LOGIA

Announcing a Latin e-mail discussion group on the Lutheran confessions: Confessionum Lutheranarum Studiosi
A new Latin e-mail discussion group on the Lutheran confessions has recently been founded, and you are invited to join in the colloquium. Dr. Jon Bruss, Dr. Benjamin Mayes, and Seminarist Josh Hayes started this group to have a place where the confessions of our church could be discussed by those who are able to read them and discuss them in the Latin language, the language in which many of them were written and which still has so many theological treasures that have never been translated. The two rules of the group are that the conversation is exclusively in Latin, and one does not correct anyone else’s Latin unless the writer wants to be corrected. Lurkers are welcome. The group also provides two additional web pages: one that gives aids for Latin conversation and composition, and another that lists Latin editions of the Book of Concord. Check out the group and join here: http://groups.google.com/group/confessionum-lutheranarum-studiosi

by Rev. David Ramirez

ELCA “traditionalists” upset about the 2009 Churchwide Assembly’s actions concerning homosexual behavior have laid out their plans for the future and are meeting August 24-27 in Columbus, Ohio, for a theological conference on “Seeking New Directions for Lutheranism” and to form a new church body, the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). To describe the emerging situation simply:

Bishop Matti Väisänen, recently consecrated as assistant bishop in the Mission Province in Sweden and Finland, has been defrocked by the Tampere Cathedral Chapter. 

The following explanation was offered by Tapani Simijoki (by permission) from his blog SimonPotamos:

Bishop Matti Väisänen of Luther Foundation Finland (LFF), the Finnish partner to Mission Province in Sweden and Finland, was defrocked on Wednesday 08/11 by the Cathedral Chapter of Tampere Diocese led by Bishop Matti Repo. The basis of defrocking was the episcopal ordination of Väisänen in last March. Prior to this, Väisänen had served as a pastor in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland for 46 years, and is a well-known figure in the confessional movement inside the Finnish national church.

Väisänen was called to serve as a bishop in the Mission Province, the care of Finnish pastors and congregations as his primary task. Luther Foundation and Mission Province are reacting to the rapidly increasing liberalism and secularism inside the Scandinavian established churches, the key issues being the ordination of women and - lately - blessing of the same-sex partnerships. For already ten years, it has been practically impossible for candidates refusing to accept female clergy to receive ordination into the pastoral office, while the members of the church with similar conviction find it increasingly difficult to find places to worship in anymore. Luther Foundation has countered this problem by calling and ordaining its own pastors via Mission Province, assigning them with the task of serving new congregations in Finland. Neither these pastors nor the congregations they serve are recognized by the established church.

Väisänen continues to serve as bishop in the Mission Province of Sweden and Finland.

Read a response in support of the Bishop (an English translation in pdf) by Luther Foundation Finland.

Read also the personal defense by Bishop Väisänen himself (offered here by permission):

Book Review of The Church Event - Call and Challenge of a Church Protestant. By Vitor Westhelle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. 181 Pages. Paperback. Review by Mark D. Menacher.

Vitor Westhelle, Professor of Systematic Theology at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, has produced a curious work. The back cover quotes Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, describing Westhelle’s “inimitably poetic and theologically incisive way” of presenting “the paradoxes and the promises of the Church event.” She praises the “beauty of the book’s language” to appeal “to our senses, and the acuity of the analysis.” Contrary to her sentiments, at least in this case, poetic language does not seem to be best suited to attempt either theological incisiveness or acuity of analysis.

An introduction (1-10), ten chapters (11-168), acknowledgements (169-170), and an index (171-181) comprise this volume. In his acknowledgements, perhaps placed deliberately towards the end of the book, Westhelle mentions that Chapter Four, part of Eight, and most of Nine have been published elsewhere. Having read the acknowledgements first helped this reviewer understand why the book actually reads like a collection of essays of varying quality pressed into one volume, with obligatory but less than satisfactory cross-referencing.