What’s worse than a false dichotomy? The failure to recognize a true dichotomy. President Harrison’s latest discovered truth is in his words garnered from “studying and paging through my Greek New Testament” yet, strangely enough, it is quoted from Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. It is that witness and confession belong together (Lutheran Witness, December 2010, 29). Continue reading
Stamping on C-4
C-4 is a plastic explosive I was trained to use. You could take a piece of this white doughy substance and safely heat your C-Rations. But if you tried to put that fire out by stamping on it, the resulting explosion could blow your foot off. Stamping on C-4 is what I might be doing in this review of the Rev. Dr. John Kleinig’s Grace Upon Grace. Continue reading
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Studies in Progress to form a Synod
That’s what the headline of the press release should have been from the latest meeting of the ACELC Steering Committee and the LCMS. But below is what it was. I kept the ! and didn’t change it to 1 because this comes from the meeting like from the Medes and the Persians. You’re not allowed to change anything, so I didn’t. (I suspect it comes this way from the Synod side not the ACELC side.) Continue reading
Posted in Missouri Megatrends
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The Sound of Silence
I don’t think Simon and Garfunkel were praising the sound of silence in their song by that name. After all, they have the line “Silence like a cancer grows.” They don’t appear to praise silence; I do. Continue reading
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What’s Wrong with the Church?
I wrote this 14 years ago for Vox Sine Nomine. It’s still true to today. Continue reading
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Speaking the Same Old Things to Homosexuals
The fall 2010 issue of Higher Things has an anonymous article entitled “Speaking Hope to Homosexuals,” but I find it speaking the same old things. Continue reading
Posted in For Anyone who dares
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The More you Know the More You Trust Bayer
That’s a slogan for Bayer aspirin, but I think it might apply to the German theologian by the same surname. Granted he has a lingering case of higher criticism, but two doses from him can spare us in Missouri some self-inflicted hangovers. There are two really good points to take away from Bayer’s book Martin Luther’s Theology. Taken like aspirin of the same name they might ward off a theological hangover. Continue reading
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CTCR catches up to Ptolemy
The CTCR’s latest report “Together with all Creatures” April 2010 perpetuates a modern myth: that the space program first taught us how small we are. Continue reading
Posted in Missouri Megatrends
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Bizzaro Martin
This post is to illustrate that Lutherans better not “believe in” Martin Luther. We better not hold that everything he said, even from the pulpit, is a true exposition of the Word of God. It also points out the dangers of anthologies. Continue reading
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Horsemanship
Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day. I don’t know why it’s not horsewomanship since it seems to me that women are fonder of horses and better with them than men are. But then again the “Horse whisper” was male. I digress.
Posted in For Anyone who dares, General
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