The Gottesdienst Crowd

[Gottesblog] A Tale of Two Synods — Larry Beane

A Tale of Two Synods

When someone posted the above video of the Texas District that was shown at the Texas District Convention, I responded on social media in a tongue-in-cheek manner, saying that Lutherans would do well to have such polished productions as this obviously non-denominational presentation.

I thought about responding here at Gottesblog with satire, sarcasm, and gallows humor. After all, the jokes do just write themselves. The Texas District logo not only appears to depict three martinis, they get increasingly out of proportion and dizzying as you navigate from the first to the third. This could not have been by accident. Some graphic designer was obviously being cheeky. For in a very real sense, this illustrates a practical way to deal with the district - especially at convention. Although the genuine Texas beverage might be a 64 ounce bucket of margaritas, I don’t know how well that would translate to a logo. So the three-martini motif will just have to do.

I thought about comparing the entertainment-based music and emotional imagery in this video - rooted in the spoken word of vague non-sequiturs instead of the incarnational reality of Christ coming to us to forgive us and transform us for eternity by means of His physical presence. And this is manifest not only in His historic enfleshment, His birth, cross, death, and resurrection, but also in His ongoing sacramental presence with us in the miracles of Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist - two themes that, though central to the faith, are pushed to the margins in this video. Instead, this objective ground of faith is jettisoned in favor of emotion and slick production. In this, the comparison to the Texas-sized Neo-Evangelical megachurches of the highways and byways of the Lonestar State - where indeed everything is Bigger - is unavoidable. It is no accident that the Reverend Father Joel Osteen is a Texas pastor with a Texas-sized church that is the envy of Church Growth Movement moguls everywhere. Indeed, the lust of our baby-boomer CGM experts for Bigness and the reduction of individual human souls to a Big number in a ledger or on an annual statistics form is insatiable. No Cialis needed for this passion.

I thought about performing a Rick-roll-like trick by inviting my reader to click on the link to the Texas District highlights, but replace it with the magnificent satirical video called “Contemporvent” or perhaps “The Worship Song Song.” Both make the point well.

I also thought about all the angles I could play because it is Texas. And I do love Texas. I love the history and heritage, the independent streak of the people, the sense of Bigness in everything, a zest for life, the unique foods and cultures and byways. Texas is a quintessential part of the South, which I hold dear. And Texas is (along with South Carolina) a state where you are just as likely to see the state flag as the US flag - and it may well even be flying on a pole of the same height as Old Glory. It is a state where people, following the observation of President Obama, “cling to their guns” and “religion,” not to mention to their Whataburger, beef brisket barbecue, and big honking belt buckles.

When I once traveled to Texas on business in my former life a long time ago, being on a company per diem, I ate a one-pound T-bone for lunch, and a two-pound T-bone for supper. You can get away with such things when you’re in your twenties. I also bought myself some cowboy boots. I did not buy a cowboy hat, but did wear my boots up north. My Texan friend who lives in North Carolina always brought his pregnant wife to Texas to give birth many times in the Lone Star State, thus assuring the transmission of his Republic of Texas citizenship to posterity. And I think that is a good and noble thing. It is part of what makes Texas unique.

These delightful quirks of Texas and Texans could have provided fodder for explaining the quirkiness of the LCMS in the Republic. Lutheranism has a long history in Texas - both in its German and Slovak heritages. But sadly, there is nothing endearing in the modern context about jettisoning the liturgy and our rich theology that are truly evangelical, and trading them for the pottage of non-denominational Christianity.

Besides, those accents in the video suggest that there is a lot of carpetbagging going on.

But after considering all of these angles, I decided to take a different tack. I’m still a big fan of dark humor and throwing stones at the dragon, for if nothing else, it breaks up the monotony, and sometimes gets other guys hurling a pebble or two. And who knows, there might even be a David out there whose stone hits the beast in the right spot. And even if it doesn’t put the monster out of our Missouri, the encounter could end up in a viral Steve Inman video for entertainment purposes. And that’s not for nothin’.

But there is also something very serious and sad about this video.

It shows that Pietism is still very much alive and well in our synod: the ginning up of emotion and the downplaying of the sacraments, the transformation of worship into entertainment instead of the Church’s timeless participation in the eternal liturgy that binds heaven and earth together - that unites the Church Militant with the Church Triumphant, offering a sacrifice of praise to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the sacrificial Lamb whose blood saves us and who breathes the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, into us. And this is not a metaphor, but rather a flesh-and-blood reality by means of the ongoing miracle of God performing signs and wonders in our midst because His Word is still sounding forth, still creating, still redeeming, still sanctifying - still reconstituting the universe, and still drawing us into the incense-filled inner-sanctum of the very throne-room of God, where Isaiah once lay prostrate in fear, but where he was comforted by the purification delivered to his lips by a messenger bearing a burning coal from the holy altar.

Of course, to the Pietist, this is just boring stuff from an old book. That’s our grandfather’s church. To them, we need music, really exciting, awesome, fist-pumping, epic music - guitars and drums and emoting vocalists and a guy running a sound-board. And that music should be repetitive, it should cause one’s heart to skip a beat, it should tug at the heartstrings, it should induce dopamine so that a proper decision for Christ can be made. It should be the kind of music that fills the modular interlocking church seats the same way that stadiums are filled - thus also paying homage to the CGM Fetish of Bigness.

This is Texas, after all.

According to Pietism, we need pastors dressed just like us, who are excitable, who are dynamic, who are not stuffy and reverent and catholic. We need awesome vision-casting, leadership, leadership, leadership, and apps. We need high-tech. We need screens and PowerPoint. We need passion and programs and fun. Did I mention excitable pastors? We need to use the word “amazing” a lot - and new turns of phrase, like “on ramps for Jesus” (which is perhaps a Texas response to Oklahoman Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel”). We need to de-emphasize “what goes on in these four walls” and focus on drawing people into the church from the world by not only going into the world, but by looking like the world.

The centrality of the Sacrament and the traditional liturgy really just get in the way of being “missional.”

The video had a lot to say about mission work, but it lacked authenticity. It just looked like well-heeled Texas suburbanites getting together with other well-heeled Texas suburbanites for brisket and music. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not really “missions.” Being missional is a big buzzword, but real mission work doesn’t much resemble watching NFL games while scooping peanuts from a tin bucket at a Texas Roadhouse. One fellow brought up the topic of Christian worship during communism and compared it to using Zoom during the pandemic. As the kids say, “Yeah, no.”

In fact, authentic Lutheran mission work is being done in the former Soviet Union. Here is a video showing how this missionary endeavor is carried out in Siberia, and how it is done in an authentically Lutheran way:

Note the Christological and sacramental focus of Siberian mission work. (Let’s just keep this between us girls, but Siberia is even bigger than Texas). As a bonus, here is a video of Siberian Bishop Vsevolod Lytkin speaking at a faithful Texas congregation, Faith Lutheran Church in Plano. This is quite the contrast to the Texas District video of the Cult of Bigness and the desire to adopt Neo-Evangelical worship.

Sadly, I often hear from faithful confessional Lutherans, seeking authentic Lutheran worship using the hymnal, who drive sometimes up to a hundred miles on Sunday morning, passing a wasteland of non-liturgical LCMS congregations, all in order to find a church that is liturgical, confessional, and reverent. It is a huge sacrifice, but it is worth it - especially to young families who want their children learning the catechism and being formed by the miraculous presence of Christ instead of being molded by vacuous entertainment. Sometimes, people have to face hard choices of either finding a Wisconsin Synod congregation (and promising to break prayer fellowship with the rest of the family and be subjected to a low view of the office of the ministry), or even attending Masses of a continuing Anglican tradition and forgoing the Holy Sacrament for a while. As I noted earlier, this desert of decent LCMS congregations in some places has led some of our laity - often young families with children - to physically move to where the liturgical parishes are. As my colleague Fr. David Petersen advises, there is another option: to start a new church. We need faithful lay people to consider such a drastic step - even if it means foregoing the Bigness and suburban wealth of the Texas-sized LCMS church up the road. For this isn’t about everything being Bigger - in Texas or elsewhere - it is about fidelity to Word and Sacrament, in doctrine and ceremonies. It is about teaching the people what they need to know about Christ.

And even Osteen’s Texas megachurch began very small - as did most of our LCMS church plants. In hostile districts, a confessional and liturgical congregation may well get snubbed by the districtocracy, even as money flows like the mighty Mississippi to church plants that downplay authentic Lutheranism and instead employ gimmicks. But remember, that the confession of the “one holy catholic and apostolic church” is located within the third article of the Creed - as the Holy Spirit is the “Lord and giver of life.” It is not mammon or district bureaucracy that quickens the church. It is not gimmicks or marketing that grows the church. For God Himself “has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.” Man does not live by District alone, and in fact, in our Lutheran tradition, both its history and its confessional writings, church bureaucracy is sometimes a hindrance to the Gospel. And when it is, it is best ignored. Certainly, our sixteenth century ancestors, who were attacked and harried by the worldwide, rich, and powerful church bureaucracy of the day, knew what it was to oppose them and stand as a “little flock” being implored to “fear not the foe.”

The adoption of Neo-Evangelical practices indeed leads to Neo-Evangelical doctrine. Lex Ordandi, Lex Credendi is not just a tee-shirt slogan for seminarians and geeky pastors. It is an ancient and wise observation that bears out our Lutheran forbears’ retention of the ancient ceremonies rather than throwing caution to the wind in search of something new. That is why Article 24 begins with the bold statement:

Falsely are our churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among us, and celebrated with the highest reverence. Nearly all the usual ceremonies are also preserved, save that the parts sung in Latin are interspersed here and there with German hymns, which have been added to teach the people. For ceremonies are needed to this end alone that the unlearned be taught [what they need to know of Christ].

~ AC 24:1-4a

One thing that is hammered home by this video is that we are two synods (at least). Can you even imagine one of the pastors in the above video standing in the pulpit and reading the above quote from our confessions to his parishioners? Or how about the Texas District President reminding his congregations that they are committed to this confession.

We can lie to ourselves that we are actually united as a synod. It just isn’t so. There is no way that I would visit and commune at the kinds of LCMS churches shown in this video. Nor would my parishioners. They would be scandalized. And there is no way that most of those folks would ever commune from my hand at the altar that I serve. We have a paper fellowship, at best, and a tenuous unity and koinonia based not on doctrine and ceremonies, but on a common bureaucracy and shared employment benefits. And as more and more congregations jettison Concordia Plan Services, even that link is being weakened. In some cases, the only thing holding the synod together is a sense of nostalgia and branding.

The Rev. Prof. Kurt Marquart of blessed memory suggested that we need a divorce in our synod. That would certainly be more honest than what we have now. And as painful as “The Walkout” and the subsequent breakup of the LCMS was in the 1970s, it was the honest thing to do.

But maybe there is another way that we could order ourselves more honestly. Perhaps what we need is to abolish the districts and circuits as they exist (as they reflect 19th century technological limitations). But why must our districts be geographical today? Why not reorder ourselves according to what we have in common - especially in matters of worship. And if we have two or three, or even five or six, subdivisions of synod, so what?

We currently have two non-geographical districts. We could have non-geographical “districts” where there is genuine agreement in doctrine and practice, and we could all keep the name and the benefits package. And if, down the road, it would be better to actually cut our ties, it would be easier to do in such a system. For right now what we have is not unlike what we have in the United States. Instead of federalism, we now have nationalism. And so US elections become a “winner take all” endeavor. And the losing side, which is typically very near fifty percent of the population - is held hostage to the faction that is bigger by only a percent or two (if that). Instead, we could decentralize our synod and let congregations have closer ties with other congregations that share their doctrine and practice - not unlike the situation in 19th century America, where small synods went into fellowship with one another.

One “district” may specify that only the ordo and hymns in the hymnal may be used. Another “district” may make it all optional. Yet another “district” might compile its own requirements as to what is permissible. Our “district” conventions would be much less the way of power struggles, and the Divine Services at the same would not be places of protest, either against the services with guitars and streamers, or with chasubles and incense. Such a scheme would provide homogeneity in matters of doctrine and practice, while allowing the synod branding and employment benefits to be shared by all. In such a structure, synod would not dictate from above, and “districts” could recognize fellowship with other “districts” based on their own criteria.

There are certainly dangers in such a polity. And there are likely unintended consequences. But what we have now is not working. We are engaging in a Mister Rogers style Land of Make-Believe fantasy that we are not in a state of impaired fellowship, and we are not involved in a power struggle between at least two opposing factions. By decentralizing the conflict, we can encourage church plants by “districts” without regard to geography, and our “district” mission funds could actually go to new congregations that reflect our confession and worship - whether Pietistic or confessional, whether normed by guitar or organ.

For what we have now is 35 civil wars and games of one-upsmanship - where the winners are determined by political means: running for office, navigating parliamentary procedure, and engaging in backroom arm-twisting of the kind we see in the secular political world.

At any rate, though we in The Gottesdienst Crowd are often marginalized and mocked by our Bigger brethren in synod (and sometimes that is a matter of the waistline and not only the waste-land), though our churches are generally smaller and often face financial struggles, let us not lose heart. Let us continue to be normed by the Bible and the Book of Concord, and let us continue to confess in Word and deed not only what Jesus has done for us, but what He continues to do for us in the Divine Service, where He comes to us in a literal and miraculous way that needs no distraction by entertainment or some Big New Awesomer Way of Doing Church.

We don’t need a new way of doing church. We need Jesus. We don’t need entertainment. We need authentic worship. We don’t need gimmicks. We need faith. And for you, dear reader, both layman and pastor, the following video (Have you seen the video?), produced by Gottesdienst, thanks to a grant from the LCMS, is an example of how “ceremonies teach the people what they need to know about Christ,” and how our bureaucracy can indeed teach the ceremonies to the pastors and laity alike. Instead of “contemporvence” grounded in entertainment, you will find reverence grounded in the reality that Jesus continues to join us in the miracle of the Holy Sacrament.

And that reality is even bigger than Texas.

 

[Gottesblog] Feminism Began . . . — Larry Beane

Feminism Began...

The new face of conservatism and the GOP?

…with a question that wasn’t really a question: “Did God actually say…?”

Feminism changed the world.

For with this rhetorical question, “Did God actually say…?” the first woman and her husband were enticed to deny God’s Word with the promise of changing the order of creation, with the opportunity to “be like God,” to have one’s eyes “opened,” or to put it into modern parlance, to be “woke.” This was the very first instance of “Smash the Patriarchy” - and the Patriarch was God.

Adam participated in feminism even though it sought to remove his leadership of the family, but there was a lot in it for him: the chance to likewise escape the hierarchical limitations of his own created order, his own vocation given to him by God.

Feminism changed the course of history, and not for the better. This act of rebellion against God’s created order of divinely created roles of the binary sexes of male and female, this Luciferian inversion of order into an unnatural chaos lured by the lust for self-gratification, brought death into the world, unleashed the forces of chaos and violence among all creatures in what was a perfectly harmonious existence, and placed the world on a trajectory of warfare in this life and enmity with God - a cosmic conflict that places mankind in the crossfire.

And the serpent continues to deceive, continues to ask, “Did God actually say…?”, continues to call into question the order of creation - especially in matters of sex and sexuality.

Today, chaos has been mainstreamed, even in defiance of the science that so many claim to believe in. Male and Female are considered social constructs. The natural family is considered no better for children - or perhaps even worse - than unnatural configurations. God’s created order of patriarchy and complementarily between men and women is attacked in both the secular and ecclesiastical realms. Biology is held in contempt. Natural Law is disdained. That which a normal person can posit by observation is denied. And of course, all the while, the serpent continues to lure men and women into questioning divine revelation by what is in it for them: be it money and power for women, or the lure of easy recreational sex devoid of responsibility for men. Men especially “benefit” from feminism, for they are absolved from their duty to love their wives and be willing to give up everything for her sake. Instead, they are free to pursue their lusts and treat their wives as cash cows, buying toys or funding the man-cave.

There is nothing in our culture and society that has not been corrupted and putrefied by the serpent’s original intersectionality. Especially in our western civilization, and especially in America: once the world’s beacon of freedom of belief, of speech, of writing and publishing, of political liberty, and of course, freedom of religion.

One example is the military: an institution whose purpose is to use violence to protect the country from invasion, from enemies both foreign and domestic. Note how feminism has shifted the raison être of the military from being an order of warriors formerly bound by an ethos of service to the nation and a chivalrous defense of the weak into being a grand radical social “Did God actually say…?” experiment.

If you haven’t seen the juxtaposition of recent military recruitment ads by China, Russia, and the United States, you probably should have a look.

Even Atheistic China still retains some moorings of natural law, as the masculine and feminine roles shown in their ad, as well as the unmistakable appeal to the warrior ethos of men to protect and serve, is apparent - even though this warrior spirit takes on a collectivist feel. The Russian ad likewise appeals to a man’s natural biological, psychological, and spiritual urge to protect and serve. But the Russian ad is aimed at the individual rather than the collective.

The American ad begins in the form of a cartoon and the story of a young girl raised by a couple of lesbians. There is no appeal to the warrior ethic, only a ginned-up feminized and radicalized message to appeal to so-called social justice issues, tugging on the heartstrings, as though the military’s job is to provide emotional sensitivity training and sexual propaganda instead of blowing things up when that is what is needed to defend our liberties and existence as a country. The only concession to a warrior ethic is the cartoon girl’s climbing up a rope. And at the end, the cartoon gives way to live video of the young woman, who inexplicably, in spite of her impressive academic credentials, is not an officer. Perhaps her decision to serve in the enlisted ranks regardless of her qualifications is yet another way to fight back against the notion of hierarchy.

At any rate, the contrast is stark. And should other countries become a military threat to the United States, one can only imagine how ill-prepared our country will be, with our warrior institution emasculated and our military turned into an institution of social re-education and a jobs program for people who reject traditional societal norms - not to mention reality itself.

“Did God actually say…?”

The serpent has also slithered up to the Bride of Christ and has posed the same question. He has gotten once-faithful church bodies, including Lutherans, to question God’s Word - from the days of Higher Critical Theory right down to today’s all encompassing Critical Theory (which manifests itself in matters of sex and race, imposing chaos and rebelling against the orderly goodness of God’s Word and His will).

When the push for women’s “ordination” began among historic communions of the church in the twentieth century, there were prophetic voices, like Bishop Bo Giertz, the great Swedish Lutheran churchman who appealed to the Bible and the church’s confessions. Giertz and others who shared this commitment to the Scriptures were pilloried and reviled as reactionaries and misogynists. The Bishop took the slings and arrows and mounted a defense against this Satanic invasion, but that battle was lost, as Swedish society had embraced progressivism over and against submission to the Word of God. And the winners have written the history and pushed their own narrative.

Today, priestesses outnumber priests in the Church of Sweden. Secular society is dominated by female leadership. And it goes without saying that Scandinavia has led the way in the feminization of society and the normalization of sexual deviancy in the Nordic countries. The results have been disastrous, as the cancer of the rejection of the order of creation has become dominant, even to the point of the Lutheran lesbian “bishop” of the Church of Sweden ordering crosses removed from a church to make Muslims feel welcome. This corresponds to the feminized secular leadership of Sweden, naive, emotional, and lacking the God-given instinct to protect the nation, opening the borders of the country, creating violent no-go zones and an active rape culture - apparently an acceptable price to be paid for pushing a “woke” agenda.

And the often pooh-poohed argument that the male pastorate mirrors the maleness of Christ is vindicated, and sadly so, by the re-creation of God in the image of woman by an ELCA congregation in San Francisco - one that prays to the goddess and employs a special goddess rosary. One of the former pastors of this “church” (so-called) has since become the world’s first transgendered “bishop” (so-called).

The gender issue has spread like a cancer, and there is more to come.

Another ELCA priestess gave an Easter Sermon that was all about self-pleasure - including in the sexual sense. If you don’t believe me, you can watch the video - especially beginning about at the 24:50 mark. It goes without saying that viewer discretion is advised.

The canard that a church can be both feminist and orthodox is disproven by simple observation of the fruits of the tree. And far from making us like God, knowing good and evil, it has distanced us from God, as we have rebelled and used our ill-gotten knowledge to choose evil. This is apparently what is known as “empowerment.”

And so in the face of the feminist heresy, let us join one and all and answer the serpent’s question with a hearty confession: “Yes! God did actually say! Amen.”

TGC 116 — Reclaiming Allegory

In this episode, Heath Curtis (pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Worden, IL, and Zion Lutheran Church, Carpenter, IL) talks about his piece in the FritzSchrift on allegory: “Jesus’ Allegory of the Good Samaritan.” While allegory can be and has been taken too far, Curtis contends that the very purpose of allegory historically is the same that our Lord gives to the parables: to hide meaning from one group but to reveal it to another group. Thus, to interpret the parables rightly is to keep these two groups in mind and thus two layers of interpretation. 

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TGC 115 — Liturgicals, Pietists, & the Kingdom of the Left

In this episode, we welcome back Larry Beane. He is one of the contributors to the Fritzschrift, Leitourgiae Propria Adiaphora Non Est: Essays in Honor of the Rev. Dr. Burnell F. Eckardt on the Occasio of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. The essay is entitled Liturgicals, Pietists, and the Kingdom of the Left. Our conversation builds upon what Larry wrote in that article. 

You can get your copy at the Gottesdienst website below. 

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[Gottesblog] The {Euphemism} Community – Larry Beane

The {Euphemism} Community

“What a wonderful bridge to the “so-called rainbow” community! Methinks this is what ol’ Clive Staples would have called “pre-evangelism”!”

— A GOTTESBLOG COMMENTER

A commenter offered me this “complement” in response to my piece ROY G BIV - which addresses the so-called rainbow flag.

I’m grateful for such comments, as they provide opportunities for further reflection on things.

It goes without saying that the Secular First Commandment is “Thou shalt not offend thy neighbor.” And of course, this commandment does require some evangelical interpretation. What the SFC really means is we should not offend certain people. And a big part of not being offensive is the adoption of euphemistic language.

And in our culture, one euphemism isn’t enough. We go through generations of euphemisms. George Carlin noted this phenomenon by way of a combat condition that was called “Shell Shock” in World War One. He pointed out how direct the term is: two syllables, right to the point. In World War II, a different term was employed: “Battle Fatigue.” It just sounds nicer. “Fatigue” is a softer word than “Shock.” And we’ve padded it with another two syllables. During the Korean War, this condition was known as “Operational Exhaustion.” “Exhaustion” is even softer than “Fatigue,” and we’re now up to eight syllables. And during Vietnam, the name changed to “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Now we’ve really buried “Shell Shock” beneath layers of euphemisms and are still at eight syllables.

Shell Shock is a very real condition, no matter what you call it. But by making it sound softer and more like clinical jargon, are we really doing a service to those who are suffering from it?

This “euphemism treadmill” is often employed in matters of political correctness to keep everyone off-balance as to what the correct term is - especially in matters of ethnicity and sexuality. And woe be to the poor sap that uses a term that was acceptable in 2020, but is no longer au courant in 2021. After all, it is 2021, as the kids say.

Sin has become fertile ground for euphemism. In response to the pro-life movement, the pro-abortionist side of the debate expressed a preference for the term “pro-choice.” It takes the matter of life and death out of the conversation and recasts the matter with a similitude to standing at the hotel vending machine and making a choice between an overpriced Coke and an overpriced Pepsi. And who, after all, would be against your right to choose your preferred soft-drink - a fundamental right that is as American as French fries.

And so, fornication is “living together.” Despising preaching and the Word of God is “sleeping in.” Murder is “making him comfortable.” Racism is “social justice.” Rioting is “peacefully protesting.” Abortion is “reproductive freedom.” Violating consciences and denying religious liberty is “equality.” Gossip is “just talking.” Enthusiasm is “being open to the Spirit.” Rebelling against the order of creation in family life is “empowering women.” Theft is “addressing economic injustice.” Syncretism is “expressing solidarity with diverse communities of faith.” I’m sure our readers can come up with many more such examples.

Sexuality is laden with euphemisms and new terms. The once standard term “homosexual” has gone by the wayside. It was long ago replaced with “gay” - a word that in the ancient days of the 20th century, meant “happy.” But “gay” was too blunt and monosyllabic. And so The Acronym was introduced: In my article, I traced one trajectory of The Acronym’s euphemism treadmill: (LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIAA, LGBTTQQIAAP, LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP, and LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM). The Newspeak Dictionary now contains entire lists of words of obscure sexual deviancies all competing for flag-space in new and exciting vexillological configurations. Some of these new sexualities were called to mind in a viral video of a German legislator addressing the Bundestag.

Euphemistic Ministry is a relatively new approach to sin and grace.

Many years ago, in the last millennium, in fact, long before I went to seminary, I had a dear friend involved in a particular public sin. A group of his friends wanted to sit down with him and try to talk some sense into him. I had no idea what I was doing. I asked my pastor for advice. He said, “Don’t use euphemisms. Use words like ‘wrong’ and ‘sin.’” Indeed, those were the Bad Old Days of dead orthodoxy, Law and Gospel, and smoking on airplanes - long before we became wise and kind and mindful - and learned how to do “pre-evangelism.” In fact, in matters of confronting sin (as opposed to C.S. Lewis-style Apologetics), what came before the Gospel (the Evangel) was not euphemistic bridge-building, but Law. Of course, we now know today that this was wrong, er, maybe a better way to put it is: “a method of diminished utility” or some such.

At any rate, we are not engaging in what Clive Staples referred to as “Chronological Snobbery.” Oh no, not at all. It’s just that we know so much more now than we did then. And as poll after poll teaches us, we really need to listen to millennials. They have so much to teach us. Far more than dead white men like C.F.W. Walther with his “Lawn Gospel” silliness. In fact, were C.S. Lewis alive today, he might even refer to Satanists as “The Screwtape Community.”

In fact, referring to sin by means of a euphemism followed by “Community” is also in vogue. There are no more homosexuals, as they are now members of the LGBT Community. Indeed, there are many sub-communities within the People of The Acronym, some involving what are clearly healthy behaviors including “gay leather and puppy play.” It’s all very innocent, and especially attractive to children. Who could possibly be against the LGBT version of Comfort Dog Ministry? The Church needs to build bridges and stop being so judgy. After all, Jesus said, “Judge not,” right?

Maybe we should include some bridges to such communities during coffee and donut hour, Sunday School, or Bible Class. Note to self: take it easy on the glitter. The Altar Guild will blow a gasket trying to clean that stuff up.

We actually see such bridge-building pre-evangelism in the Bible - especially in matters of the unrepentant: those who see their sin as a point of pride. We saw a very early example with the LGBT Community in the Book of Genesis. Who could ever forget that bridge over the Red Sea when the children of Israel engaged in pre-evangelism with the Egyptian Military Community? Or how about Moses’s bridge-building pre-evangelism with Korah and the Egalitarian Ministry Community? We see Elijah’s bridge-building pre-evangelism with King Ahab and the Religiously Diverse Community. And of course, our Lord Himself engaged in bridge-building pre-evangelism with the Currency Exchange Community and the Self-Righteous Jesus-Questioning Community.

Obviously, we live in different times. We need to be nice and winsome at all costs. This is no longer the twentieth century when the old pastors said, “Don’t use euphemisms.” The new Bridge Building Ministry of Pre-Evangelism has finally gotten it right. When confronting the world’s twisted understanding of right and wrong, when dealing with those who are so unrepentant that they use the term “pride”, and they are bolstered by the power of the state and the corporation and the dominant cultural organs to the detriment of the Church’s confession based on the Word of God - the last thing we need to do is “use words like ‘wrong’ and ‘sin.’” People might get the idea that we are out of step with the secular world. No indeed, we need to build bridges to the {euphemism} communities. We need to get with the program, fly our own freak-flag, build bridges, and stop being judgy. The most important thing is to be liked, and we certainly need to be wishy-washy for the sake of our children, who will be growing up into a culture with all sorts of undiscovered {Euphemism} Communities.

We need to invert my pastor’s advice to this: “Use euphemisms. Don’t use words like ‘wrong’ and ‘sin.’” For that is true bridge-building pre-evangelism.

After all, it is 2021.

[Gottesblog] Covid-Closed Communion — Larry Beane

Covid-Closed Communion

“That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”

— 1 COR 11: 27-30

Taking Holy Communion is a life-and-death matter - at least if we believe the Bible. St. Paul, writing to the Church at Corinth blames the death of some parishioners on the fact that they communed “without discerning the body.” And this is certainly a part of why the Church has always practiced closed communion - until quite recently, that is.

The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Chicago is concerned about people becoming weak, or ill, or even dying as a result of coming to Mass. And so they are carefully checking people at the door. Not to make sure that they “discern the body” in the sacrament, mind you, but rather to see if they have received a Covid-19 shot. Nobody will check to see that you are a Christian, a Roman Catholic, or a believer in the Real Presence when you present yourself to receive the body and blood of Christ. The priest will not ask you. You may well be a Satanist looking for a consecrated host to desecrate, and nobody will vet you. And neither will the lay man or woman who is distributing the blood of Christ - though the chalice is once again being withheld by the papal church because of Covid.

Again, someone could become weak or ill, or even die. Hence the caution.

Of course, not just Roman Catholics, but all Christians who confess the Real Presence, seem to be more concerned about people getting sick or dying from Covid than from unbelief. It is as though we don’t believe what is in the Scriptures that receiving the Lord’s Supper without belief can be fatal. Theology used to be the Queen of Sciences, but now Scientism has become the Queen of Theology. It seems that we believe more in the real presence of viruses than the real presence of Jesus, and that now the fear of the microbe is the beginning of wisdom.

In the ancient church, if you traveled to another diocese to receive the Holy Sacrament, you were vetted. You were expected to produce a letter from your priest. Today, in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, something similar is happening - only the priest who must sign your letter wears a lab coat instead of an alb.

In fact, for many Roman Catholics and other Christians alike, there is a new pope. His name is Anthony.

Larry BeaneMay 28, 2021

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[Gottesblog] Roy G Biv — Larry Beane

ROY G BIV

Now that it is June, we’re seeing a lot of so-called rainbow flags.

In the City of New Orleans, this is nothing new. We have an entire section of Bourbon Street in which nearly all of the bars fly the so-called rainbow flag year-round. Harrah’s Casino always displays the various flags that flew over New Orleans in her 300-year history. Well, almost. One is missing. It represented the period of Southern independence. That flag has been replaced by, you guessed it, the so-called rainbow flag. Not to be accused of insufficient praise for the June honorees (and I don’t mean blushing brides), the City does put up some extra so-called rainbow banners (now even more inclusive!) on Rampart Street for the month of June. One of the area’s hospitals used to fly the so-called rainbow flag beneath the state flag of Louisiana for the entire month. Last year, if memory serves, it was only up for a day and then disappeared. I don’t know what the plan is for 2021. But I imagine there is a lot of pressure to put it back up. After all, it is 2021.

At any rate, I keep saying “so-called rainbow” because this “rainbow” is deficient. It is actually an ideal symbol for sexuality that deviates from the natural biological kind as reflected in natural law and the revealed will of God. And it is also a matter of science, that is, if you believe in such things as biology. The symbol that has come to stand for The Acronym: (LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIAA, LGBTTQQIAAP, LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP, and LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM) is actually not the rainbow. For hopefully we all remember the mnemonic ROY G BIV: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Seven colors. But take a look at the so-called rainbow flag. It only has six colors.

Seven is the biblical number of completeness. It represents the fullness of the week of creation. It represents six days of work plus a sabbath rest. But six falls short. Six is the biblical number of incompleteness. The triple six is the mark of the beast, a parody of the Trinity.

And there could be no more appropriate symbol for the various sexualities that fall short of how God created mankind. For God created mankind in His image in a beautiful binary of male and female, with a mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.” What binds together all of the various letters in The Acronym is that all fall short of the glory of God, insofar as none of them can bring children into the world, and none of them reflects the divine complementarity between male and female. All of these deviations from His order of creation fly in the face of biological science and nature.

Another name for the so-called rainbow flag is the “pride flag.” Pride is the first of the traditional Seven Deadly Sins. It was Satan’s pride that preceded his fall. It was his appeal to pride that led Adam and Eve astray. But Satan’s temptation to pride failed to cause our Lord to stumble. And in fact, Jesus “emptied Himself” and took “the form of a servant,” and “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” His ultimate act of love was the very opposite of pride.

As the kids say, “Love wins.”

The real rainbow, not the parody, is truly a symbol of inclusion. For “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All is the most inclusive word of all. And the passage continues that this same all “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The rainbow was given as a sign of God’s mercy after His judgment of mankind at the flood. So the rainbow, the true rainbow, the seven-colored rainbow that appears in the clouds - is a sign of inclusion and acceptance by God of all sinners who confess their sins and cry out to the Lord for His absolution. The waters of the flood remind us of the Law that calls us to repent, and the rainbow that appeared at the end of the ordeal is a reminder of the Gospel, the Good News that Jesus died for us - for all of us.

Don’t let pride get in the way of God’s grace. And don’t be fooled into thinking that there is no consequence for sin. Rather ask for God’s mercy that you may be forgiven and given the grace to resist the devil, even as our Lord did.

While the rainbow is not, strictly speaking, a sacrament, it is a physical manifestation of God’s grace, and thus it is sacramental. Luther wrote:

[I]t is an error to hold that the sacraments of the New Law differ from those of the Old Law in the effectiveness of their signs. For in this respect they are the same. The same God who now saves us by baptism and the bread, saved Abel by his sacrifice, Noah by the rainbow, Abraham by circumcision, and all the others by their respective signs. So far as signs are concerned, there is no difference between a sacrament of the Old Law and one of the New, provided that by the Old Law you mean that which God did among the patriarchs and other fathers in the days of the Law. ~ AE 36:65

So in the month of June, look upon the so-called rainbow flag as representing an incompleteness, but look to the heavens for a sign of the completeness of God’s mercy. And then look to the Church’s confession of the Word of God, and gather with your fellow “poor miserable sinners” where we are forgiven, and where the same water that was an instrument of God’s wrath is now a sacrament of His grace.

May the seven colors of the rainbow remind us of the completeness of God’s love and mercy, and may this sign ever be an encouragement for us to live lives of gratitude in His grace.

[Gottesblog] Pop Goes the Liturgy — Larry Beane

Pop Goes the Liturgy

“it [sic] think it would be awesome to hear rap in [the] worship service, especially if the context calls for it and it communicates the Gospel in a way the community will hear it.”

— COMMENTER AT THE LCMS FACEBOOK PAGE

“I agree 100%. It would be awesome in a worship service. It’s communicating the gospel incarnationally in the cultural context of the community. However, it would need to be in the right context, because some congregations have shallow, exclusive, self-focused worship where their faith is a compartmentalized part of their life outside of the culture to which they belong.”

— REPLY TO THE ABOVE COMMENT

Modern pop music arguably began with jazz in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jazz gave way to rock and roll in the 1950s. Rock music evolved quickly into many subgenres over the next few decades. Today’s pop music is dominated by rap. But one thing that remains constant is the fact that there are those who desire to bring pop music into the Divine Service.

Here in Louisiana, Jazz Masses (and even funerals) are popular among Roman Catholics. Among Lutherans in the Wisconsin, there are Lutheran churches that conduct Polka Services. And who can forget the pinnacle of Boomer Worship: the Chicago Folk Service? Rumor has it that the CIA had been using it to interrogate suspected terrorists. I don’t believe it, though. Not even the CIA would violate the Geneva Convention so brashly.

Kyrie eleison, indeed!

And then there are the Episcopalians leading the way with the Beatles Mass (complete with John Lennon’s ode to Communism and Atheism: “Imagine.” The Beatles Mass was championed by an ELCA “pastor” named Megan Rohrer, who has recently made headlines by being the first transgender “bishop.” He was formerly one of the pastors at Ebenezer Lutheran Church (Herchurch) in San Francisco, where God is addressed as the goddess, and where the Lord’s Prayer begins “Our Mother.”

For fans of U2, Episcopalian priestess Sarah Dylan Breuer has created a U2charist.

An Episcopal congregation, St. Mary’s - headed up by Mother Kim Culp, lists other services that they have done, including the above-mentioned U2charist and Beatles Mass, a Blue Grass Mass, Coldplay Mass, CASH Mass (featuring Johnny Cash music), and a Stevie Wonder Mass.

Of course, it goes without saying - which means I have to say it because there are always readers looking to tilt at straw men - that pop music is not in and of itself evil. Some of it is, some of it isn’t. It is what it is: entertainment. And it is entertainment that can indeed be thoughtful and intellectually stimulating. I remember many years ago one of our Gottesdienst editors - who is known for his intensity and excitability - waxing eloquent on how Led Zeppelin’s song “No Quarter” reflected themes related to the office of the holy ministry. Some of the early songs by the band Evanescence confessed Christian themes - as the former writer for the band was a Christian. The band Kansas’s Kerry Livgren is a Christian, and many of his compositions reflect the faith. He even fooled the unbeliever and dabbling Satanist Ronnie James Dio to record two songs with him in which the Christian confession is hard to miss: “To Live For the King” and “Mask of the Great Deceiver.” The Christian rock band Skillet gets airplay on secular stations as well. The list goes on.

There is nothing wrong with entertainment. It is a gift of God that brings families and friends closer together and brings joy to our lives. But our sinful flesh often corrupts things that are good, turning them into idols. Satan’s most effective tactics are those which blur the line between good and evil, or perhaps more accurately, introduce the leaven of the common into the loaf of the holy.

Holiness means separation.

Holiness is a wall that divides the divine from the ordinary. Christian worship is holy according to Scripture - that is, unless we have removed Exodus and Leviticus from the canon. God Himself teaches us about worship, how He would fill out His PIF if He were on the LCMS roster. There is indeed time in our daily lives for singing the glory of God “with trumpet sound… with lute and harp…. with tambourine and dance… with strings and pipe… with sounding cymbals” and “with loud clashing cymbals” - as we sing in Psalm 150. But then there are those times when God comes to us in His most holy presence, such as when Moses found himself at the burning bush, or Isaiah stood in the throne-room of God, the high priest’s entry into the Holy of Holies, and our Lord’s miraculous presence with us in His body and blood.

Can you imagine Moses holding up a lighter and screaming “Freebird!” when God revealed His name to him and told him to remove his sandals? Can you imagine Isaiah freestyling a hip-hop beat when the seraph approached him “having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar”? Can you imagine the high priest cheerfully whistling a hippy folk song while coming into proximity with the Ark of the Covenant on the Day of Atonement?

The reality is that we have lost touch with what holiness means. Most people would probably say that it means “being good” - however that is defined, whether by not drinking or dancing or playing cards, or by being appropriately politically-correct, sensitive, and concerned with “social justice.” And how often do we Lutherans take the Sacrament of the Altar for granted? How often do we fail to appreciate that a miracle happens at our altars? Of course, when pastors conduct the liturgy in a pedestrian or even slovenly way, when they behave like stand-up comedians or clowns, and when our churches schedule Sundays to not have the sacrament and then justify it because “it’s a lot of work for the volunteers” (I actually heard that as an explanation for deviating from our confessional standard of every-Sunday communion) - who can blame our laity for not considering the Divine Service to be a miracle?

And if it isn’t a real manifestation of God coming to us, why bother? Or to put it in the words of Flannery O’Connor, “If it’s only a symbol, to hell with it.” And when the people lose faith in what the plain Words of Institution teach us, that is when pastors and congregations (and even some in our hierarchy) turn to gimmicks, to rock and roll, rap, dancing, and other entertainments to hold the attention of the parishioners, to gin up emotion, and to “get the butts in the pews” with the kinds of things that draws a crowd in a stadium or concert hall.

We must not discount the power of entertainment, especially pop music. I have had several parishioners leave my congregation and join one of our local non-denominational churches that has a pop band and a stage instead of hymns and an altar. These former parishioners outright told me that they like the music better. There were no theological considerations driving them, no crisis of whether or not what we teach is true. One said, “I gotta have a beat to move my feet.” One parishioner - whom I had baptized along with her daughter - said that her daughter enjoyed “fun church” instead of our Divine Service. But in gaining entertainment, what did they give up? In other words, what was the cost of this Sunday morning rock show? These churches do not confess Baptismal regeneration. And for them, the Lord’s Supper (so-called) is indeed only a symbol. There is no confession and absolution. The giving up of these means through which God works miraculously in our lives was, to them, a price worth paying for a beat to move one’s feet.

In our culture, entertainment is king. It is our drug of choice. It is our 24-7 companion. It gives us the dopamine we need to get through life in these gray and latter days. It is as addictive as crack cocaine, but even easier to acquire. Even our news programs are entertainment. Our schools are entertainment. TV screens adorn the walls of our doctor’s offices, airports, banks, restaurants, auto-repair shops, and our phones. Why shouldn’t our churches likewise have screens on the sanctuary walls? Why shouldn’t our church services also be entertainment? If we are entertained 24-7, 365, why should there be a single hour on Sunday morning in which we aren’t being entertained?

At the heart of the matter, this is a First Commandment issue.

As George Thorogood famously posed the question - albeit with bad grammar: “Who do you love?”

[Gottesblog] The New Benedictines — Larry Beane

The New Benedictines

In 2017, author Rod Dreher wrote The Benedict Option: a Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.

I’m not really a fan of Dreher. I find his writing to be whiny, his personality to be grating, and his claim to be a conservative to be dubious. One of my close friends refers to him seamlessly as The Insufferable Rod Dreher. I concur.

That said, I recommend The Benedict Option. I have also heard very good things about his latest offering, Live Not By Lies: a Manual for Christian Dissidents. In fact, Fr. Eckardt wrote about it recently.

When The Benedict Option came out, it was largely misunderstood by a lot of people in the LCMS. Some thought it was a kind of silver-bullet step-by-step program (proof of the LCMS’s tyranny of the bureaucracy). Others rolled their eyes at the idea of Christian community as an attempt to turn us into the Amish or a monastic community. Of course, many of these same moqueurs lived on a seminary campus for three years, immersed in the Bible, confessions, and patristic writings, with lives ordered by the centrality of the worship schedule of the chapel, study, time spent making lifelong bonds of brotherhood with seminarians and their families, and living a countercultural Logocentric and cruciform life, embracing biblical heteronormativity, an exclusively-male clergy, the order of creation in the family, and submission to the Word of God - not to mention putting on a black shirt with a white collar that confesses before the world that we who pursue this life are set apart from the world.

Seminary professors essentially live the Benedict Option, as their very homes, neighborhoods, employment, and day to day life are lived out in a tightly-knit Christian community that extends beyond the three years of campus life that is lived by the students. And this sense of community is a boon to both our professors and their students, which is to say, to our future pastors who are being formed for service.

Dreher came up with the title The Benedict Option based on philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s book After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory, in which the author calls to mind the lifestyle of Christians living in the days of the Roman Empire’s collapse - who essentially safeguarded and restarted civilization around the Rule of St. Benedict and the idea of Christian communities springing up in concentric circles around these Benedictine centers of Christian civilization, learning, worship, and community. In After Virtue, MacIntyre says that we in the present age are awaiting “another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.”

Dreher explains:

Today, a new post-Christian barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it, and their churches are too weak to resist. Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis. What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church. The goal: to embrace exile from the mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture.

And so, he suggests that Christians should be more intentional about seeking out the likeminded, especially within the household of faith. He calls upon us to be more hospitable with one another, sharing our lives, withdrawing from the corrupted institutions of the world, and creating our own infrastructures (which is what our Lutheran forbears did by instituting parochial schools that taught the faith instead of undermining it). And contrary to some straw-man responses, Dreher is not suggesting political quietism or sticking our heads in the sand. He is not advocating a complete severance from the world, or a surrender from the idea of being salt and light. So stop typing that comment now, girlfriend. I know you’re out there.

This is hardly radical or new. We Lutherans have a strong heritage of this very thing. But we, alas, as we became more Americanized, we desired to become “like everyone else” - not unlike the Israelites in 1 Sam 8. And as the culture continues to degenerate, as Christians become increasingly marginalized - we would do well to be more proactive in how we live our lives, go about our work, raise our children, and contribute to civilization. We don’t know what the future holds. We may be facing centuries of a new dark age followed by the return of Christ when the Church may dwindle to a handful of people, or there may be a great backlash in our time that restores a sense of virtue to western society and the world.

We just don’t know.

But we do need to live in the here and now, in a world where Biblical Christianity is increasingly identified with hatred, where the idea that the freedom of religion is a preeminent natural right is increasingly seen as a retrograde and dangerous superstition, where the normal family is recast as evil, where deviancy is normalized, where there are now second- and third- generations of people in our country who have no idea who Jesus is, what the Bible is, or what the Church is. The abortion holocaust continues to rage, gender extremists are gaining ground every day, and our history is being rewritten by Neo-Orwellians. All of the major institutions of society, public and private sector alike, are increasingly pressuring conformity to a jackbooted antichristian agenda in the Gramscian juggernaut “march through the institutions “. It is becoming a problem as to how our children should be educated, for whom should they work, how they will find faithful spouses, and how much of the world’s entertainment they should ingest.

One trend that I have seen over the past several weeks is heartening.

I have run into a large number of the laity - mostly young couples - who are making life decisions based on where they can find a faithful congregation. This is not how things were when I was growing up. We went to school, and we got jobs. If the best pay and opportunity for advancement took us out of state, away from family, and even to a place where there were no faithful churches - so be it. We had to “make a living.” Our jobs were the top priority.

Early in my ministry, I had a young parishioner who nailed his dream job in another state. Some time after expressing his uncontainable excitement, he finally got around to asking me what church he should attend. Sadly, there was none anywhere nearby that I could recommend. The state he was moving to was a confessional wasteland. When I reported this to him and to his mother, they were utterly crestfallen. But he was not crestfallen enough to change his plans, not enough to decline the job. It reminded me of the tragic passage of the rich young man in Matt 19:16-22, who, upon being called to follow Jesus, “went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

I too fell for this temptation in my twenties. I took a job with zero consideration about church attendance. In time, God pushed me around like a piece on a chessboard, and somehow, I ended up in the office of the holy ministry in spite of myself. I’m still scratching my head, but gratefully.

By contrast, I am finding more and more people who are deliberately and proactively moving to cities and towns that have solid, liturgical, confessional congregations and pastors. And I have also met people who have turned down lucrative work based on the lack of a church community to join. And in one sense, I think Covid-19 had a small silver lining to it: it has diminished the importance of physical location to one’s employment. Homeschooling has also made it possible for children to be educated anywhere. More and more people are able to work from home or run businesses over the Internet.

I have met numerous Christian people, living in these gray and latter days, who see how important belonging to a faithful Christian community is to them and to their children - who in some cases have not yet even been conceived. And it is not only young couples ordering their lives around the locus of altar, font, and pulpit instead of salary, benefits, and ambition. Retired people, and even the middle aged are now more likely than ever to be willing to pull up the stakes, sell the home, and seek out a likeminded community of brothers and sisters in Christ.

And this is really what the Benedict Option is all about. The days are long over when we could essentially locate anywhere, find a faithful confessional Lutheran church and a parochial school nearby, a church that uses the hymnal and worships according to the liturgy, one with a faithful pastor who handles the Word of God rightly - whether at the altar, in the pulpit, or while giving private pastoral care. And as our society has disintegrated, so too has the unity of our churches. One must now be discerning in deciding at what altar to commune and where one’s children will be born again of water and the Spirit.

And as we have all learned in the aftermath of the coronavirus, even introverts like me need community. After all, the Greek word for Church means “assembly.” And this doesn’t happen by Zoom or by simply calling oneself a Lutheran without having a congregation to be a part of. My hat is off to our faithful laity who have made the kingdom their top priority. This is something that we pastors should encourage and exhort our parishioners to. And for all of the bashing of the Benedict Option, that’s really all that it is.

TGC 114 —Why We’re Losing People

It seems like every generation has had to deal with this question: Why are we losing people? And since Covid, the question is becoming all the more intense. In this episode, Larry Peters (pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Clarksville, TN) discusses what he sees from his vantage point . . . from the pulpit over the past forty years. Peters writes at http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com.

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