Desktop Revisited

FOUND: ONE DESKTOP

What's On Your Desktop?

We're having guests over for dinner this evening, so, mercifully, I'm having to clean my desk off. I've got a nice big desk, which makes for a nice big mess at times. For the fun of it, I decided to take inventory, from left to right and top to bottom. Here's the body count:

• A whole bunch of miscellaneous papers
• A framed photo of Zach on Tolmie Peak when he was much younger
• A Borders gift card from my sister
• An old Issues, Etc. CD
• A small box of raisins
• Lutheran Service Book
• Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service
• Daniel: Encouragement for Faith
• The Bondage of the Will
• Yoga and the Body of Christ: What Position Should Christians Hold?
• Cellphone
• Digital camera
• Current issue of Christian Research Journal
• iPod
• Stack of mail
• Laptop
• A Time of Departing: How Ancient Mystical Practices are Uniting Christians With the World's Religions
• A 5 x 7 photo of Cheryl that I'm supposed to mail to my mom
• Women Pastors? The Ordination of Women in Biblical Lutheran Perspective
• NIV Bible
• A coaster
• Lamp
• Speakers
• Joystick
• Desktop computer
• Lutheran Worship
• Webcam
• Two more old Issues, Etc. cd's
• Current issue of Steadfast Quarterly: The Journal of the Brothers of John the Steadfast
• Church membership directory
• Current issue of Air Line Pilot
• Radio/CD player

No wonder I can't get anything done.

Speaking Back to God

Quoting Pastor Peter Bender, pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Sussex, Wisconsin, and Director of the Concordia Catechetical Academy. This quote is taken from part 2 of his Apostles’ Creed series, God the Son, on Issues, Etc.™:

...we are called to make confession as Christians. And the confession that we make is to speak back to God what it is that He has spoken to us. Which Word the Holy Spirit used to call us to faith in the first place. So the Word of the Gospel comes to us. We hear it, and by the Word of the Gospel we are called to faith and we speak back to God what He’s spoken to us. Like children who speak back to their parents the language that they have heard from their parents. And we are all called to speak the same language.

The Apostle’s Creed, we talked at the beginning of our time today about the objectivity of the language. It’s not only objective, but it’s objective language that is Scriptural language. It’s not language that is drawn from contemporary society and culture, because the contemporary societies and cultures change over time. Now this is God’s language. We take up God’s language, and we speak it back to Him. And what’s unique about the Apostle’s Creed is that every word, every phrase is Biblical. ...It speaks God’s language in God’s way. ...That’s the other thing that the Creed continues to do in that language we speak back to God, that’s faithful to the Scriptures, that speaks in God’s way. It’s always drawing us away from ourselves to God. In so many contemporary creeds that people concoct, end up being a kind of navel gazing, or speak more about the quality of my believing than they do about the objective reality of who God is and what He has done, which is how the Scriptures speak.

You can listen to the whole show here:

Ablaze! Numbers With Honor

Ablaze!, the rightfully maligned LCMS missiological “movement,” seems to be struggling. As Mollie Ziegler points out, while 30% of the time allotted to reach 100 million people has elapsed, we haven’t even met 10% of the goal. Not to worry though. They’re now counting kids in LCMS schools as “critical events” in order to inflate the numbers. 183,203 were added to “the number of unreached or uncommitted people with whom the Gospel has been shared and reported,” because these particular kids are not members of Christian churches. Apparently they just aren’t committed enough. Maybe they could count their parents as well.

In an effort to solve this gnarly numbers problem, I’ve come up with a diplomatic solution.

In 1968 President Nixon ran for reelection. Part of his platform was a pledge to end the Vietnam war, but in a way which would bring “peace with honor.” In 1973 he fulfilled his commitment with a diplomatic solution. The troops came home. Never mind that the fighting continued and the communists eventually controlled both North Vietnam and South Vietnam. It was peace with honor.

We can achieve a similar “numbers with honor,” ending our long synodical nightmare. It will be quick, painless, and a lot cheaper. Here’s how.

I propose taking out a 60 second spot during the 2009 Super Bowl. With 60 seconds to burn, we could present a phenomenal Gospel presentation. Last year’s Super Bowl reached 93.2 million people. Even if this year’s numbers were a little less, add that to the 9.3 million people we’ve already reached, and we’d have met our goal, in one day. Yes, you could make the argument that some of the viewers are already Christians, or that some of them missed the commercial because they were grabbing another beer, but it’s no less disingenuous than counting kids in LCMS schools, or counting at all for that matter. Numbers with honor.

Some of you are squawking that a commercial costs too much. The price for a 30 second spot on NBC for the 2009 Super Bowl is $3 million. I’m sure they’d give us a break for the additional 30 seconds. I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s nothing compared to what they want to spend on Ablaze! The goal is to raise $100 million by 2010, with another seven years to go after that.

It seems preposterous that an evangelistic effort could cause division, yet that is what has happened. What would you expect from a “movement” whose most visible aspects are a number, a narcissistic reflection, a theology of glory, and a cloud of dust. The Ablaze! program is like the ark of the covenant in Philistine hands - it’s a plague. Let’s send it back where it came from. Instead, let’s continue the movement that’s based on the way God intends His Church to be nurtured, through Word and Sacrament ministry, and the resulting service to our neighbor in vocation. This is the way God grows His Church, one Baptism at a time.

“Almighty God, You have called Your Church to witness that in Christ You have reconciled us to Yourself. Grant that by Your Holy Spirit we may proclaim the good news of Your salvation so that all who hear it may receive the gift of salvation; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” Amen (LSB, p. 305)

If you’d like to learn more about the problems associated with Ablaze!, read Professor David Berger’s article “Ablaze®, the Movement,” Rev. Todd Wilken’s article “That Exclamation Mark," and Frank Gillespie's article What's Wrong With Ablaze!

When Business and Church Merge

The Lutheran Church has for years flirted with the Church Growth Movement, and more recently with the Emerging Church. One name that frequently surfaces when discussing business practices or church growth is that of Peter Drucker. Drucker, who is often considered the father of modern business management, has wielded a huge influence on the Church.

Drucker might seem an unusual fit for the Church, but there are many who have modeled their church plans after Drucker’s ideas. His name is often mentioned in Church Growth Movement circles.

In an excerpt from Roger Oakland’s book Faith Undone: the emerging church - a new reformation or an end-time deception on the Lighthouse Trails website, Oakland discusses Drucker’s influence among Evangelicals (and thus Lutherans by infiltration). Mr. Oakland describes Peter Drucker’s attraction to mysticism, a practice forbidden by God that is sometimes seen in the Church Growth Movement, and even more common in the Emerging Church. He also relates Drucker’s universalistic leanings and minimization of doctrine. Drucker’s thoughts have lead followers such as Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Bob Buford, Leonard Sweet, and Doug Pagitt to view the Church as an agent of change. That sounds like an odd way to describe the Church, and it is indeed. Instead of the Church as the gathering of all believers under the cross of Christ to receive His gifts, it is viewed as a vehicle for paradigm shift for the benefit of society.

Drucker’s ideas on mysticism, interspirituality, and paradigm shift formed an ideal breeding ground for the Emerging Church. As Oakland puts it, "This view of minimizing doctrine would become one of the earmarks of the emerging church, which in reality was to be a testing ground for high-tech marketing skills, business management techniques, and an experience-based religion; but its foundation is flawed with a non-biblical, mystical premise."

If you’re interested in some of the ideological underpinnings of both the Church Growth Movement and the Emerging Church, these excerpts from Roger Oakland’s book are a good place to start.

Do Our Symbols Contain Error?

Quoting C.F.W. Walther:

But what of some honest, upright men who either lack the ability to test the whole Book of Concord according to the Word of God and therefore are not convinced that the Symbols agree with Scripture in every point or who have conscientious scruples about certain points? In either case such are not fit to become teachers in the Church, for a bishop must, above all things, be "apt to teach" and "be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers," 1 Tim. 3: 2; Tit. 1: 9.

But is it not possible that the Symbols of the orthodox Church contain errors in less important points? Yes, but the possibility does not establish reality. Only a skeptic, who is always learning and never coming to the truth, despairs of ever finding the truth and will maintain; Men have written this, and therefore it must contain error. But if error should really be found in our Symbols, we would be the first to pass the death sentence on them. But we defy the whole world to point out an error in doctrine in our Book of Concord. For the past three hundred years all the enemies of our Church have tried in vain to find an error, but have failed. They have shown, and we admit it, that our Symbols contain points which are contrary to their blind reason; but they have failed to prove that our Symbols contradict Scripture in the smallest point.

Quoted from Walther's essay titled "Why Should Our Pastors, Teachers and Professors Subscribe Unconditionally to the Symbolical Writings of Our Church," delivered at the Western District Convention in 1858. Printed in the April, 1947 Concordia Theological Monthly.

The End of the Confessional Age?

Pastor Matt Harrison, the Executive Director of LCMS World Relief and Human Care, on his blog Mercy Journey’s With Pastor Harrison, has an interesting quote of theologian Hermann Sasse, gleaned from one of Sasse’s Letters to Lutheran Pastors, #60. Here’s a highlight:

So it seems for American Lutheranism that the confessional age has come to an end. It seems so, yet it is not so. Are the theologians that speak thus today in the Lutheran Church entirely clear on the matter of what the end of the confessional age might actually mean? It would be the end of the church. Confessing belongs to the very essence of the church. There exists either a church based on a confession, or there exists no church. There exists no “ecumenical” church. There exists an ecumenical way of thinking, that greets and interacts with the “divided brethren” in love and understanding.

The Epistle of First Rod

If you’ve never had the opportunity to hear Dr. Rod Rosenbladt speak, you’re missing out. Dr. Rosenbladt is Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Apologetics at Concordia University-Irvine, and co-host of the radio program The White Horse Inn.

Dr. Rosenbladt recently made four separate appearances on Issues, Etc.™, discussing the four Solas of the reformation. The following quote is from the fourth show on Sola Scriptura. While the quote gives you some idea of Dr. Rosenbladt’s wit and character, you really have to hear him to get the full effect.

Host Todd Wilken:

How would you respond to someone who says "Look, Sola Scriptura sounds great, but in fact, it really is putting God in a box, or God in a book. You’re limiting the voice of the Spirit." And we hear this from both charismatic types and from theological liberals.

Dr. Rosenbladt:

Sigh. Putting God in a box is a popularized piece of bad philosophy. Usually if you scratch that there’s nothing underneath it. What you want to find out is whether what Scripture says is true, whether it’s sufficient, and whether it’s "only." If you come to that conclusion, then all your meanderings, that you believe that the ethers and the spirits have given you, are to be judged by the text of Scripture and nothing else. You will never be able to verify that your latest dream is on the level of Holy Scripture. In fact, if I come to you with the book of First Rod, you should throw me out. That is, there’s nothing behind the book of First Rod. The last apostle who could have authenticated it is dead. His name was John. So if I write the inspired book 2,000 years later, sorry, you cannot get authentication for it, you should reject me.

You can listen to the entire Issues, Etc.™ show here:

Pastor Stuckwisch on Löhe

Pastor Stuckwisch blogged at Four and Twenty Blackbirds on the Wilhelm Löhe Conference, which he attended last weekend. Löhe was a 19th century German pastor, theologian, and missionary. Though he was "banished" to a small parish in Bavaria for his troublesome insistence on standing on the Lutheran Confessions and pure doctrine, he had a great impact both at home and abroad in the mission field. The Gospel cannot be bound. Here are a few of Pastor Stuckwisch's thoughts, which he graciously allowed me to share with you:

Here was a man, staunchly conservative and confessional in his theology, renowned for his liturgical scholarship and practice, yet as zealous and proactive as anyone in the world has ever been in both evangelical missions and genuine works of mercy. For Löhe there was no conflict or competition in any of this, but the greatest and most natural harmony. The Church lives from the Liturgy into the world with the Gospel.

...One of the things that struck me throughout the conference, most especially in Professor John Pless's paper on Löhe's pastoral theology, but also in each of the other papers, was how similar Löhe's aims, emphases, efforts and tangible accomplishments were, in comparison to recent discussions of an evangelical "rule" or "canon" here on the Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds blog. I've previously noted Löhe's example in this regard, but to hear the descriptions and discussions of his work and his contributions solidified that point. He instructed and inspired; he organized, encouraged, supported and assisted; he learned from the past and wrote for the future; he lent his knowledge and energies to the good ordering of pastoral preparation and practice, liturgical administration and prayer, congregational formation and protocol, inner and outer missions. As the paper by Dr. Wolfgang Fenske demonstrated, Löhe did much to establish and foster forms in service and support of substance. He thus exemplified the benefit of an evangelical "rule" for prayer, pastoral care, and public profession of the faith.

There was one point in Dr. Fenske's presentation that I regretted somewhat. He emphasized the centrality of the Lord's Supper in Löhe's theology and practice; not only in his liturgical theology, but in all of his pastoral practice. Life for Wilhelm Löhe was lived to and from the Sacrament of the Altar; everything that he and his congregation did were offered as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the One who feeds His Church with His holy body and precious blood. This point I do not regret, but greatly admire and appreciate. In connection with that sacramental emphasis, it is also true, there was a shift in the liturgical practice that Löhe advocated and emulated, in which the sermon was no longer understood or undertaken as the dominating center and highest peak. Dr. Fenske described this as an intentional downplaying of preaching, and it was that point I regretted. It gives the wrong impression, in my opinion. Löhe's goal was not to downplay preaching, but to recover a truly evangelical and liturgical preaching that would bring the congregation in repentance and faith to the Sacrament. He viewed the sermon and the Sacrament as the two mountain heights of the Liturgy, the second of them higher, yes, but the two of them together fundamental to the Divine Service.

Another pastor at the conference posed the question: How was it that Wilhelm Löhe was able to accomplish so much within (and from) his Neuendettelsau congregation? How was he able, for example, to lead the people from the practice of having the Lord's Supper twice a year (once in the spring, and once in the fall) to having the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day, and then, finally, every day of every week? And how was he able to restore such a lively practice of Individual Confession and Absolution within his congregation? The answer given to these questions was a good one: patience and steady teaching. It took decades to accomplish these developments, and Löhe was always teaching, catechizing, writing. He used the means available to confess the faith, and he did so faithfully over the long haul of thirty-five years in his parish.

All of this is meet and right. However, I would make the case that Löhe's preaching was fundamental to everything else. Professor Pless made that point, for example, in noting that Löhe regarded preaching as the primary place of ordinary, ongoing pastoral care. So, too, the preaching is the primary place for ongoing catechesis. It was for his rich evangelical preaching that people flocked from miles around to hear Löhe, to receive the Gospel from him, to be cared for by such a good shepherd. I believe it was Dr. Detlev Schulz who shared the anecdote, at the beginning of his paper, that Löhe had once begun preaching at 1:00 p.m. and was still preaching when the people needed to light the lamps in the early evening. It is an example of what we Lutherans confess: nothing holds the people like the preaching of the Gospel. Nothing cares for them and enlivens them like the preaching of the Gospel. Nothing else will be possible or matter, finally, without that steady preaching of the Gospel.

It was Löhe's faithful and conscientious preaching, I maintain, that led his people in faith to the body and blood of Christ at the Altar; and his preaching that led the people in faith from the Altar out into the world, to Christ in their neighbors near and far. It will be such preaching by which we also are best able to serve and support the people of God entrusted to our pastoral care.

Kudos to Mrs. Gaunt

I was on a run, listening to Issues, Etc.™ on my iPod. As I hurdled a downed tree on the trail, Pastor Gaunt was speaking about his sermon preparation. What he said brought tears to my eyes, although it was really his wife’s words that got to me:

There’s so many times when I’m preparing [my sermon], usually late on Saturday night. So I’m kind of a Sabbatarian really. I do all my work - I rest on Friday night, goofing around. Then I just work like a madman on Saturday trying to get ready for the next morning. And I’m feeling like I don’t have it. I don’t have anything there. And it’s at that time that my wife will say “Just go in and preach the Gospel. Tell the people the Gospel. And you can do that.” “You know, you’re right.”

It is always the Gospel that aching souls need to hear – sinners who have first been convicted by the preaching of the Law. But it’s not the pastor who is speaking those words of forgiveness in the Gospel, it is Jesus Christ himself. Through the Word, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the pastor’s voice delivers what no other word could ever deliver, forgiveness, life, and salvation. As Jesus says:

The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life (John 6:63b, ESV).

You can never stray by sticking to Mrs. Gaunt’s advice: “Just go in and preach the Gospel. Tell the people the Gospel.”

And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:11-13, ESV).

Pastor Doug Gaunt is the undershepherd at Trinity Lutheran Church in Orchard Farms, Missouri. This was an excellent show - a pastor’s roundtable on the Third Commandment, which you can listen to here: