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Wednesday, 31 March 2010 15:43 |
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Some ecumenical thoughts at Holy Week 2010 from John Stephenson
The secular press has had it in for Joseph Ratzinger for going on three decades. Before his election as Pope in the spring of 2005, he was routinely derided in his homeland as the Panzerkardinal (“tank cardinal”) and caricatured in North America as the “Enforcer” or even the “Rottweiler.” The roots of this negative reputation stretch back at least as far as the book-length interview he granted to the Italian journalist Vittorio Messori that catapulted him to global fame when published as The Ratzinger Report in 1985. Prior to that juncture, as a heavyweight German academic who had leapfrogged over a major episcopal see (Munich-Freising) to become a leading official in the Roman curia (as cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) under the still new John Paul II, Ratzinger’s was hardly a household name.
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Monday, 29 March 2010 08:17 |
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Editor's note—I opened an address to the 2003 meeting of the North European Luther Academy, held in Hango, Finland (subsequently published as “The Church and the End” in Logia XVI: 35-39), with the remark that,“Canada and Scandinavia have more in common than northerly latitudes and cold weather.” The cultural developments I had in mind include an avalanche of anti-family and anti-life legislation made possible by the gradual marginalization and suppression of Holy Christendom in the public life of these nations. An ecumenical working party in Norway (consisting with one exception of figures outside the established Church of Norway) has lately explored the implications for the Churches of that country’s decision, in legislation enacted in 2008, to follow Canada in the promulgation of same sex marriage. One of the authors of the report printed below, which was sent to me already translated, tells me that conservatives in the Church of Norway have expressed strong dissent from their conclusion that clergy should surrender their longstanding right to perform weddings on behalf of the State. The question here addressed is acutely relevant to contemporary Canada, and is becoming increasingly topical in the United States also as we head into the second decade of the twenty-first century. My hunch is that the report’s analysis and conclusions are equally valid on this side of the Atlantic. —John Stephenson
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Monday, 01 March 2010 13:45 |
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An article by Gert Kelter, translated by Wilhelm Torgerson, submitted and edited by John Stephenson, Registrar & Professor of Historical Theology at Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St Catharines, Ontario.
Editor's note—This article appeared in the first 2010 issue of SELK Informationen, the monthly news service of the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany. The author, Gert Kelter, is the pastor of Holy Ghost Church in Görlitz, which is geographically the easternmost parish of the SELK. Pr. Kelter also serves as Provost (Propst) of the Eastern Region (Sprengel Ost) of the SELK and as his church body’s spokesman on Ecumenical Relations. Provost Kelter’s article has been translated by Wilhelm Torgerson (“Torgy”), himself a retired pastor and provost of the SELK who was until recently director of the Wittenberg Project.
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Wednesday, 24 February 2010 15:18 |
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Book Review: A Little Book on Joy: The Secret of Living a Goods News Life in a Bad News World. By Matthew C. Harrison. Fort Wayne: Lutheran Legacy Press, 2009. 212 pages. Paperback. $9.99; quantity discount. Review by Robert C. Baker.
Reverend Matt Harrison’s newest book, A Little Book on Joy: The Secret of Living a Good News Life in a Bad News World, could not have come at a better time. Ongoing political strife, regardless of one’s party or affiliation, an economy still severely weak in the knees, declining membership and shrinking bank accounts among mainline denominations, massive personal and governmental debt, distrust of politicians and the political process, and the crushing power of nature—think Port-au-Prince—might give us cause for having no joy at all. But in steps Harrison, brushy mustachoed and bespectacled, Rough-Rider ready to storm the hill of gloom and despair. Bully! Or rather in the words of St. Paul, “Rejoice. . . again I say, rejoice!” It’s that refrain from Philippians 4:4 that reverberates throughout A Little Book of Joy.
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Friday, 12 February 2010 17:00 |
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A book review of Waking the Sleeping Giant: The Birth, Growth, Decline, and Rebirth of an American Church. By Gerald B. Kieschnick, Concordia Publishing House, 2009. 288 pages. $16.99. By a contributing editor.
In the 15th century, a hodgepodge was a stew made from whatever vegetables and meat was on hand. In the case of the stew, the ingredients might or might not go together on their own but were cooked until they blended into a thick paste. In the case of Gerald Kieschnick’s Waking the Sleeping Giant, the book is a hodgepodge of stories, letters, emails, bullet points, convention overtures, Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) documents, statistics, quotations from the Lutheran Confessions, and the Scriptures thrown together and stewed into a book of 288 pages, including the appendices.
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Saturday, 30 January 2010 11:09 |
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A sermon Rev. Ronald F. Marshall
Text: Luke 1:48
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you, in the name of God the Father, Son (+) and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we come to this consecrated church to keep the Sabbath Day holy. And we do that by worshipping God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the holy Trinity. We thank him for his goodness and mercy and reach out to him for his wisdom through his holy Word. Today we learn from that word that we are to honor St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ – the Blessed Virgin.
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