Reading some of the critics of current political office holders, the current President being one of them, in which the complaint is that going to mass substitutes for believing in the doctrine of Rome.  Indeed, the particular issue was put thusly:  [Roman] Catholicism is treated as an inherited identity, and devotion is measured by attendance, not adherence.  Now there is an oddity.  Usually the complaint is that those who claim to adhere but do not attend are the problems.  Now it is those who attend but who do not adhere.  I am at a loss to know what to say to ..read more

Luther famously championed public education for children but not for the generic purpose of education itself.  His desire was for people to be able to read the Scriptures.  Now, it would seem that education is for nearly every purpose except that.  But in our penchant for making schools responsible for so many other things, it just might be that reading itself has gone wanting as a skill and ability. Some blame the politicization of schools and it is certainly true that our schools have become a politicized environment.  While this is not true strictly in the sense of Repu ..read more

On Easter 3 in the Lutheran Service Book we prayed: O God, through the humiliation of Your Son You raised up the fallen world. Grant to Your faithful people, rescued from the peril of everlasting death, perpetual gladness and eternal joys; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen. It is a wonderful collect with a long history and a particular favorite of mine.  In the Latin it is: Deus, qui Filii tui humilitate iacentem mundum erexisti: fidelibus tuis sanctam concede laetitiam; ut, quos perpetuae mortis eripu ..read more

In February of this year, a UK (United Kingdom) university hospital has claimed that milk produced by trans-women “is as good for babies” as biological women’s breast milk.  The Telegraph reported that a University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust’s (USHT) “letter to campaigners” noted that “after a combination of drugs,” trans-women’s milk is “comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby.”  Remember, these are trans-women — biological men — who must take the hormone progestin in order to develop milk-producing glands. Drugs such as domperidone (which can be prescribed for ..read more

There have been instances in which Lutherans and Roman Catholics have shared a building but had separate congregations.  There have been instances in which Lutherans and Roman Catholics even shared clergy.  Some would laud this as a great ecumenical achievement.  I fear it is far less and abounds in confusion.  I suspect the very few remaining instances of such joint congregations or ministries have been curtailed.  Missouri is no longer interested and the ELCA presents its own set of encumbrances for Rome and the other way around.  Ecumenism is not well served b ..read more

Every now and then and sometimes in comments on this blog people will lament that this or that liturgical practice is not Lutheran.  These range from crossing oneself to genuflecting to elevation to chasubles to kneeling to incense to reservation to ashes and so on.  I suppose you could make a case that some practices were indeed common or not rare at the time of the Reformation or shortly thereafter and some did not endure but the charge about something not being Lutheran is a confusing one.  Is there such a thing?  Do our Confessions presume or promote a Lutheran liturgi ..read more

Typically we presume that to be casual is to be real and to be formal is contrived or artificial.  This has been the charge for a very long time.  Most Christians have bought into this line of reasoning and even those who know better find it hard to respond to the charge or debate the argument.  In fact, those who advocate for reverence seem sometimes to be defensive -- having to defend reverence as the exception rather than the rule.   All of this, of course, has happened across Christianity very quickly.  Every Protestant congregation had a formal religious tra ..read more

Many Christians are upset by the divisions within Christianity.  I get it.  It would be nice if everyone were the kind of Lutheran I am.  Okay.  Stop laughing now.  The truth is that I am not so upset about the divisions of Christendom if they are divisions of substance.  If we are divided on the basis of doctrine, then those divisions are not small or petty.  The answer to such divisions is for everyone to appeal to God's Word and to the catholic doctrine confessed down through the ages.  For this reason, I think it is better for Lutherans and Baptists ..read more

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, preached on Sunday, April 7, 2024. We are an impatient people.  We have unreal expectations of others and of ourselves.  We fear that if things do not change quickly, they will not change at all. We presume that if change does not happen quickly, the folks trying to change are not trying hard enough.  It becomes a convenient way for us to give up when the change becomes difficult or to surrender when we feel too many defeats and too few victories.  How vain we are for presuming that change has to happen overnight! The disciples were ..read more

Life in the 1960s and 1970s with its rebellion against the social mores of the day and its pursuit of absolute freedoms presumed that the ills that we were suffering had to do with repression.  It was the basic premise of the times that liberation from the oppressive and prudish views of the previous generations would bring happiness, contentment, and an improved life.  Depression, divorce, and repression of desire was thought to be killing us, literally.  The only hope for broken lives and marriages was liberation. Well, how has that worked?  Pornography is rampant.  ..read more