corrected this observation and noted that what was occurring, for the most part, was simply a spirited discussion, exactly what they were aiming for, or so it seemed.  Unfortunately, for them, much of the discussion was not supportive of their goal. As of today the reported "likes," a FB attribute to indicate popularity, is now at 222, up significantly from a few days ago when it was first launched.  It's hard to determine, however, where all those 'likes' originate, as some posters willingly admitted that they are LCMS refugees now living and working in the ELCA.  So, one would be cautious about concluding that this is a groundswell of support for...

'Tis the season to object to outdoor nativity scenes, especially those in public places.  Here in Wisconsin the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation is once again working to counter the Christmas spirit.  In reaction to a conservative group setting up a nativity scene at the capitol building, they are applying for a permit, the AP article reports, "for an opposing display."  They claim that the nativity scene isn't appropriate for a state building.  So what will their display be?  One that's "slightly blasphemous" with an "irreverent tweak" on the nativity scene. Let's think about this for a moment.  First of all what is there in a typical nativity scene that should be so objectionable?  The article claims the scene includes "six statuettes."  That probably means there is one representing Joseph and Mary, three for the Magi, and one for the baby Jesus.  Or it could be Mary, Joseph, a shepherd or two, the baby Jesus and...

I found an interesting chronology on the Religious Tolerance site regarding when churches started to ordain women.  This timetable begins with the early 1800's, which is interesting in itself.  One of the arguments against women's ordination is its historic novelty, not its ancient roots. Given the more liberal nature of this site, I wonder why they didn't try to trace women's ordination further back?  Could it be that the church did not know such a novelty in previous eras, except in cases of heretical sects?  Furthermore, it is interesting to see how some of those initially ordained to the ministry in the 1800's, outside of the Quakers, either gravitated toward the Unitarians or came out of this group.  The Unitarian Universalist denomination, the site notes, became "the first large denomination to have a majority of female ministers. In 1999-APR, female ministers outnumbered their male counterpart 431 to 422." Looking at the remainder of the chronology...

Today it became official, according to website manager Carol Schmidt.  The name is changed, as is the mission. Initially the purpose was discussion surrounding the CTCR document "The Creator's Tapestry."  Such discussion did not occur, as was hoped.  Now the direction has changed.  As Ms. Schmidt notes: While we have no idea how many people in the Missouri Synod want to advocate for the ordination of women, some of us believe there can be no hope for discussion without a place and voice for such advocacy.  Without a voice for advocacy, all voices who desire true discussion will be silenced even if an appearance of discussion is projected. To widen their push for "advocacy" they have also opened a Facebook page .  Under the mission of the group the following is posted: There are many theological perspectives on the role of women in the LCMS, but not all aspects have been heard or considered. Studies conducted over the last four decades by the C...

A while back a website was formed in reaction to the LCMS's Commission on Theology and Church Relation's document "The Creator's Tapestry."  This document discussed the roles of women from a biblical point of view as understood in the Missouri Synod.  Predictably some disagreed with this document and established a site to address it, having been largely unsuccessful in getting the powers that be to seriously change their views or revise the document.  Although one could readily guess the underlying sentiment of the website and its author's, it appeared that the initial goal was simply to open the discussion about the role of women in the church.  That has now changed.  Although the address still lists the site as " www.thecreatorstapsetry.com ," the new title proclaims: "Ordain Women Now in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod."   To their credit they are at least fully honest about their true intent. Although it is no surprise to me, the...