Mendacity as a Virtue

Here is another sign that our society is collapsing: Mendacity is now proclaimed as a virtue.  Mendacity is defined as the tendency to lie, or lying itself.  People have always lied, throughout history.  For much of this nation’s history, deliberate deceit has been considered a bad thing.  In modern America, it is now considered a virtue.  Oh, not by everyone, just by the leaders and shapers of public opinion (such as the media) and such.  Mendacity is a good thing.

It was probably growing for a long time unnoticed.  Every politician knows that a little deceit is a powerful campaign tool.  It began to flower when Bill Clinton was president.  When he boldly lied about his relations with that female intern, the media gushed over how well he lied and how useful a lie could be.  Articles even appeared in various publications about how lying was good, useful, profitable, and healthy at times.

Today, politicians, particularly the president, can openly and boldly say things that are easily demonstrable as lies not only without being challenged on the deceit, but being applauded for saying that which is false as though it were true.  Advocates for various political agendas can, if the goal is “politically correct”, openly say things that are false to advance their agenda without fear of being challenged.  Their patent lies will be cited, quoted, and rehearsed by the media and others who would endorse their cause.  Challenging the veracity of such obvious deception is attacked as an assault on the speaker, or adherence to outdated ideas, or *gasp!* fundamentalism of some sort.

Public policy is now being formulated on the basis of mendacity.  The ten percent of the population that pays eighty percent of the taxes paid in this country are still not paying their “fair share”.  The fifty percent of the population who pay less than five percent of the taxes are overburdened.  The mentally ill individual that misuses a firearm tragically is evidence that the average, law-abiding citizen should have his or her second amendment rights curtailed.  The cooling of the earth over the last two decades is proof of “global warming”.  The dramatic increase in the world population of polar bears is evidence that they are endangered.  The erosion of our economy, with higher unemployment, fewer (by millions) in the workforce, and a deep decline in average incomes in our nation is cited as evidence of nearly robust recovery from a recession even though marked by failures of businesses and banks on a scale not seen in America in over fifty years.  And the massive increase in the deficit of this nation is proof that we are not spending too much, . . . somehow.

Politicians lie to get elected and then lie to explain their nearly inexplicable actions.  Media personalities misrepresent the positions of politicians and other public figures – and their own statements of the past – depending on whether they wish to advance or hinder the work of those public figures about which they report.  What is a virtue for one is a sin for another.  The double standard is breath-taking.  Criminal activity by some hardly merits mention, but taking a sip of water during a speech is proof of some cosmic failure in another.  Even when they acknowledge a lie, they may often marvel at how effective it has been, without correcting it or decrying the deceit. For such people, mendacity is a virtue to be admired rather than a failure or character flaw.

I could expand this post by a discussion of false doctrine and unfaithful church practices that are being advanced, but it would make this post much longer.  Suffice it to say that those who are charged with defending the truth often do not, and those who should know better follow the crowd rather than the Lord in their teachings.  There are some faithful, but far too few.  This is the one place where deceit is to be expected.  The Lord promised us that it would be so.  It is not a good thing, but it is a mark of the times and of the truth of the prophecies that such things (and such people) would happen.

No society can stand for long without reality as its foundation.  No political system can endure the embrace of the lie for long.  The Church alone can stand in such an environment, and that only because God is control and will not allow His Church to disappear completely.  The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  Deceit will inevitably destroy such a society, however, because no one will know what to stand for, or where true value lies.  Perhaps that is the reason for the adoption of mendacity as a virtue.  The goal may well be the dissolution of our nation as it exists and the establishment of something other.  If things don’t change, I suspect the great American experiment with freedom and democratic ideals is over, and although it was a great success, it has been manipulated into failure in the end.

May God have mercy on us all.

The Time Is Right

I am wrestling with a cold.  I am too sick to do anything productive, so I was looking at various things that popped up in Google -- articles and blogs and the like.  I saw nothing enormously good, so it was a reasonable sick-time activity.

I noticed a number of pieces, blogs and such, that focused on spiritual sounding topics from a non-spiritual perspective.  One listed twelve rules of a personal philosophy about how to become a better you.  Another observed the tendency of people in our modern world to invent things to be distressed about: Zombies, phony apocalypses, potential but unlikely disasters and the like.  One writer saw the problem as boredom.  Another saw it as a flaw in human nature.  Many of the articles sounded like Christian writings of our era, only struggling to not sound Christian.

The sense I came away from the articles (as a group) with was how the world really needs what Christ has provided.  One article actually used a progression of something like 'malady -repentance - redemption'.  There was no mention of Christ or how this closely followed the sin-repentance-redemption of the Christian Gospel.  But the world around us is trying to make sense of what only God can explain.  They want a self-improvement program that echoes what the Gospel teaches us about our conduct as His people.  They are bored with this decaying world and need something to focus them and lead them through to a salvation of some sort.  They need the Law and the Gospel, they just don't know it, and they don't want the misrepresentations that so many religious bodies advance instead of the Gospel.

Jesus had it right, and it is still true today: The fields are white unto harvest.  Pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into the fields.

Without a thought

The sorrowful events at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, have inspired a new and ferocious round of calls for "gun control", by which they generally mean dis-allowing the Second Amendment and taking all guns from law-abiding citizens everywhere.

The events at the school are terrible.  They are, however, no worse than the Benghazi murders, except in scale.  They are no more of a tragedy (and no less!) than any of the murders that take place routinely in this country.  The sad fact is that if the  gunman had no access to firearms, he could still kill.  The progress of this twisted soul was aided by the legal requirement that no law-abiding person in that place have a gun, unless he or she might be a police officer -- which apparently was not present at the school.  There was no one who could have effectively responded to the evil-doer with the gun.  That requirement is part of the agenda of those who now use these unfortunate deaths to promote further gun-control.

Scale doesn't actually justify calling this a tragedy.  For each family involved, it is a horror and great sorrow, but for mankind, or even for this nation, hardly a tragedy.  The events in Newton equal about ten minutes worth of our daily average of abortions; all children, all helpless, all murdered, deliberately, by a heartless killer.  The only real difference is that the killer in abortion has the apparent complicity of the mother of the child.  But the roughly 4,000 that die each day in abortion is surely a greater tragedy than those twenty murdered children.

Except, abortion is defended as a "right" and celebrated by many of the same people who now cry out for the disarming of the decent, law-abiding people who had nothing whatever to do with the murderous rampage of that sick man.  One Democrat politician in New York, a member of Congress, was refreshingly honest about it, saying that we need to "exploit" these shootings to advance the gun-control agenda.  Apparently, this is not a tragedy, it is an opportunity.

Do not misconstrue my remarks: I feel great compassion towards those who suffered a loss in this shooting.  For the families involved it is a tragedy.  We would only compound it if we were to withdraw from Americans yet more liberties as a response to this event, and disarm those who obey the law in the face of those, well-armed, who disregard the law and have evil intent toward the innocent.

Let us pray for those who suffered loss, and let us approach the issues before us rationally and not merely on the emotion of the moment.

No Wonder

The election board certifies the results of an election while admitting that the number of ballots cast was 141% of the registered voters.  In another state, President Obama records 100% of the votes in 56 precincts -- a feat rarely accomplished by dictators.  These are just two of the stories circulating on the internet news sites interested in reporting the truth.

It is clear that there is massive and repeated voter fraud, seemingly always in favor of the Democrat candidates, and there is hardly a peep.  Democracies die of such injuries.  What sorrow at seeing the deliberate destruction of our nation by our citizens, and overseen by those who were charged with preventing it and protecting us!

The Election

The election has locked the United States into socialism.  The newly re-elected president has already shut down oil drilling in the west.  He appears to be set on a course of deconstructing the nation into a second-rate third-world country.  The many groups that conspired to achieve this end will go down with the rest of us.  That is the single consolation in this mess.

Democrats have proven themselves the successors to the communist party - as the communist party has already said publicly.  They have no loyalty except to being elected and controlling power.  That the route they have chosen will unravel the "great experiment" that once was America means nothing to them.  They won the election.  They manipulated the electorate - deceitfully but effectively.  That is all that they care about.

The Republicans are already scrambling to surrender their convictions and go along with the flow, once again, to the detriment of the people, is one of the reasons I could never support them.  They say one thing and do what ever the Democrats tell them to.  Pathetic and miserable politicians.  The sad thing is that there are few representatives of the people in Washington.  Just rich people fighting over the scraps of power and wealth, while the rest of us go down the toilet.

By the time a change of power in Washington is possible, policies will be set in stone, and there will be only one opinion, shaded to be sure, but socialist and third-world.  I am delighted that I got to live in America while it was America.  I am saddened that I lived long enough to see it pass away.  I imagine that there is a special place reserved in hell for the media.  They betrayed us all and their own fundamental values to battle for the re-election of The President.  That reservation in hell is probably not true, but it is a comforting thought to entertain as I weather the bitter disappointment of seeing capitalism rejected and socialism embraced by the majority of this nation, and their (the Media's) willing betrayal of us all to that end.

"Trust not in princes."  That is what the Bible says.  I place my hope and comfort in the Lord.  The politics of man simply demonstrate his venality.  Still, the world has lost a wonderful thing, and the date its demise may be marked is November 6, 2012.

I have come to really dislike politics.  I cannot bring myself to vote for the "winning" side and voting for the losing ballot each election is really depressing.

Does Being Lutheran Matter Any Longer?

A number of fine posts have appeared addressing the question of whether being a Lutheran matters any longer or not.  The answers, and the clarification sought by Pastor Wilken, are excellent. Still, the question is not fully addressed until one understands that the question is actually, "Does truth matter any longer?", or "Does it really matter if one is a Christian any longer?".

One senses a reluctance in certain quarters to identify the Lutheran confession with truth, or the Lutheran faith with the Christian faith.  But what else is it?  If our confession is not the truth, why do we stand on it?  As one wise (and inspired) man once wrote, ". . . what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?  Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?  Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?"  And, if there is a difference between the Lutheran faith and the Christian faith, that the two may be distinguished as readily as many seem to do, why do we cling to that which is not fully or truly Christian?


No, Lutheran is Christian, and Christian is Lutheran, whether one bears the label or not.  To the degree that one's faith departs from true Lutheranism, ones faith also departs from the Christian faith.  Clever and sophistic evasions of this confession abound, but the truth of the matter is that if we cannot make that confession, we ought not to call ourselves Lutheran, and ought not to seek to cling to the Lutheran faith because the failure to be able to clearly confess this truth is to manifest that one is not really Lutheran, or one does not believe themselves and their faith to be fully and honestly Christian.

Now, this is not necessarily the approach to discussing the faith that I would recommend for outreach, but it surely a reasonable approach to teaching the faith to those who also call themselves "Lutheran".  People need to learn first about the faith before they will be ready to confront the reality of the counterfeits of the faith and the distortions of it that abound in the world.  But, if those who are charged with teaching the faith cannot readily confess the truth of what they teach, and say clearly that their faith IS the Christian faith and those confessions that disagree have disagreed with historic Christianity, who will?  And, what does their refusal to say so say about them?

Are there Christians outside of what is called "The Lutheran Church"?  I believe so, and surely hope so, but they hold a Lutheran confession to the extent that their confession is Christian.  I will also admit that everyone who calls themselves a Lutheran may not truly be a Lutheran.  That is sad, but it is also one of the logical conclusions of this post.  Those believers who do not call themselves Lutheran may hate the name, "Lutheran", but if they believe in Jesus Christ, and trust in His grace and hope for the blessings of the Gospel - like forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body, and life everlasting, all by grace - then they hold to the Lutheran, and therefore the Christian, faith. 

There is no real distinction between Christian and Lutheran, except, perhaps, the labels one chooses to apply to oneself.

VOTE!

I have been coming upon the meme in other blogs that people want to sit the election out because they do not like either candidate.  There is nothing less intelligent.  There are two men in position to be elected President.  One is the incumbent and has demonstrated what his agenda is and will be.  The other has staked out a position distinctly different from the current president.

Either Obama or Romney will be elected.  A vote for anyone but Romney strengthens the position of Obama, since incumbency has its own natural advantage.  Not voting also weakens the challenger and strengthens the incumbent.

Vote for Romney unless you want Obama as president and desire to see this nation slip into third world insolvency.

Choose.  Either you want Obama, or you want someone else.  Happily or sadly, only one man is in the position to be that someone else. 

If you love Romney, vote Romney. 

If you want Obama vote Obama.

If you honestly don't care, then vote anything but Romney, or don't bother voting.  But trust me, you WILL care within just months of the election, should Obama win re-election.

If you want a change in the occupant of the White House, vote Romney.

It really is just that simple.

Vote.  No matter what your political position is, VOTE!  It is a gift from God that we have the right do do so.  Use that gift.

Its Not Error.

The troubles in the church are always doctrinal.  Someone is trying to introduce something alien.  Usually it is called "something new", but as it says in Ecclesiastes 1:9, there is nothing new under the sun.

Typically such alien intrusions are referred to as "error".  By that word, people tend to want to communicate that something is wrong.  But the word carries with it a connotation of a mistake.  When teachers in the modern church try to introduce something contrary to Scriptures and the Confessions, it is not a mistake, a misstep of reason, or a misunderstanding, it is deliberate evil.

The conversation in Bible Study strayed to the discussion of "modern Biblical scholarship", which is to say, unbelieving Biblical scholarship.  The question was posed, "How did the field of Biblical studies become the tool of unbelievers?"  The answer involved the need, or desire, to make a name in the field for one's self, to establish credibility with others in the field, and to do or say something "new".

The problem is that the field is currently fixated on the idea that the Bible is a work of fiction.  Many Bible "experts" would not say it so bluntly.  They would talk about traditions, oral and written, about redactors and their work, and such, in a wondrously esoteric technical language, but when it comes down to the final sense, it means that the things the Bible reports probably never happened in real-world history, and that the best one can hope for from the Scriptures is a sense of the religious sensibilities of a previous and primitive people as they wrestled with life and questions of its meaning and purpose.

Even the New Testament is treated to this apriori assumption.  Scholars do not believe the individual documents were actually penned by the authors traditionally held to have written them.  The events, particularly the miraculous events, are assumed to have never occurred,  Jesus is treated as basically unknown and unknowable, and therefore the Jesus of the Bible is a work of pious fiction.  Observe the work or the Jesus Seminar as evidence of this attitude.

I hasten to note that there are believing Bible Scholars.  They are simply in the minority and have little influence on the course of the discipline.  The big thing is still to teach the documentary hypothesis, and the diversity of deities and theologies presented in the text as we have it today, and to deny and ignore rectilinear prophecy.  The precise points of the dominant hypotheses being debated is always in flux, but the discipline begins today with the notion that the text is unclear, non-historical in what it reports, and unreliable.

The scholar who absorbs this attitude must fall from the faith, for the source of all of the knowledge and the foundation of their faith is demonstrated by the "science" of their discipline to be fiction, not real, not true in the sense of correlation with reality.  To go anywhere in the field and do anything impressive and new, one must adopt the critical approach and attitudes of the discipline.  One may know the content of the discipline while rejecting that it is true, but to really do something that moves the discipline, you gotta be a member of the club, a true believer -- not in God, but in the skepticism of the discipline.

The prime mover in this industry of unbelief is, of course, the devil, the father of lies.  He would have everyone doubt and disbelieve.  Human pride plays a part, for rather than laugh unbelief off the stage, the church cautiously tiptoes around it, tries to curry the favor of the proponents of unbelief, and tries to salvage scraps of truth and knowledge, so-called, from the work of the unbelievers who study the text of God's Word.  Something in us yearns for the acceptance and validation of the "experts", even when they are clearly the enemies of our faith.  We want to wear the mantle of being "intelligent" when we should be striving to wear the mantle of being faithful.

But the false teachings and the denial of clear truth is not an error, nor should we honor it by giving it that title,  it is, more clearly now than ever before, deliberate and despicable evil.  Let them stand up and say that they reject the faith, denounce the sounds words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and have a new path, and I will respect them as committed errorists, who champion their faith, which is clearly another (see Galatians 1:6-7).  Until they do, however, they are quisling, fifth-column traitors, and deliberately and despicably evil, attempting to sneak in error to pollute the truth and lead the unwary to their destruction! 

May God ever guard and keep His faithful people from such men and women.  It is not error -- it is evil!

How Do You Identify a Hypocrite?

He (or she) would be the one who says something that is inconsistent with his own actions.

The “Green Crowd” holds Earth Day rallies and tries to impress us with their pro-environment, anti-carbon-footprint message, while running generators that spew exhaust into the air at terrific rates.

The “save the animals” crowd wear leather.

The “we must dramatically reduce the economy” crowd - Van Jones and Henry Kissinger, et al., live rich and opulent lives.  They don’t really want us all to stop using petroleum products, to reduce our consuming, and to live with less consumption – they want to do as much consuming as they can, they just want us “common folk” to have access to less.

The “fix healthcare” crowd doesn’t want to change their healthcare – just ours.  So Congress exempts itself, and the President and select others from the abysmal law they want to foist on ‘We, the People’.

I am in favor of one size fits all.  If the law applies to anyone, it must apply to everyone equally.  And we need a new enforcement system that will arrest congressmen and even the President if they - or he - should break the law.  We the People need protection from those who are elected to serve us but choose to lie to us, take advantage of us, and abuse us.  The President, our Senators, and our Congressmen and women (and all their staff and appointees) need to be subject to the law and liable to arrest and prosecution just like any citizen, or we do not have a free country, or a representative republic, but an oligarchy.

Those who say one thing and do another are hypocrites - and often dangerous.

T'ain't Necessarily So.

I am a pastor who has experienced the aggressive attempt to force me out of the ministry.  I read Pastor VanMehren's letter of resignation on a popular conservative site, and although I thought it was unfortunate that he resigned, I found the typical conservative responses disheartening.  Almost every time the aggressively evil in the congregation succeed in destroying a man, some conservative jerk will make the point that it is almost never the way the pastor describes it, that there are always two sides to every story, and that the pastor did himself no favors doing this thing or that.

As a former participant in the survival game, I can attest that just because there are laymen who want to blame the pastor, and tell stories on him, does not mean that the laymen are honest.  I have stood in meetings where people I had counted as close friends in the congregation stood up and announced that I said or did something that I did not.  It was not a case of misunderstanding, it was a case of total fabrication.  And when I responded that it was simply not so, that I never said or did what was announced, others would leap to their feet and cry out that I had "attacked" and defamed the brother or sister who stood up to boldly lie.

I am not a participant in Pastor VanMeheren's situation and cannot judge the laymen's response, but the automatic assumption that the pastor is presenting perspective that does not comport with reality and that he is at least half of the problem is not necessarily justified, as many can tell from their own experiences.

We (conservatives and confessional pastors) tend to shoot our own and comfort the enemy reflexively.  I know of situations where pastors have been driven out, and the congregation (the majority of it) accused the pastor of abandoning them because they were blissfully unaware of the attacks on the pastor or the controversies that had consumed their shepherd.  Further, attempts to keep the congregation informed while the attacks proceed are decried as violations of the Eighth Commandment.

The topic of these sorts of dismissals needs to be talked about in our Synod, but when highly respected men do the cry of "It is never just the way the pastor describes it", and cows others into apologizing for even bringing the topic up, the needed discussions will never take place.

Let the churches beware: the Word of Jesus is, "He that hears you, hears Me and He that despises you, despises Me, and he that despises Me despises Him who sent Me."  Let the leaders of the church bodies and districts remember that there is a God, and He is watching how they deal both with the people of God, and His called servants.

Be What You Are, not what you are not!

The article was highlighted by a friend on Facebook.  Ontario's Premier, Dalton McGuinty, who styles himself as a Catholic, is promoting an amendment to a supposedly "anti-bullying" law which would require Catholic schools to permit the establishment of "Gay-Straight Alliances" on campus and under the school's auspices.  McGuinty cites this aberrant behavior, and the opinions behind it as a freedom of conscience, I can believe differently than others, issue.  What is actually reveals is that McGuinty does not understand what "being a Catholic" is or involves, or what Catholic doctrine is.

The Canadian Premier is a fine example of what is rampant in the Western Church today.  A significant segment of those who present themselves as Christians, Baptists, Lutherans,and so forth, are not what they pose as, or think that they are.  Too many don't know what their church bodies teach, and when they know they disagree and feel that such disagreement does not alter their status.

Their denominational bodies may not protest, but reality does.  One does not become a Lutheran, for example, by simply adopting the name and saying that they are such.  Even those who start as Lutherans cease to be such when they cling to and espouse teachings and values that are in contradistinction to the clear teaching of historic Lutheranism.  Entire church bodies have forfeited their character as Lutheran by proclaiming this or that which is contrary to the Scriptures and inconsistent with the Lutheran Confessions.  They continue to use the name, because their is no body on earth that honestly regulates such usage, but they are no longer Lutheran.  They are not, in some cases, even Christian any longer.

My appeal would be for honesty.  If you don't want to hold to the doctrines that have historically identified a belief system, then don't but surrender the good name of whatever it is that you once pretended to be, and find or invent your own name.

If you do not, then be prepared to be called out as a deceiver and a seducer and a hypocrite of the first order.  Claim the name that fits your confession and stop trying to claim a confession you no longer confess!

My Confession

Serously, Call Jerry Goetz
His Mission is truly worthy!

I cannot tell you why it is.  Not yet. But it troubles me to my soul when I see my brother pastors, retired men I truly respect, seeking opportunities to preach the Gospel in emails and Facebook, and such.

I understand their zeal.  I share it.  I just feel like they quit too early.

I have the same sorrow about those who left the Missouri Synod for solid confessional reasons.,  Obviously I don't share their decisions, but I understand their reasons and I support them.  I love these brothers and sister of mine (see, Ste. Em, I respect and admire you also).  But I don't share their decisions.  I have chosen a different path, a path they have rejected and disclaimed.  Their condemnations rest heavy on my soul, but I believe they are in error.  Not the error of making the wrong choice, of course, but the error of condemning  the differing confession --- or path.

Some of my brothers, toward whom I would look for support in my struggle, have condemned me for not abandoning my call and the first church body that I took my oath of ordination within.  They leave me to doubt whether my confession, shared with them, is honored by them or disdained by them.

Take note, fellow pastors, and deaconesses, that your swift condemnations are brutal and difficult to bear.  I have counted you as my brothers and sisters, and now your words have condemned me for not being as swift as you to abandon my first confession.  I rejoice that you can, with such facility, deny that to which you have proclaimed life-long fidelity.  I cannot.  I serve a body of believers (my congregation)  who have stood shoulder to shoulder with me in the confession of the faith.  I cannot deny them, and I will not move on without their agreement and confession. But you call me coward and unfaithful for not following your sudden change of commitment.  but let us leave that issue behind.

The issue I began with are those pastors who retired, and now are seeking "preaching engagements".  If you are retired, then honor your theology, and await a call.  Let the Lord call you to speak.

You know, I observed the pitiful practice of the "Reformation Lands Tour".  Pastors, or those who once held that highest office in the church, seeking laymen to pay inflated prices to facilitate their travel to the holy land, or somewhere in Europe.  It is an abuse of the laity to trick them into paying your way to the Holy Land.

Anyhow,  those brothers of mine, and I do still call them brothers, who call out for preaching opportunities:  listen to your theology, and not to the spirit of our age.  When the Lord calls you, He calls you.  Do not advertise.  Advertise the mission, but not your desire to preach.  Ask for the Lord's blessing, but not for the preaching date.  There is something truly creepy and unfaithful about seeing those who were faithful messengers of the Gospel peddling the message and seeking opportunities to preach.  I cannot tell you what it is -- someone will, doubtless, write a gripping and astute theological piece about it some day, but there is something truly  wrong and sick about such seeking.  The verse that comes to mind is something about casting one's pearls before swine.

I confess.  I often find my unease with what is happening is correct while it precedes my understanding of the theological problem.  I can only say with certainty that something is amiss.  If you want to preach, serve a parish.  If you want to be "retired", sit down, and shut up.  Or at least, join a parish and participate as a member.

Honesty

As I watch Hollywood celebrities stand up and march for liberal and anti-American causes and politics, I wonder why movies don't come with disclaimers:  "I am a communist!", or "I stand for the destruction of the very society that has made me rich!", or "I am glad that you are making me rich, but I oppose you ever getting rich!"

Celebrity after celebrity gets rich on capitalism, and seems to think the system owes them that, but then they stand next to Castro, or Chavez, and condemn the society and the people that made them rich and notorious.  They prove themselves right, we are stupid to make such imbeciles famous, rich, or influential, but they are morons to condemn that which made them rich and influential.

Movies should come with disclaimers:  "The film you are about to see employs idiots who will try to destroy you and your economic well-being.  Purchase a ticket with the knowledge that you are shooting yourself in the head."

Atheism

Does God exist?

He says so.  The evidence for the existence of God is the existence of the natural world.  The mind that says, “I do not see any evidence of God”, is a remarkably incurious thing.  Such an attitude requires that one take the existence of all things as a neutral condition.  Given the state of human knowledge about the nature of reality, that is not a reasonable position.

Once upon a time, man could look at the world as big lumps of “stuff” that had always, in his experience, been there.  In those simple, bygone days, most people took it for granted that there was a deity behind it all, somewhere.  Today, with physics speaking of sub-atomic particles, describing the atomic structure of matter with some confidence, and wrestling with the nature of the forces of all of those things, to suggest that this all “just happened” is risible.

Before the age of genetics, life was a challenge to explain, absent a deity.  The greater the sum of human knowledge and understanding about the structure of living things, and how they function, the clearer it becomes that such elegance and efficiency in the structure and function of life-forms of all descriptions, and their interdependency, cannot be explained by careless and casual reference to some vague metaphysical statement about evolution.  If ever there was a religion built on shaky evidence, flying in the face of both common sense and serious thought, it is atheism.


As the equation is stated in the Bible, “every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.”  When one encounters a wristwatch on the beach, no one ever assumes they have stumbled upon a unique natural phenomenon.  The appearance alone suggests manufacture and artifice – the word behind “artificial”.  It is instantly clear that someone has lost their watch.  Similarly, when one comes across an automobile in the woods, even such as has a tree growing up through the floorboards and the roof, one can tell that someone drove that car there at some previous time.  No one mistakes it for a natural formation.

However, when one looks at the intricacies of a living cell, just one of the millions in a plant or an animal, science would have us believe that it just sort of fell together with some sort of inevitability provided by time.   The information stored in a unique and efficient, self-replicating library called DNA, is imagined to have arisen from random happenings.  Information Theory, a relatively new field of study in the last century, has concluded that information cannot arise from random processes.  But the information stored in the simplest cells is huge!  One scientist speculated that there are more bits of information in the simplest living cell that there are letters in all of the books in the world’s largest library combined!

The processes of life as we know it require an oxidizing environment.  The process of forming the chemical components of life, however, require a reducing atmosphere.  In order for life processes to continue, they say, the chemicals of life must be transferred from one environment to another quickly – and the living molecules must be sufficiently complex to protect themselves from ruinous oxidization and able to replicate themselves in order to proceed to develop into more complex life.  With no intelligence and no force directing the process the chemicals would have no way of knowing either of those things, and no method of transport from one environment to another.

Then we come to the incredible complexity of the living cell, and chemical operations which must occur within the cell in order for life to continue.  Looking at an apple as a thing, and a solitary unit, one might be able to imagine that such a process could somehow develop by chance.  Looking at the variety of cells within the apple, and examining the many processes that must occur, and produce a variety of effects, depending on the cell, leaves one with the feeling of having stumbled across a very complex and expensive wristwatch on the beach, and being asked to accept that it pulled itself together into its present form all by itself, through random chemical processes with random resources available.  Either than, or matter has an innate directionality to it that requires it to organize itself into living things, which the dust-bunnies under my bed do not appear to possess.

The structure of matter, being composed of energy bound into some form somehow, and then being further organized into atoms, molecules, elements, planets, and such, cries out for an organizing principle.  Piled on top is life, which comes in an amazing variety and mind-boggling complexity, which cries out for a creator of some sort.  God.  The next question would be who is God?, or which deity is God?, or do we know the deity who is responsible?  But until men can humble themselves enough to acknowledge the painfully evident – that there is a god, and that this deity created, or guided the processes of creation, we are hardly ready to honestly ask and discuss the questions about God’s identity.

When you get there, He has weighed in and we are ready to talk.

Hans and Jacob

A poem from my childhood, which my mother kept repeating at odd moments.  I quote it here to preserve it and share it.

To be read with a Norwegian accent, if you can do it.

We were twins
Me and my brother. 
We look so very much alike
You couldn't tell one from the other. 

One of us was Hans,
The other, Jacob was His name
But whether Hans or Jacob
We both got called the same. 

Now one of us is dead. 
Yea, mister, that is so. 
But whether Hans or Jacob
My mother she don't know. 

So, Now I am in trouble
'Cause I can't get through my head
Whether I am Hans, what am living
Or Jacob, what am dead.

A Pastor’s Daily Prayer

O Almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto Thee all my sins and iniquities; especially do I acknowledge my indolence in prayer, my neglect of Thy Word, and my seeking after good days and vainglory.  But I am heartily sorry of them and sincerely repent of them; and I pray Thee, of Thy boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Thy beloved Son, forgive me all my sins, and be gracious and merciful to me.  Yea, cleanse me through Thy Spirit by the blood of Jesus Christ, and give me more and more power and willingness to strive after holiness, for Thou hast called me that I should be holy and blameless before Thee in love.

I thank thee also, O faithful God, for my family, my wife and children, and for all my relatives.  Thou hast given them to me purely out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.  Preserve them in good health, and give them their daily bread; but above all keep them in Thy grace and in the true confession of Thy name unto the end.

Thou, O God of all grace and mercy, hast also called me, a poor unworthy simmer, to be a servant of Thy Word and hast placed me into that office which preaches the reconciliation and hast given me this flock to feed.  In and by myself I am wholly incompetent to perform the work of this great office; and, therefore, I pray Thee, make me an able minister of Thy Church.  Give me Thy Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, of grace and prayer, of power and strength, of courage and joyfulness, of sanctification and the fear of God .  Fill me with the right knowledge, and open my lips that my mouth may proclaim the honor of Thy name.  Fill my heart with a passion for souls and with skillfulness to give unto each and every sheep or lamb entrusted to my care what is due unto it at the proper time.  Give me at all times sound advice and just works; and whatever I overlook something or in the weakness of my flesh speak or act wrongly, do Thou set it aright, and help that no one may through me suffer harm to his soul.

Glory and honor, praise and thanks be unto Thee, God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for all the mercy and faithfulness Thou hast shown to this congregation.  Thy Word has not returned unto Thee void, but Thou hast here fathered a people that knows Thee and fears Thy name.  Give me Thy Holy Spirit, that I may at all times see the good things in this congregation and praise and thank Thee for them.  Bless Thy Word in the future, that it may preserve the believers in Thy grace, convert those that are not yet Thine, and bring back the erring and delinquent.  Gather Thy people as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and be Thou a wall of fire round about Thy congregation.

Graciously take into Thy fatherly care the sick and the needy, all widows and orphans, and all who are in any trouble, temptation, anguish of labor, peril of death, or any other adversity.  Comfort them, O God, with Thy Holy Spirit, that they may patiently endure their afflictions and acknowledge them as a manifestation of Thy fatherly will.  Preserve their soul from faint-heartedness and despondency, and help that they may seek Thee, the great Physician of their souls.  And if any pass through the valley of the shadow of death, suffer them not, in the last hour, for any pain or fear of death, to fall away from thee, but let Thine everlasting arms be underneath them, and grant them a peaceful departure and a happy entrance into Thine eternal kingdom.

Furthermore, I pray Thee, Thou wouldst at all times fill the offices of this congregation and its societies with upright, honest, and sincere men and women, who have the welfare of their congregation at heart and are able to help me in my office with their counsel and their deeds.  Unite their hearts with me in love for the truth; give them the spirit of prayer for me and for their congregation, so that we may in unity and harmony build Thy kingdom in this place.

And since hypocrites and ungodly people are often found within the visible church organization.  I pray Thee, do not permit Satan to disrupt this congregation through such or hind the efficiency of my office.  If there are such in our midst, let Thy Word be like unto a hammer upon their hearts of stone.  Have patience with them; but if they persist in their unbelief, hypocrisy, and wickedness, do Thou reveal them, so that they may be put forth from Thy congregation.  Give me a forgiving heart towards all, and help me, especially for their sake, to speak and act cautiously.

Preserve and keep the youth of our Church from falling away and joining the world, and keep them from the many sins of youth.  Thou, O Lord, knowest how difficult it is to lead the young on the right paths and to divide the Word of Truth with respect to them; do Thou, therefore, give me particular wisdom and skill to be stern without estranging their hearts, and mild and charitable without strengthening them in frivolity and unruliness.

Mercifully bless the education and instruction of the children, that they may grow up in Thy fear to praise of Thy name.  I commend unto Thee also the nursery of our church, the Christian day school.  Hinder and frustrate all enemies of this institution.  May I ever regard and accept it as a precious gift of God!  Give our congregation able and apt teachers.  Preserve them from an indecent and evil walk and conversation.  Bless the work of our Sunday school teachers, and help them to lead the little ones into the Savior’s loving arms.

To Thy grace and mercy I also commend all my brethren in office.  Arrest and suppress all discord and dissension.  Give me a brotherly heart towards all and true humility, and help me to bear with patience their casual weakness or deficiencies.   Grant that they also may act as true brethren toward me.

Keep and preserve our whole Synod, its teachers and officers, true to Thy Word.  Cause the work of our Synod to grow.  Guard and protect all members of Synod against sinful ambitions, dissension, and indifference in doctrine and practice.  Bless all higher institutions of learning, our colleges, seminaries, and universities.  Accompany all missionaries on their dangerous ways, and help them to perform their work.  Gather the elect from all nations not Thy holy Christian Church, and bring their at last into Thy Church Triumphant in heaven.

Grant also health and prosperity to all that are in authority in our country, especially to the President and Congress of the United States, the Governor and Legislature of this State, and to all Judges and Magistrates.  Endue them with grace to rule after Thy good pleasure, to the maintenance of righteousness and to the hindrance and punishment of wickedness, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

Hear me, most merciful God, in these my humble requests, which I offer up unto Thee in the name of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end.  Amen.

Another prayer I use regularly - although not daily - which comes from The Lutheran Liturgy - pp. 117-120.

I reproduce them here so that they will be more widely available.

A Pastor's Prayer

O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou Chief Shepherd and only Head of Thy Church, help me to minister unto this flock, to which Thou hast called me as a pastor.  And since I am a man of unclean lips and not worthy to proclaim Thy Word, I beseech Thee, send down Thy Holy Spirit to cleanse my lips, so that I may be bold to preach Thy Word in all its fullness, in season and out of season, ready to offer up the prayers and supplications of Thy people, and willing to serve as a faithful minister of the means of grace.

Help me, O Lord, to give myself wholly to my office by daily meditation and study of the Scriptures, that I may be able to make full proof of my ministry, to feed, to instruct, to build up, to warn, to watch over , and to guide the lambs and the sheep of this flock, which Thou hast purchased with Thy blood.  Let Thy Holy Spirit direct me that I may always speak the things which become sound doctrine and in all things show myself a pattern of good works, and example to the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity.

O Lord, make me daily more conscious of the great responsibilities of my high office as Thine ambassador and steward of Thy mysteries, to preach good tidings unto the meek, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.  For Thy name and for Thy truth’s sake hear me, O Lord Jesus.  Amen.

from the The Lutheran Liturgy, Concordia Publishing House, circa 1942.

Prayed this every morning in my first parish.  Less frequently after, but it still seems to be a marvelous prayer with which to approach the ministry.

Is the Pope the AntiChrist?

Yes.

Some argue that the office of the Papacy is the Antichrist, not the particular men who hold the office.  It is a silly argument.  The man who holds the office of Pastor is pastor while he holds it.  So, the man who holds the office of the Antichrist is the Antichrist while he holds the office.

Does that mean that Roman Catholics are not Christians?  No.  It means that the Pope is the Antichrist.  Individual Catholics may well be Christians, just as individual Lutherans of the most orthodox denominations may not be Christian at all.  It is not one's label that makes them a Christian.

Those who belong to anti-Christian religious bodies are clearly not Christians.  Those who choose not to belong to any Christian church at all are clearly not Christians.  Those who disavow Christ and the church are clearly not Christians.  But those who profess a faith in Christ may be Christian, and may not be, depending on what they mean by believing, and who they think Christ is, and what they believe about Him and sin and forgiveness and such topics.  Then again, some who profess faith are quite self-consciously hypocrites.  They are not Christians.  But whether they are or not is in the hands of God to judge, not mine or anyone else's.

The judgement that the Pope is the Antichrist is Scriptural and Confessional.  Those same Scriptures and Confessions instruct us not to be judging one another but to leave judgment to God.  We may assess theological statements as to being true and in accord with Scriptures or not, but we cannot judge the heart of another.  We don't have the ability to do it correctly, and we do not have the authority from God, to whom the job of judging hearts belongs.

Sadly, this doctrine of the faith has become a wedge to damage the political campaign of a candidate, and still it is not being addressed or examined for its meaning or truth.  Our nation and the world are the worse for both of these realities.

An Ugly Moment

All of my life I have prided myself that I could do just about any job.  And I have at one time or another.

The other day I was sitting in the restaurant watching the help as I waited for my dinner, and it struck me that I could not make my body do many of those tasks for any length of time any more.  If I need to get a job, I now have to be very careful to find one that I can actually physically do!

You know that you are getting old when you have to admit to yourself that you cannot do the things that you once could -- even things you would rather not do.  That flexibility was kind of like an ace in the hole just in case.  Now I cannot do many things just because this body is getting older.

It is a truly ugly moment in one's life!

Why Me?

Sometimes I want to ask that question.  Or "Why not me?".

I just read the district newsletter.  It was full of wonderful articles about people doing things and how wonderfully they worked for them.  I am delighted that they have captured success.

I just wonder why when I do those same exact things, it never has those same salutary results for me.  I go out of my way to help people and if I get a thank you I am doing better than average.  People don't join my church.  They don't come and help me when I need it.  Sometimes, if they have the opportunity, they will turn on me and do or say something nasty.

I read an article about a pastor who began to read through the Bible with his wife.  Suddenly, he had a Bible study with thirty people attending!  Two Bible studies, actually.  I am happy for him.  I have been reading the Bible for decades.  My Bible classes are basically reading through the Bible, sometimes with commentary, and answering questions.  My Bible studies have shrunk, not grown.  Mind you, most everyone who attends tells me how wonderful they think they are!  I have had people leave my congregation for a different local congregation telling me how terrific I am, and that I ought to be the pastor of a large congregation, so that my talent will benefit even more people - as they are on their way out the door!  Why doesn't it work for me?

I am not complaining.  No, really!  I know why the things that are happening are happening.  God works in His own way and at His own time.  I have been doing the same things for decades, and have had varying "success" at different times.  I just find it frustrating to read all the 'how to' articles and the 'we did it this way' testimonials, which all suggest or say outright that if you are creative and clever like them and do things the right way, you will be amazed at the results.

I understand that God works in His own way and at His own time.  I would love to have different results, but I would love even more if people in the church stopped acting as though it is their creativity and their effort that makes things work the way they work.  I have figured out that God grants the prosperity we enjoy, whatever that prosperity may be (actually, the Bible teaches that principle). I just worry that someone who hasn't figured that out might actually take those theology of glory kind of messages to heart and be beaten-up by the sense of failure that accompanies doing all the right things - things others are boasting about making them so successful - and finding their results are not all that impressive.

Limited sucess is hard enough to handle without those who ought to know better preaching to you that the right program or technique is all you need.

When will the church get back to living out and living in her own theology?