Why Lutherans can't sing

together. These days we're having a musical style problem--our church (UALC) has four--but 200 years ago American Lutherans weren't even speaking the same language. Some Lutheran immigrants didn't have an English hymnal until the late 19th or early 20th century. Here's a very interesting history by Gracia Grindal from the archives of ICM SW Minn. WordAlone Newsletter

"The first Lutherans in this country, those who would regard the Muhlenberg tradition as their own, what became the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA), had been here for several generations when a new wave of immigrants from Germany, Sweden and Norway began landing on American shores. These Lutherans settled in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and later the Dakotas. When they got here, unused to the pluralism of America, they thought the old Lutherans had been theologically corrupted by their American context which they saw, perhaps, most clearly in their English hymnals with hymns by Watts and Wesley, which these immigrants did not recognize as Lutheran.

The new immigrants did not speak English and needed hymnals in their own languages, not the English versions that members of the Muhlenberg tradition had prepared over the years. So the Germans of the Missouri Synod began producing their own materials in their own languages, as did the Ohio Synod, as did the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Finns, Icelanders, and Slovakians. Read the whole article.

Upside down prayer

It's a good idea to get your focus on Jesus first; then get out the laundry list. Start with the cross and resurrection. That you can pray in confidence with no doubt or hesitation.



Martin Luther said many times that prayer was hard work, more difficult than preaching. "Satan resists Christ at all points and would love to keep a person from hearing any Gospel anywhere, from believing and living and doing it. Just so he also hinders the work of prayer, keeps on from gladly praying, and makes it very difficult to get at it; for he knows well what the might and influence of prayer are, knows that Christians have no stronger protection and power against his might."

There's room for you

on the cruise to the Holy Land, March 2009. UALC folks are cruising! We are going and so are a lot of our friends--Cairo, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Haifa, Sea of Galilee, Antioch, Tarsus, Antalya, Aspendos, Perga, Ephesus, Athens and Corinth. Wow. I'm worn out already.

Luther and Religious Education

"The emphasis on Christian education is not what it once was in Lutheran circles. Some branches of Lutheranism have practically conceded all education to the state, attempting to fill the void in spiritual training with youth programs, family ministries, and the like. Some Lutheran church bodies no longer support a system for training ministers of the gospel to any great extent. Among others, support for such a system is waning rapidly.

One sometimes hears of Lutheran pastors and teachers that no longer teach the catechism to any great extent, of others that require little, if any, memory work. What would Luther say? Would he say that since times have changed, the Small Catechism is no longer relevant? Would he say that children can no longer be expected to memorize the chief parts of the catechism, or Scripture verses, or
hymn stanzas? Would he say that more important than doctrine is making children feel good about themselves, helping them realize their full potential as human beings, and keeping them entertained and happy all the time?

If Luther could speak today, it is this writer’s opinion that he would have more than a few choice words (maybe even some very colorful and shocking words) to say to our society and possibly even to many of those who bear the name Lutheran."

"If we fail to put forth our best efforts to establish and maintain Lutheran educational institutions, if we are not willing to do whatever it takes and to spend whatever is necessary to give our children and young people a Christian education, if we let our children and young people decide for themselves what to believe or
how to live, then we can be certain that the devil will quickly take over. A smattering of religious knowledge would seem to be hardly enough these days to keep our children strong in the faith. There are too many temptations, too many dangers, too many pitfalls. Add to that the concerted efforts of anti-Christian social engineers who not only seek to remove all evidence of Christianity from our society,
but who strive to portray Christianity as ignorant, repressive, and even offensive. Faced with such opposition and persecution, it is the rare young Christian who can remain steadfast unless he or she is firmly grounded in the faith."

Luther and Religious Education, by Mark Lenz, Lutheran Synod Quarterly, 46:1, 2006. Evangelical Lutheran Synod [this is not ELCA].

Is this the long awaited messiah proof for the Darwinistas?

"Australia's unique duck-billed platypus -- an egg-laying, furry animal with web feet that spends most of its time underwater -- is in fact part bird, part reptile and part mammal according to its gene map." Science News

Baptism by immersion

I don't remember exactly when I was baptised--it was either 1950 or 1951, at the Church of the Brethren on Seminary Ave. in Mt. Morris, Illinois. But I clearly remember the event, and the six weeks of study with Rev. Statler that preceded it, because we lived in another town and it meant a Sunday afternoon drive. But I didn't know this about immersion baptism:

"The plunging of an adult or an infant into the baptismal font three times is the most important moment in the baptismal ceremony, and meant to be the most moving one as well. Most of us understand that this action is associated with the Trinity. It is. But the more ancient association is with the three days Jesus lay in the tomb. This is one reason why the Church now encourages candidates for baptism to be fully immersed wherever practicable. The sprinkling of water over a catechumen's head just doesn't capture the drama which the ritual intends. But when we see a person take a breath, plunge under the water, and come up for air three times, we can powerfully see the identification between Jesus' time in the tomb and the person rising to new life in Christ."

This is from a blog at a Roman Catholic site, America, the National Catholic Weekly. There is content from the print issue, and then there is on-line only material, which is where I found the link to the two blogs, one on preaching and one by editorial staff and contributors.

An assortment of authors

It could scramble one's brain--if they weren't all pointing to Jesus. I'm reading (or dipping into) four Christian authors of totally different traditions and writing centuries apart, yet they all say much the same. Oswald Chambers (late 19th century, Baptist, Holiness), My Utmost for his Highest, particularly those daily readings that focus on intercession and the cross; St. John of the Cross (Carmelite, Roman Catholic Saint, 16th century), The impact of God; Jeremiah Burroughs (Puritan, 17th century), "Christ is all in all" (sermon); and A.C. Wieand (Church of the Brethren, founder of Bethany Seminary, mid-20th century), who drew from many traditions, The Gospel of Prayer (1953). The frayed, second hand Wieand book I've had on my shelves at Lakeside for probably 15-20 years, and yet this week-end I opened it with a fresh eye and it seemed to come alive, reading it in the context of the other writers who direct us beyond on our damaged, sinful lives and troubles to the purity and holiness of Jesus Christ. In the words of Burroughs, Wieand fits perfectly:

"That which I shall this day endeavor is to show you something of the glory of God shining in this truth: that God communicates Himself through a Mediator, through His Son. It is absolutely necessary for you to know if you would have eternal life. It is possible to be ignorant of many other truths and still be saved, but there must be something of this or there can be no salvation. The mistake in this very thing is the miscarriage and the eternal undoing of thousands upon thousands of souls. Many believe that they have need of, and can never be saved without, God's mercy. The light of nature convinces us of this. But they are ignorant of, and do not see the reality of, this truth: that God communicates His mercy through a Mediator. They miscarry and perish eternally with cries to God for mercy because they come to God, but not through a Mediator."

Oh, that there could be more substance and solid food in contemporary Christian books which seem to be so choked by anecdotal cotton candy and tangential concepts like diets or parenting or church growth or signs from the headlines. But praise God for the classics!

Sometimes Luther didn't recognize his own pirated works

When I see Luther paraphrased for this or that cause within the church--global warming, illegal sanctuary, marriage for gays, radical feminism--in such a way and useage we can't even understand the quote or source, it's good to remember it isn't new--it happened in the 16th century, too.

Greed goes to work and plays this mean trick on the publishers of my books: Others quickly reprint the productions soon after their appearance and in this way use the labor and cost of our men for their own profit. . . they pay little attention to the accuracy or the inaccuracy of their reprints. And so it has often happened to me that, reading the text of the reprinters, I have in many places not recognized my own work and have had to revise it anew. They do things in a hit-and-miss manner; their object is money." What Luther Says, vol II, Concordia (1959) p. 848