Northwoods Seelsorger

 The following is the sermon I will preach for Reformation this year.  I don't often post my sermons, but thought this one was worth sharing.....      Five hundred years ago, on the spring day of May 4, 1521 , men disguised as robbers captured a young monk and professor and quickly whisked him away to the Wartburg Castle in Germany for safe keeping. His life was at great risk. For just a few months before, the head of the church, Pope Leo X , wrote a special order [1] , Decet Romanum Pontificem , “It Befits the Roman Pontiff,” which excommunicated Dr. Martin Luther from the church, essentially branding him a heretic who could be arrested, tried and executed.   To further protect his identity, Luther disguised himself as a knight with a beard called Junker Jörg , or Knight George.   Although now separated from all the activity outside, Luther did not simply sit around and wait.   But here, hidden away from the world and the dramatic changes he began, he started one of his most im

During my youngest daughter's sophomore year at Concordia University - Chicago, she was required to read part of Rod Dreher's well-known book The Benedict Option - A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (Sentinel Press, 2017, 2018). After she was finished using the book I told her that I would like to borrow it to read myself.  Unfortunately, I have spilled coffee on it, so I guess I'll be purchasing the book now! I had heard about the book prior to my daughter using it, but for one reason or another never got around to reading it.  I took my time working through its roughly 250 pages, but it is really not a difficult read.  One of the criticisms of his work, as it came indirectly to me, was this sense of escapism.  But that is anything but the message he hopes to convey.  Toward the end of the volume Dreher makes an effort to clarify what the Benedict Option is and what it is not:  "The Benedict Option is not a technique for reversing the losses, politi