The Burr in the Burgh

My blogging buddy, Darrell, from over at SouthCon left the following comment on one of my earlier posts. I urge you to read it. And then my thoughts below it.

As a Catholic, I am officially authorized to announce to the other members of my Christian family (in other words, Protestants) that the RCC doesn't hold the copyright on things like making the sign of the cross, displaying crucifixes, statues, paintings and murals, liturgical music (as opposed to this stuff), etc. Feel free to add any or all of these things to your practice. You might be surprised at how much they help your focus and your devotion to our Lord and Savior. That's kinda why we use them in the first place.

I promise you that if you make the sign of the cross, no Catholic will swoop down on you, grap you up and say "Ha ha! You screwed up! Now you're Catholic! I'm taking you to Rome to be branded with the Fisherman's ring!"

And I'll tell you something else... but this part is top secret, so don't let it get out, OK? Ready? Here it is: We Roman Catholics don't hold the copyright on Mary, either. That's right! Our Protestant brothers and sisters are free to look to the mother of Christ for inspiration and for a beautiful Christian example any time they want to! In fact... and get this, this is gonna knock your socks off.. you can even pray the Rosary (and find that it's an amazingly rewarding meditative experience) without waking up the next morning tied to a pew in St. Peter's Basilica! Shhhhhh! Don't let that cat out of the bag!

Darrell is having a bit of fun and being playfully facetious. But he's right and I want to address it seriously.

Lutherans who object to paintings, mosaics, murals, icons, statues, or crucifixes in their churches simply do not know or understand their own heritage. The Lutheran Reformers NEVER objected to these things. In fact, Martin Luther came out of hiding, risking his own life, to put a stop to the radical destruction of churches that was taking place in his name during his absence.

On making the sign of the cross. It is precisely because some Lutherans frown on this practice that I will do it all the more. How dare anyone try to restrict my freedom to remind myself of my baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, as a pastor, I make the sign of the cross at numerous points throughout the liturgy, both upon myself and upon my congregation to mark us all as those redeemed by Christ, the crucified.

In 1529, Martin Luther wrote a morning and evening prayer in his Small Catechism, a booklet that every Lutheran should be instructed from. And Luther says: "In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say, In the Name of the Father.... Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord's Prayer." And he gives the same instructions for in the evening when going to bed.

On private confession, Luther said in his Large Catechism, a book our church pledges to follow: "When I urge you to go to confession, I am simply urging you to be a Christian."

On Mary and the Saints, the Augsburg Confession (another text our church pledges to follow) says, "It is also taught among us that saints should be kept in remembrance so that our faith may be strengthened when we see what grace they received and how they were sustained in faith. Moreover, their good works are to be an example for us...." And of course, as Melanchthon was quick to add, "However, it cannot be proved from the Scriptures that we are to invoke saints or seek help from them."

Certainly there are real and substantive differences between the Church of Rome and the Lutheran Reformation. But it is counter-productive when the ill-informed try to create differences where they don't exist, all because of some irrational aversion to things that look Catholic. Many such Lutherans are really closet Baptists. (No offense intended to my very fine Baptist Christian friends. I'm just struggling for a renewal of Lutheran identity.).

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Before there was The Devil Wears Prada or Bridget Jones's Diary, there was Jane Austen. While I've never read an Austen novel, I do tend to enjoy the movies and BBC productions based on them. Hey, at least I'm comfortable enough with my manhood to admit it.

The other night, my wife and I watched the recent version of Pride & Prejudice and I thought it was terrific. Read my wife's thoughts on the matter here. Yes, it's all that romantic, falling-in-love, gooey stuff. But it is also so much more.

Austen really knew how to put words together. I just love listening the sound of the dialogue.

Speaking of reading classic romance, I've decided to take
Anna Karenina with me as my travel read on my upcoming mission trip to Siberia. It's a 17 hour plane trip there. Then there'll be several days aboard the trans-siberian railway. And another marathon flight home.

I have high expectations for ol' Tolstoy. Maybe, just maybe, there'll be a gunfight or a car chase or zombies or at least bad guys with gruesome facial scars, stuff a guy like me can appreciate. If not, I'll settle for exquisite writing.

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Thanks to the good folks at Purgatorio for this. I hope they won't mind that I borrow the pic.

For the sake of full disclosure. I am a pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). This is not a picture from my church, however.

But I have to ask the question: What is Patriotic Worship? Someone please tell me.

Is it a Christian worship service with a special prayer or two for our nation, a chorus of God Bless Our Native Land, and a memorial for those who've given their lives in the armed forces? That could reasonably be done.

But it is a serious problem when pious well-meaning Christians begin to confuse the two kingdoms, the kingdom of power and the kingdom of grace. We treat the flag with equal reverence (or more) as a cross. The sayings of the founding fathers become sacred texts. We start to think it is the role of the civil government to preach the gospel. Or the gospel of Jesus Christ is subtley, incrementally exchanged for the good news of being an American.

Some well-meaning, pious American Christians who believe that God has a special plan for America, almost as if the US is the new Israel, God's chosen. This is a serious and potentially dangerous error.

I have said it before and things like this make me want to emphasize it all the more. There is no place for an American flag in God's sanctuary. When you come into God's house, you leave all other allegiances at the door. God is not an American. Nations rise and fall. This nation will rise and fall. The church is for all people, all nations. God shows no favoritism and is no respecter of persons.

Does patriotic worship mean that non-American Christians would be unable to fully participate? Will Jesus Christ predominate? Or some other savior and some other type of salvation?

Actually, if they are going to have "Patriotic Worship" then I'm glad they put it on the sign. That way I'd know to avoid it like the plague.

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A couple of days ago, I blogged that not only was The Da Vinci Code a slap at orthodox Christianity but it was also a misrepresentation of the gnostic philosophy it supposedly espouses. Here is that post.

I was very interested to get the following comment:

I am glad that you both had the realization and wrote about it. One (filled in) Gospel of Philip quote does not a Gnostic make.

Brown is as Gnostic as he is Catholic. And I don't know if he is more of an ignoramus or someone able to push peoples buttons and pull people's stings.

Just thought you might appreciate a confirmation from a Gnostic.

I love it. An honest-to-goodness Gnostic agrees with me about Brown's book. I was fascinated to find out more about my commenter. Go here and here.

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Some time ago, I read Gene Veith's review of Wolf Time by Lars Walker. It motivated me to purchase the book off Amazon. I began reading it today and boy, is it a fun ride!

Dr. Veith has commented further about Walker's writing here.

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There is new and easy way to raise money for your favorite charity just by searching the Internet with GoodSearch.com.

It's simple. You use GoodSearch.com like any other search engine — the site is powered by Yahoo! — but each time you do, money is generated for the cause you select. Naturally, I recommend you select Concordia Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh, PA.

Last year, search engines generated close to $6 billion in revenue from advertisers. With GoodSearch part of this advertising revenue will now be directed to your cause of choice.

I hope that not only will you use GoodSearch as your main search engine from here on out, but will also pass this message on to your friends and family. The more people who use this, the more money will go to good causes.

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Darrell and Wendy are back with their movie reveiws! Yippeee!! Go here.

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I am currently teaching a four-part class on the book-and-movie-which-shall-not-be-named. Attendance for the class is higher than typical but still disappointingly low, given the subject matter. But then again, American Idol is on Tuesdays so what else should I expect?

At one point last night I caught myself and said I would call Dan Brown an ignoramus but that has such negative connotations. Even so, it's an accurate adjective if ever there was one. Here is where the people who think I'm not nice enough to heretics and blasphemers can leave and go watch Oprah. (Being "not nice" is always a worse sin than screwing up the gospel).

The fact of the matter is that Mr. Brown is an ignorant buffoon. I'm not saying he's stupid. Just ignorant. Likewise, I am ignorant about how this computer works. So I'm not going to pretend I am otherwise and write a book about it.

Even with all that I've read and written and said about Brown's book, I had a minor epiphany while teaching last evening.

Here is the four-part structure of my class:

1) Introduction to the novel and the controversy
2) The Bible, it's origins
3) Jesus: God, Man, or God-Man?
4) The Sacred Feminine

Last night, I was talking about the historical development of the canon of the New Testament, the so-called lost books of the bible, the truth about Constantine and the Council of Nicea, the Nag Hammadi library, and the Dead Sea scrolls.

In some ways, I actually consider last night's topic one of the most important. The confusion about this subject is breath-taking.

Well anyway, along the course of the evening, questions arose about the nature of ancient gnosticism. So I began to drift away from my outline to discuss the basic tenets of this philosophy. And it was while doing so that it dawned on me that not only is Dan Brown misrepresenting Christianity, he is also misrepresenting gnosticism. I kicked myself for not making that connection sooner. Duh!

All this rubbish about the Nag Hammadi scrolls and the Dead Sea scrolls and the ignoramus in question not only gets wrong their role in Christian history, but he doesn't even represent gnosticism correctly. He claims that these texts were suppressed because they supposedly highlight the fact that Jesus was a mere man when in fact, quite the opposite is true. Gnostics typically believed that the material world was evil and that God could not/would not become a man.

Well, in any case, this blurb from Russell Moore spells it out better than I.

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A good post on the American flag in the sanctuary here.

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Scientists are saying that perhaps in the not-too-distant future they will be able to significantly slow the human aging process. Through genetic manipulation, they have already been able to extend the lives of flies, worms and mice. It's not eternal life, but it could mean the average life-span of an American could be double what it is today. Imagine living to be 140 years old. Think of still being in your physical prime when you are 80. Some of the researcher think this could just be a scratch on the surface and that humans may one day live for centuries.

I first heard about this research 5 or 6 years ago and the first thing I remember thinking was that it put a new light on those figures in the Old Testament who lived such remarkably long lives.

Read here for the full story.

What's your opinion of this research? Good idea or bad?

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Now this is an idea invented with me in mind. A remote control operated by remote.

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Even aside from the obvious moral problems of using human embryos for slice-and-dice research, do we really want lawmakers to earmark millions or billions of tax dollars for research that has yielded no benefit or hope for benefit?

See here.

Other research has shown that stem cells taken from umbilical cords and even cellulite (of which there is no shortage in the US presently), are far more promising. Ah, but that doesn't exalt the liberal sacrament of abortion, so who cares?

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It seems the majority of movie critics - not exactly supernovas of Christian apologetics - don't like Ron Howard's blasphemous movie. Go here to see what I mean.

My favorite quote so far is from John Beifuss of a Memphis paper: "You know a movie's a dud when even its self-flagellating albino killer monk isn't any fun."

Of course a close runner-up would be this searing evaluation by David Faraci: "Retarded, ridiculous and crushingly dull."

I guess I can think of a better way to blow 8 bucks. You?

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You think the earth suffers from over population? Most people do think so. But ask them why and they won't be able to give you any data to support their view. And that's because there isn't any. The earth is not over populated and isn't even close, nor will it likely ever be.

If all 6.4 billion citizens of the planet were stood next to one another, they could all fit in the city limits of Houston, Tx, with room to spare. If you gave ever single inhabitant of earth the space of a small apartment, all 6.4 billion could easily fit in the state of Texas.

The point is: there is plenty of room. The earth is a pretty big place. Related to my last post, I recognize that we have a responsibility to wisely manage our natural resources, a duty that becomes increasingly important as the population increases. But you can ignore the earth-worshippers and abortion activists that want to slow or even reverse human population growth. Their argument is nothing but a sham.

Check this out.

And this.

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In this week's issue of WORLD magazine, Gene Edward Veith has a characteristically clear-headed column, this one on how Christianity relates to the environmental movement.

Many conservative Christians avoid environmental discussions, mainly because it seems that the movement is controlled by extremists and weirdos. At times, it is hard to distinguish between Greens and neo-pagans, Wiccans, and Gaia worshippers.

Some in the environmental movement nowadays are even calling the human race a plague or virus on the earth and call for mass extermination.

In spite of the far-left hegemony of the movement, traditionalist Christians shouldn't allow their pendulum to swing too far the other direction. Just because some liberal mainline Protestants are indulging in New Agey eco-spirituality, doesn't mean that we should comfortably ignore legitimate ecological concerns.

Indeed the human race is the pinnacle of creation and of infinitely greater value than spotted owls or harp seals. And indeed God did grant mankind dominion over the earth. But this does not give us permission to be lousy stewards of what God provides through the natural world. It is a sin to waste what God, in His generous goodness, has given us to use. And it is a sin for us to carelessly destroy anything which God has made.

We don't have to worship dirt or hug trees in order to be careful managers or stewards of the earth's resources. Avoiding both extremes, Christian piety knows how to enjoy God's creation, assert the unique dignity of man in the natural realm, while wisely using all things in service to neighbor. As Veith conclude his article, "to conserve is a fitting goal for conservatives."

Read his commentary here.

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A new movie is on the way about Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. It's to be called Nativity and will be released this coming December.

To the left is the young New Zealender girl, Keisha Castle-Hughes, who was nominated for an Oscar for Whale Rider. She is playing Mary.

The initial reports are that the movie will be a respectful telling of the story of Mary in Nazareth, her betrothal to Joseph, the visit of the angel Gabriel, Mary's visit to Elizabeth, the Roman census and the journey to Bethelem, the birth of Christ, the visit of the wise men, and the flight to Egypt to escape Herod's wrath. It appears that the script is faithful to the Gospel narratives and fills in certain narrative blanks with pious tradition.

I am anxious to read more. This could be a wonderful film for the Christmas season or another hotbed of religious controversy. The information available suggests it'll be more the former than the latter.

Check out more here.

UPDATE: I've seen the film and comment on it here.

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Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO has this interview with historian Dr. Paul Maier. It's worth your attention.

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This is a very perceptive article from USA Today. While probing the New Age religiosity of Winfrey and her Joel Osteen-like evangel, cultural observers are quoted who see Miss Winfrey as contemporary America's leading guru and pastor.

I found it interesting that one of the specific examples the article cited was the prayer service held in Yankee's Stadium shortly at 9/11, a pan-religious service over which Winfrey presided.

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On yesterday's post regarding the movie United 93, a friend left a simple comment. I said people should go see the film and he asked why. Here is what I wrote in response:

Pastor Peperkorn,
Fair Question. First, it's a powerful and moving story. But I don't think I've ever seen a movie about such a topic that was so detached and w/o commentary. It's like you're just standing there witnessing what's going on. None of the people seem like actors at all. It is nothing like any Hollywood film I've ever seen. Almost documentary-like. Without all the cinematic tricks to manipulate your emotions, you are left to react purely to the events. I think it's masterfully done, frankly.

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Julie and I went to see United 93 this evening. It's a must-see.

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I am currently studying a little book by Paul Althaus called The Ethics of Martin Luther. It's sort of a companion to Althaus's better known The Theology of Martin Luther. As far as I can tell, the ethics book is out-of-print. Maybe Concordia Publishing House could get the rights to republish it.

Just for fun, here are some jottings just from my first page of notes:

• ...Justification through faith alone is of fundamental significance for the proper understanding and realization of the ethical life (xix)


• No man ever surrenders his heart to the will of God as completely as the command of God requires


• "A man may do many good things but still not be a good man, because his heart is never pure but always divided and enslaved in sin." (4)


• "A good conscience is not the product but the source of the Christian ethos." (5)


• Sin contaminates everything we do, even our outwardly good works.


• "our activity is really good in God's judgment only if we act with the right feelings and attitude toward God." (7)
  


• A deed may be "good" on the surface in that it is obedience to a divine command and serves the neighbor. But if it is done in unfaith, it is sin before God.


• "A work may be very ethical in terms of its substance even thought it is done in unfaith; if so, it is sin in God's judgment (Romans 14:23)." (8)


• "In the ethical sense my action is good if done in response to God's command. In the meta-ethical sense, my action is good, despite its constant impurity, because of God's act of justification." (7)
  


• "Thus Christian activity is good, despite all the sinfulness that remains within us, because it is done in faith." (8)


• "The Holy Spirit is restless in us and cannot remain idle; and as a result, the Christian is also not idle but is rather filled with energy and acts in such a way that he pleases God." (12)
  

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Aardvark Alley is one of my favorite Lutheran blogs. I check it daily.

I have recently been notified that I have been designated a winner of the highly prestigious and widely coveted Golden Aardvark award for two of my recent posts. Go here to check it out.

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Well, it's finally getting put together. We are Concordia Lutheran Church in the borough of Brentwood, Pittsburgh, Pa. Go to concordiabrentwood.org.

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Darrell, over at SouthCon, says it best. Go here.

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Wanna read retired Episcopal Bishop John Spong's 12 Theses for reforming Christianity, go here. Thanks Dr. Veith.

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In the current issue of Leadership journal, there is an interview with megachurch pastor, Andy Stanley, who happens also to be the son of well-known radio preacher Dr. Charles Stanley.

I wonder if it's just a coincidence that he talks about pastors as shepherds since tomorrow is Good Shepherd Sunday in our lectionary (John 10).



Here is the pertinent quote:

Should we stop talking about pastors as "shepherds"?

Absolutely. That word needs to go away. Jesus talked about shepherds because there was one over there in a pasture he could point to. But to bring in that imagery today and say, "Pastor, you're the shepherd of the flock," no. I never seen (sic) a flock. I've never spent five minutes with a shepherd. It was culturally relevant in the time of Jesus, but it's not culturally relevant any more.

The rest of the interview is him describing the office of the ministry purely in business terms. According to him, the old pastor as shepherd model is outdated, culturally irrelavant, and should be supplanted. So if Jesus were around today, he wouldn't have said, "I am the good shepherd," but what? I am the good CEO? I am the good administrator? And whereas he told Peter to "feed my lambs," today he'd say what? Build my team? Grow my organization?

Incidentally, this reminds me of the C.S. Lewis quote from his Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer where he says that Christ told Peter to "feed my sheep," not "experiment on my rats" or "teach my dogs new tricks."

If you erase the image of shepherd from the biblical teaching on the pastoral ministry and substitute it with purely business related motifs, you come up with a quite different animal. And it alters the nature and office of Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd.


Two thoughts:

• Pay attention to what kind of books your pastor reads. If he does not read, encourage him to do so. The congregation should expect their pastors to be bookish and scholarly. Not nerdy or geeky or socially inept. Nor neglecting his other duties. But as St. Paul stated, "apt to teach." When your pastor spends an afternoon reading and mulling over a text of theology, he is not relaxing. He is not wasting time. He is working. Studying is working. But what does he read? Check his bookshelves, if you can. My point is this. Andy Stanley said that the only books he reads are "business and history." History, I get. And business, OK. But that is it? What about books of doctrine, biblical studies, apologetics, church history, current events, etc.? What about fine works of literature, old and new?
  
  
• Pay attention to your pastor's vocabulary. When he speaks, is it the language of business/management that you hear primarily? Or the lingo of the behavioral sciences? Or is it biblical and theological?
  

I'm not saying that using vocabulary from other disciplines is necessarily bad or wrong. And I'm definitely not in favor of archaic haughty church-speak that no one understands. In the balance, it is a fact that God's Church has its own vocabulary and ways of defining things. We must not be shy about that. But at the same time that we speak God's Word accurately and faithfully, we can learn to do so in a down-to-earth manner. Just as you are what you eat, to a great extent you are what you read. And how we speak - especially when it comes to God, His Christ and the salvation of sinners - truly shapes and determines (not merely reflects) how we think.




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