Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels

When Evil is Done By Good People: The Ohio Budget Debacle

2009-07-12T00:41:00.004-04:00

Regular readers of this blog know that I don't express political opinions unless I feel that the facts are clear and compelling from my vantage point as a Christian. As a pastor, I don't want anyone to think that I'm claiming God's endorsement of particular political philosophies. As I've said many times, "God isn't a Democrat or a Republican," but I do write "opinions" when I feel that Christian belief clearly points in one direction.* I feel that such clarity exists on what I'm addressing in this blog post.

Here in Ohio, we have been witness to a sorry episode in which both the Democratic governor and Republican leaders in the General Assembly, our state legislature, have shown a reckless and despicable disregard for the real needs of real people. Past poor planning--resulting in a rainy day fund that now has a balance of 89-cents, the closure of many businesses, and the economic downturn all created a major challenge for the Governor and General Assembly.

Their task? Fashioning a state budget for the next biennium that would meet the obligations of state government, based on realistic assessments of likely revenues, accomplished through necessary expense cuts and tax and fee increases.

At stake were the well-being of thousands of Ohio students, at risk infants, the hungry, those in need of medical care, families in need of after-school programs, the elderly in nursing homes, and others who cannot survive without state help.

But our leaders showed a callous disregard for these people, many of whom can't vote and most of whom will never be able to afford contributions to a political campaign.

Instead, they played a game of political chicken that saw them, first miss the budget deadline and then, put the lives of thousands of people at risk while they bickered and dithered.

And why? Because going into the 2010 campaign, neither party wanted to be accused of raising taxes or increasing fees. (Some will argue, of course, that any tax increase will chase away potential business relocations into the state. The counterargument is that a state that refuses to provide basic, adequate services for its people won't be a place to which businesses will want to relocate anyway.)

The final solution agreed upon by the Governor and the General Assembly is to place slot machines in Ohio's race tracks, a proposal that already has been rejected by the people of Ohio four different times!

The Governor claims this will result in another $933-million in the state's coffers, a projection insusceptible to either confirmation or dispute. So, now the state government's financial solvency--in support of a budget that guts many essential programs--is dependent on expansion of the state's gaming industry.

A friend of mine once said to me years ago, "Legalized gambling in all its forms is a Third World solution to budget problems." Forget for a moment that shell games have routinely been played with gambling-generated revenue, meaning that hardly any increases in expenditure on education for our children--the usually-promised beneficiary of such revenues--actually happens. Governments forge into gambling when they give up on the idea that taxation with representation is the payment all citizens make for living in a free and civil society in which we are mutually accountable to one another.**

Having worked for state government some three decades ago, I feel certain that there is a lot of waste and abuse and that government should be diligent in rooting it out. (One could start in the very office operations of the Governor and the General Assembly which felt no compunction about hurting thousands around the State with their already-draconian cuts.)

But as a pastor active in my community, I also know that good and important programs which can probably only be accomplished by all of us through our government, are threatened still by the inadequate 2010-2011 budget of our state.

That's why a few weeks ago, the members of our congregation spearheaded a community food drive to help those who "fall in the cracks" for government assistance. We worrked with our county's Job and Family Services agency on this.

In a few weeks, on August 22, we'll conduct a Drive Through Community Baby Shower, in which we'll collect people's donations of baby formula and disposable diapers. This will support the efforts of local programs funded by the state that have been gutted already: Help Me Grow, WIC, and others.

The Church should also be in the compassion business, doing voluntarily what Christ calls us to do: to love our neighbors as ourselves. We can't and shouldn't ask the State to do that for us.

But the state, which represents us all, is also the agency through which we mutually support one another's freedom and ensure one another's safety and well-being by deputizing the state to have our best interests at heart, to enforce our mutual will as written in our state constitution and our state laws.

Clearly, many of our state elected leaders in both parties did not have our state's interests at heart in recent days...and it angers and saddens me.

Maybe the solution is that in 2010, these pols who selfishly acted to extend their political careers, unless they played a constructive role in the recent political melodrama, should be tossed out of office. Up for re-election this coming year: a Democratic governor, one-third of a Republican controlled State Senate, whose members serve for four years, and the entire membership of the House of Representatives, who serve for two years. (In Ohio, people are limited to serving just eight years in any state office.)

No one who serves in public office is perfect, of course. (No one who's a preacher like I am is perfect either!) We should expect neither perfection from them or that we should always agree with them.

But when elected leaders won't bite the bullet and pursue the hard courses they may need to take to benefit their state's people and fulfill the work we've given our government to do, something is wrong.

This editorial in The Columbus Dispatch says it well.

This is not a proud moment for this state I truly adore and from which I pray that Christ and His Church will never call me.

I believe that even good men and women can, thoughtlessly, be guilty of great evil. I also believe that Governor Ted Strickland is an essentially good person. My knowledge of several Republican legislators tells me that they are good people, one of whom I count as a friend. But great evil is exactly what we've seen under our Capitol's rotunda in Columbus in recent days.

Someone needed to be willing to risk losing re-election in order to advance the state. Few seemed so inclined.

*And to those who often write to say that they agree with me, but don't I believe that one is closer to God than the other, I say absolutely not.

**They also ignore the gambling addictions and insolvencies that they enable, abet, and extend.

From Pastor Jaynan Clark: A declaration of independence?

2009-07-12T00:11:00.003-04:00

[The following was written by Pastor Jaynan Clark, president of the WordAlone Network, a group of Lutheran pastors and congregations working to reform the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, calling it to fidelity to the Word of God, a central teaching of the Lutheran movement. Clark is currently on leave from call, no doubt devoting herself to the work of WordAlone these days. For background on her thoughts, you may want to look here.]

I am hopeful that everyone reading this had a fun and safe celebration of the 4th of July, Independence Day. It has historically been a day when accidents happen and people are injured, fires are set and often all the damage was without intention but still severe.

This year we as a family experienced a dangerous close call while entertaining our friends' small children. Their two small boys were in awe of my two large boys' ability to pull off quite a fireworks display with a rather small bag for an arsenal. One tightly packed firework after being ignited was met with the exclamation of an innocent 9-year-old boy, "That was the coolest thing I ever saw in my whole life. This is the most fun I've ever had."

My exclamation was, "Thank God for a thick dock and a large lake." The firework in question, once lit, continued to blow and entertain until it tipped off the edge of the dock into the water. Approaching the now submerged "bomb" to check it out, I was met with glowing green water and a sequence of repeated explosions that blew water through the dock and into the air in a variety of colors. A potentially very dangerous accident. No one was hurt but all were surprised and--moments later than the 9-year-old--even entertained.

It is quite common knowledge that we celebrate our independence as a nation with explosions, fire, noise and smoke. Why is not such common knowledge. I suppose one could parallel it to the wars that seem to always precede independence or just the need to entertain and do it with a flare. Regardless of the reason, the parallels to our current situation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are not a stretch.

The nature of everyone's sin in the wake of the fall can be described as our declaration of independence from God. In order to be our own gods and run our own lives, we act out in many ways that are all covered by the Ten Commandments. There is nothing new about sin. We want things to be our way according to our own desires and to be lords of our own lives. It doesn't take an explosion of intellect to see how destructive that is in the larger context of community and society. If everyone wants to "have it their way," then what about the other? It is the definition of irresponsibility resulting in anarchy.

Our situation as a Protestant church along with other floundering denominations is a testimony to exactly this. When the leadership of these churches declares independence from the authority of the Bible, from the history of the church and its teachings, from the age-old social and cultural norms for the family as the foundation of society, then we can expect nothing other than anarchy.

The issues before us regarding human sexuality are mere firecrackers contributing to the much bigger, out-of-control firestorm that is burning down the very forms and foundations of Christian faith and its teachings. To fail to recognize the present devastation and not to acknowledge the embers that have taken flight, advancing the wildfire, is to contribute to the disaster.

June 30, a pastoral letter was released by the presiding bishop of the ELCA. It is posted at http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Office-of-the-Presiding-Bishop/Messages-and-Statements.aspx. It "exploded" on my computer screen and I was less than entertained.

The bishop rightly turns to the biblical text, repentance and forgiveness of sins and the promises of baptism. However, I am more than a little confused by his latest release. The ELCA churchwide's treatment of the authority of Scripture in relation to human sexuality, in all of its studies and drafts and social statements, has thus far avoided the language of sin, sinful behavior, need of repentance and forgiveness and instead talked about tolerance, acceptance, inclusion and blessing.

We in the WordAlone Network have tried to talk about the issues of sexuality in light of the church's historic understanding of sin, repentance, forgiveness and newness of life. We have been criticized for applying such categories, for in so doing, we are said to be self-righteous, judgmental, fearful and archaic in our expressions of the faith. Likewise, others ask, do we not realize that "god is doing a new thing" in the lives of those practicing a variety of sexual expressions. To not accept that new work of god is to be accused, consequentially, of apparently standing in judgment, fear and being destructive of the church's progressive role in society and mission.

For the young and innocent, a variety of sexual expressions may be viewed as cool and new and even freeing, for they don't realize the danger and impending destruction. Those who are crying out--in warning to the young and uninformed not to approach the explosion, but to stand back and not get too close--appear to be fearful or over protective or just unable to relax, and go with the flow.

But appearances of celebrations are deceiving and what is blowing up across the Christian church are the sights and sounds of independence as declared from the one true God and Father of us all. We are not witnessing a celebration, but a dangerous and destructive phenomenon that is sweeping across not only the church but also all of society, fueling a firestorm that mistakenly is identified as the fire of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit.

Do not be deceived, for the one Holy Spirit of God does not move apart from and contrary to the Word of God no matter how high-ranking are the voices trying to convince you of such. This is a matter of sin, repentance, forgiveness and new life--old language--rightfully applied to an old sinful world in need of holy reform and renewal.

[by Pastor Jaynan Clark, president of WordAlone Networ]

Tweets on This Sunday's Bible Lessons

2009-07-10T11:34:00.002-04:00

You can read them all here. To read them all in order, you'll need to scroll down to the "More" button and begin reading from bottom to top at the message, "Going to tweet this Sunday's Bible lessons."

God's Masterpieces

2009-07-10T09:19:00.004-04:00

I liked this:

God did not re-create us in His Son to be museum pieces. He redeemed us so that our good works would showcase the brilliant colors of His redemption and grace, and draw a world in darkness to the light of His love.

Read the whole thing.

Service to God and others, not harsh judgments, shrill political activism, or "crash and grab" evangelism, is the life to which our Lord calls us.

Bad Things, Faithful People

2009-07-10T04:29:00.003-04:00

I finished my re-reading of the Old Testament book of Job, something I've been doing for several weeks, this morning. This, from the last chapter of the book, always strikes me:

After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. ⁸Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done.” ⁹So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the Lord had told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.(Job 42:7-9)

A little background: Job was a deeply faithful man who sought to live according to God's will. God allowed Satan to wreak havoc in Job's life. Job lost all his property and source of income. All of his children died in a tragic moment. His body became covered with painful sores. Even Job's wife appeared to turn against Job.

Then, some of Job's friends came along and for seven days did a fine thing: They let Job vent, listening to his complaints, even complaints against God, without saying a word.

Then, they made a big mistake: They defended God, as though the God of the universe needs the "protection" or "defense" of human beings.

If that weren't stupid enough, these friends' idea of defending God involved belittling the faith of Job, chastising him for being angry with God*, and insisting that Job must have done something wrong in order to have had so much tragedy befall him.

In the verses quoted above, God insists that Job, even when he was angry with God, was in the right and his seemingly pious friends were in the wrong.

People who are quick to claim that the grief-stricken, the disease-plagued, or the poor are being judged by God or that they lack faith, don't have a leg to stand on Biblically. We live in an imperfect world; bad things happen even to the most faithful people.

*A fine tradition for which is exemplified in the Old Testament book of Psalms, by the way. People of faith sometimes do get angry with God. As I often tell the grieving who experience anger toward God, "This is a sign of your faith. After all, you don't get angry with somebody you don't believe is there."

Freedom of Religion in China

2009-07-10T00:19:00.001-04:00

Here.

China's Growing Importance in Latin America

2009-07-09T13:14:00.002-04:00

Here.

Click on the Label below to put this linked piece in context.

Background of the National Pastime

2009-07-09T00:56:00.001-04:00

To those who saw Ken Burns' documentary on baseball, little of this will be new. But it's an interesting article anyway.

An Interesting Appointment at NIH

2009-07-09T00:35:00.005-04:00

Here. Contrary to the stereotyping coming from some corners these days, not all who believe in the existence of God are bigoted, closed-minded, or anti-science. Francis Collins is one demonstration of that. He's a theist and an outstanding scientist.

Politically, this is yet another shrewd appointment on the part of Barack Obama. As he pursues such hot potato issues as stem cell research, Collins will likely be able to talk to all sides.

The Best Thing in Heaven?

2009-07-08T09:41:00.003-04:00

It's undoubtedly described here.

Be sure to read this too, though. It comes from the revelation of heaven given to John.

Audience of One

2009-07-08T08:55:00.003-04:00

From the latest daily emailed inspiration sent by my friend and colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot:


                 OnLine with Faith

July 8, 2009                          Issue 507c

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

WELCOME to the daily issue of ONLINE WITH FAITH.
ONLINE WITH FAITH is a ministry of Faith Lutheran Church,
2313 Whittier Avenue, Springfield, IL, 62704, Glen VanderKloot, Pastor.

We encourage you to worship and be involved in a local congregation

If you have any questions, comments, or prayer requests
please be in touch with us at pastor@faithlutheran.com

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Thought for the Day

"I think of Frederick L. Anderson, the New Testament professor
at Newton Theological Institution at the turn of the century,
who came in his youth to be pastor of Second Baptist Church
(now Baptist Temple) in Rochester, New York.

"After his first sermon, an elderly woman, spokesperson
for the pew super-ego, asked him: 'How can you, young
as you are, expect to please 700 people?'

"Putting aside his altar ego, Anderson replied unhesitatingly:
'I did not come to please 700 people. I came to please one.'"
[Leonard Sweet]

Scripture
1 Thessalonians 4:1:

Brothers and sisters, we taught you how to live in a way
that will please God, and you are living that way.
Now we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus to
live that way even more.

Prayer
Lord, help me to always remember I only have an audience
of one, you, whom I seek to please.  Amen

*************************************************

Mr. Obama Goes to Moscow, Where the Real Story is Beijing and Tehran

2009-07-08T00:13:00.004-04:00

While the Vice President put his foot in his mouth (twice) and his seasoned political pro, Rahm Emanuel, did the same, President Obama was acomplishing quite a lot during his trip to Russia. The BBC reports:

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have reached an outline agreement to cut back their nations' stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
The "joint understanding" signed in Moscow would see reductions of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 each within seven years of a new treaty.
The accord would replace the 1991 Start I treaty, which expires in December.
Mr Obama said the two countries were both "committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past".
Separately, Russia also agreed to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants.

These are huge agreements, which also bring huge benefits to US interests.

More broadly speaking, they also may help to lay a foundation for Russia, the US, and India in forming an informal hedge against the Chinese regime in Beijing and Islamic Republic's government in Tehran, each of which appears intent not only on oppressing their own peoples, but also on extending their powers regionally and globally.

One lesson of history is that oppressive regimes with designs on regional or global hegemony need to be checked by other nations cooperatively. In recent weeks, both Tehran and Beijing governments have provided more evidence of their malevolent intentions and of their need to be checke. Better to thwart them now peacefully through temporary, realist alliances, than to face major conflicts with them later.

One might also hope that Russian accords signal an intention on the Obama Administration's part to curb Chinese investment in US bonds, already at an alarming level.

The trip to Russia, I believe, was less about Russia, than it was about China, and certainly about nailing al Qaeda in the mountainous areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's interesting that the Russians are cooperating and hard not to speculate on what sorts of concessions were exacted from the US side,

Obama appears intent to follow a foreign policy realist's approach, a departure both from recent Democratic orthodoxy and from the Wilsonian adventurism of his immediate predecessor, Republican President, George W. Bush.

Where God's Power is Seen

2009-07-05T17:25:00.005-04:00

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

2 Corinthians 12:2-10
One of my seminary professors, Ron Hals, used to wonder whether, if he had lived during the time of Jesus, he might not have been as skeptical as Jesus’ enemies (and Jesus's friends) could be.

“I can just imagine,” he would tell us, “seeing Jesus perform a miracle like restoring sight to a blind man or raising Lazarus from the dead and then saying, ‘Do it again...Slower.’”

Dr. Hals was saying that had he lived in first century Palestine, he might have questioned Jesus’ power. And had he seen Jesus crucified, he might well have wondered what good Jesus’ power was if Jesus couldn’t elude suffering with that power.

Skepticism about Jesus’ power and the good it does in the lives of those who believe in Jesus is nothing new. In our second Bible lesson, the apostle Paul, the first century evangelist, some of whose writings comprise a big chunk of the New Testament, is dealing with Christians who are skeptical about these very things.

Apparently, shortly before Paul wrote to these Christians, members of the church in the Greek city of Corinth, had been wowed by some preachers who had convinced them that if the power of the God made known to the world through Jesus was really in them, then their lives would be problem-free. They would have success, victories, and no illness.

Now, it is true that Christ gives His Church, among other ministries, the power to bring God’s help to people, including healing for all kinds. That’s among the reasons why, here at Saint Matthew, we pray for people’s healing during worship, have healing services, and are starting our parish health ministry. In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus sent out the twelve apostles two by two, and gave them the power to heal in His Name.

But no healing in this world lasts indefinitely; even after Jesus brought His friend Lazarus back from the dead, Lazarus still died again. This world and you and I are imperfect and death comes to all who are part of this world. There’s no way around that.

“So, where is the power of God and what good is the power of God in your preaching?” the Corinthians asked Paul.

Their questions were pointed because, unlike the preachers who had wowed them, Paul was a less than impressive figure. By this time deep into his forties or early fifties, elderly in that world, slight, balding, a poor and rambling speaker who scratched together what little income he made by patching together tents, Paul’s career as a Christian preacher wasn’t notable for its successes. In the course of his work, he’d been arrested and flogged, shipwrecked and beaten, mocked, chased out of several towns, and jailed. How far through the call process do you think a preacher like Paul would make it in most churches? Not far, I’ll bet. Most people would look at him and see a big “L” for “loser” on his forehead.

But by the time we get to the point in the letter to the Corinthian Christians that makes up our second lesson for today, this loser has a thing or two to say to these people who question the authenticity of his message about Jesus Christ and his authority to share it.

Maybe wary of being a braggart, Paul uses the third person to tell about a personal experience he’d had fourteen years earlier, but, so far as we know, had never shared before. “I know a person in Christ,” he says, “who…was caught up in the third heaven [this is what early Christians called paradise, where the risen and ascended Jesus lives]…and [Paul goes on, this person] heard things…that no mortal is permitted to repeat…”

Paul had experienced a vision of heaven that the preachers who had impressed the Corinthian Christians might not even have been able to imagine.

But, Paul says--and this is the most important thing about our lesson from Second Corinthians--that experience, as awesome as it was, did not prove Jesus’ power over sin and death and it didn’t prove Paul’s authority to tell others about Jesus. Something else did. In fact, two something elses proved those things. God's power is most readily seen in two ways.

The first is in God's grace.

The second is in our weakness.

A conference of theologians was being held in Great Britain. They’d been debating the question of what was the central teaching of the Christian faith. Apparently by coincidence, C.S. Lewis, the novelist and teacher who had once been an atheist and then a champion of Christian belief, happened on the conference. When Lewis learned that they were debating what was the most important teaching of Christianity, he said, “That’s easy: Grace.” Grace is God’s charity, God’s acceptance us we are.

The super apostles who had wowed the Corinthian Christians said that, “If there’s something wrong in your life—some illness, adversity, heartbreak, poverty, or struggle—it proves that you’re faithless.”

You still hear people saying things like this today. A faithful pastor friend of mine watched, as within months, his wife was diagnosed with a debilitating disease and his daughter was found to suffer from Down Syndrome. At a church convention shortly thereafter, he asked for prayers. During a break, a man approached him and said, “I am praying that you will repent because you must have done something terribly wrong for God to send these punishments to you.” I wish the apostle Paul had been around when that ignorant man approached my friend. Paul would have given him a smackdown!

In our lesson, Paul says that to keep him from being too elated by his heavenly vision, God had allowed Satan to afflict him with some sort of “thorn in the flesh.” We have no idea what it was. It may have been an illness, an incessant temptation, a psychological disturbance, a relationship problem, a lack of money. We don’t know. Three times, Paul says, he had asked God for relief. And three times the answer came back, “My grace—my charitable love, forgiveness, presence, and acceptance—are sufficient.”

Everybody here this morning knows what it is to experience thorns in the flesh. They’re the problems and heartaches that bedevil us and seem never to go completely away. They drive us to our knees and there, before God, we learn that all of the things we thought we needed to make life complete—health, money, connections, the big house, the respect of others—are nice, but they're not what we need the most. What we really need is the grace of God given to all through Jesus Christ. God's grace is the first thing that proves the power of Jesus Christ.

The second thing that proves the power of Jesus Christ is our weakness. Two weeks ago tonight, sixteen of us from Saint Matthew, who were on our mission trip in Nashville, gathered for our nightly devotions. From our handbook for the week, Sam asked this question of us, “What changes about a person when the Spirit of the Lord is on them?” I immediately thought of those times when I’ve sensed that God, the Holy Spirit, the Power and Presence of God the Father and God the Son, Jesus, has been with me, and my answer to that question was clear: I know God is with me when I can do what I can’t do.

Many, if not most, of you know exactly what I’m talking about...

You had to be with a loved one over months as they died and you knew that on your own, you couldn’t do what you needed to do.

Or, you had to undergo one more round of medical treatments, one more battery of tests, and you knew that you just couldn’t take it.

Or, in order to graduate or be certified, you had to pass a class for which you knew you had no talent or ability.

Or, to make the mortgage payment and provide your kids with a nice Christmas, you had to work double shifts for which you knew you didn’t have the strength.

In each case, you called out to the God we know in Jesus Christ and confessed, “Lord, I can’t.” And in each case, God told you, “I know that you can’t. But I can! Lean on me."

This was exactly what Paul experienced when he had asked God to remove the unidentified thorn in his flesh. “I’m not taking this adversity away,” God told Paul. “You’re going to have to go through it, leaning on my grace.” Why? Because, God says, “power is made perfect in weakness.”

God’s power is experienced only by people who admit that they’re powerless without Jesus Christ. We’re powerless when, by ourselves, we try to make sound decisions, make our relationships work, be happy, deal with our sins, or face life and death. But when we own our weakness and seek Christ’s help, we can face anything. God’s power surges into us. “Whenever I am weak,” Paul says, “I am strong.”

“I didn’t know if I could ever be happy again,” a woman told me years after her husband had died. There were dark days, pain interspersed with lifeless numbness. All the while, there were things to be done—children to be raised, bills to be paid, errands to be run. “I was sure that I just couldn’t do it,” she said. But in the midst of it all, she learned what Paul underscores in today’s lesson. Through Jesus Christ, God demonstrates His power by giving grace to the needy—and that’s all of us—and strength to the weak—that, too, is all of us.

If you’re feeling weak or powerless today, that’s good. It means you’re seeing life clearly. Don’t give up hope. Our strong God stands at the ready to give you grace and strength. God will see you through!

A Jealous God

2009-07-04T00:34:00.001-04:00

Good thoughts from Patrick Oden:

God is holy. God is love. These aren’t two sides, these are the same thing, expressed in relational pursuits. He is whole. He wants our wholeness. He’s jealous if we seek that elsewhere. Because there’s no where elsewhere it can be wholly found.

Amen!

'Honor Your Father and Mother'

2009-07-04T00:27:00.001-04:00

A command that applies to adults in relation to their parents.

'Three Angels'

2009-07-04T00:14:00.002-04:00

From Dylan's most unique LP, New Morning.

(With a little aural augmentation at end added by the creator of the vidso.)

Interesting Thoughts on Bishop Hanson's Letter

2009-07-03T23:39:00.004-04:00

Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), of which I am a part, sent a pastoral letter to all leaders of the denomination this past week.

Chris Duckworth reacts here. (The linked post contains a link to Hanson's original letter.) Chris's point about the difference between basic baptismal unity, on the one hand, and confessional unity, on the other, is right on.

I have deep respect for Bishop Hanson. But I think that Chris is right in saying that the bishop's letter misses the point about what's at stake in the August churchwide assembly's scheduled votes on a new sexuality statement and the sexuality task force's recommendations that ELCA congregations be allowed to depart from past practices on the ordination of practicing homosexuals in committed relationships and on the sanctioning of committed homosexual relationships. Basic baptismal unity is not sufficient to bind together a denomination which claims to have a common, specific understanding of the Christian faith.

The proposed changes, in spite of the facile arguments of the sexuality task force that their recommendations deal only with ethics and not theology, would be major and potentially disruptive of our unity.

The option left to individual congregations to decide what they will do in practice seems a shrewd political move, allowing congregations to agree to disagree. It may therefore appeal to our American penchant for individualism.

The sexuality task force seems to be betting that their approach will placate enough people to keep from tearing the ELCA apart. They may be right, at least organizationally.

But with the adoption of these recommendations, will we lack theological and confessional clarity if the assembly adopts the recommended policies? I think so. What good will our unity be then?

I favor, as I think all Christians should, full civil rights for all people. But the recommendations before the assembly have nothing to do with civil rights. They deal with theology, with what we say about what God has revealed to the world, with the exercise of what is known as the "office of the keys," the proclamation of forgiveness or condemnation on behalf of God. Whatever one's position on the recommendations, one must concede, I think, such sanctioned changes cannot be papered over by appeals to baptismal unity. The world will rightly want to know, "What exactly do Lutherans believe about the Sixth Commandment?" These proposed policies, which venture far from 2000 years of Christian belief, won't provide an answer.

Bad?

2009-07-03T20:52:00.001-04:00

This?

Palin's Resignation

2009-07-03T20:32:00.001-04:00

Here. Was it impulsive or calculated? I'm betting impulsive.

Fight Pancreatic Cancer

2009-07-03T20:07:00.003-04:00

I just saw President Carter's PSA on pancreatic cancer, which has taken so many of his family members. My uncle died from it two years ago. You can donate here to help with research for a cure of this horrible disease.

Good Advice for Pastors and Overextended Laypeople

2009-07-03T19:56:00.002-04:00

Leonard Sweet tweeted this quote from an old mentor of his:

Love the church, but don't let the church become your lover.

In all circumstances...

2009-07-03T09:11:00.000-04:00

When things are good.

When things are bad.

Just downloaded...

2009-07-01T00:25:00.011-04:00

Classic sounds and wise, often fun, lyrics from two of the pioneers of Christian contemporary music, fifty-somethings Phil Keaggy and Randy Stonehill. They've both got it.

Here is a review. These guys are really playing with their musical influences--Beatles, Who, Everly Brothers, Elvis, Carl Perkins, Steve Miller, Johnny Rivers--and it's fun.

A special treat is the pair's remake of a song they performed as the title track of a Keaggy project two decades ago, then along with Russ Taff, Sunday's Child. Now, as then, the song has them in full-Beatles mode.

I'll add this: If Keaggy isn't, as many claim, the greatest rock guitarist in the world, he's certainly one of them.

You can buy it at Amazon or iTunes. The latter is substantially less expensive.

Tweets on This Sunday's Bible Lessons

2009-06-30T17:07:00.003-04:00

A quick explanation, from Wikipedia:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others' updates, known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to other users - known as followers - who have subscribed to them.

Below are tweets I posted this afternoon regarding this coming Sunday's Bible lessons. I hope they help folks get ready for worship. I may post more substantive stuff later.

Ezekiel 2:5: We're called to be faithful to God, leave the results up to God.

2 Cor. 12:2-10: Only when I'm weak that my delusions of self-sufficiency are laid waste. God's power can worthwhile things in and thru us.

Mark 6:1: Jesus' worlds come together.

Mark 6:2: People attribute "power" and "wisdom" to Jesus, attributes associated with God. But they don't know where [they come] from.

Mark 6:3: "took offense at." Jesus couldn't expect acclamation any more than Ezekiel...or us.

Mark 6:4: An expert is anyone with a pointer from forty miles away.

Mark 6:4: The "who do you think you are?" factor prevents prophets from being accepted. Per 2 Cor. 12, the prophet would say, "I'm nobody."

Mark 6:5: Faithlessness prevents the working of God's power. God never forces faith.

Mark 6:6: Jesus could have sung, "Amazing Doubt." But why was Jesus amazed?

Mark 6:6: Did Jesus' amazement stem from feeling that His past in Nazareth authenticated His present claims?

Mark 6:6, 10: Jesus always refrained from beating His head against walls.

Mark 6:7: No doubt, the disciples' ascribed authority was as limited by faithlessness as Jesus' underived authority.

Mark 6:8: Travel light. What does that say to our materialism?

Mark 6:12-13: The disciples did the same ministries that Jesus did (John 12:12-14).

You can join Twitter, which is free, here. This is where my tweets show up. (I'm going to try to regular do little micro-blogs there on the Bible lessons each week.) If you'd like to follow my tweeting, you can sign up to follow at the latter site.

Fourth of July Thoughts from One Lutheran Pastor

2009-06-30T11:11:00.004-04:00

[I just composed this announcement for the Sunday bulletin of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, the congregation I serve as pastor. It seems to me that Christians should never want to impose their beliefs on others. But I also believe that Christians can be Christians in society without in any way threatening the freedoms of others.]

A Fourth of July Weekend Message from Pastor Mark

On this July 4th weekend, we thank God for a country in which, among other things, we are guaranteed the right to worship God (or even not to worship God) as we see fit. We can be thankful for America's other "greatest generation" for establishing the United States on two principles, each embodied in the two most important documents of our nation's history. In the Declaration of Independence we find the principle of liberty or freedom. In the Constitution is the principle of mutual accountability and responsibility. The Founders and Framers knew that liberty without responsibility is chaos and that responsibility without liberty is tyranny.

The Lutheran Confessions have always seen governments as necessities in a world that has fallen into sin. Without governments, Martin Luther said, Christians walk through the world like lambs among ravenous wolves.

But, in fact, the Christian is always free through Jesus Christ, no matter what rules, just or unjust, the world may impose on them. We are freed from sin, death, and futility. Knowing that we belong to God for all eternity, we are freed to be fully human beings who love God and love neighbor, even putting others' interests above our own. But, out of love for God and neighbor and in order to preserve that order without which there can be no justice, the Christian seeks to obey just governments and laws.

Lutheran heroes like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed by a Nazi firing squad during World War 2, have shown us that when governments become unjust, as happened in Germany under Hitler, the Christian also has an obligation, out of love for God and neighbor, to stand against tyranny.

On this weekend when we Lutheran Christians express our love for America, we might well embrace a maxim given in the late-1960s by a US admiral, at the height of the Vietnam War: "Not 'My country, wrong or right,' but, 'My country: When right to keep it right; when wrong to make it right."

As Christians, we believe that we can only make America go right when we personally follow Jesus Christ and follow His commands as we participate lovingly and respectfully in a society that, under the wonderful freedom we enjoy in the United States, includes people of many different religious beliefs. For that reason, I hope that your Fourth of July won't only be, "God bless America," but also and more importantly, "America, bless God."

In 2 Chronicles 16:9, we find these words, "For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the entire earth, to strengthen those whose heart is true to him.." As followers of Jesus blessed to live in America, may we be true to the God we know in Jesus Christ. As we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, may we always remember that our highest allegiance is to our God and King, revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ.