The Peaceful Gnome

What is the difference and does it really matter? From Josh S over at Cruising Down the Coast of the High Barbaree Half blog. Half bear. Half pig. A Different Kind of Religion This goes way back to some discussions with Steve from Stupid Church People . Now I don't claim that Lutheranism fixes everything. You'll find the same human flaws in the Lutheran Church that you find everywhere else. But I would like to make the claim that it is virtually a different religion from what goes on at a megachurch. The difference comes down to two of the fundamental questions that define religious communities as communities: "Who are we?" and "What are we doing?" The Lutheran answer is sacramental, which makes the Lutheran understanding of "church" different from that of evangelicalism different in kind rather than in degree. Please read the whole thing here as it really explains what is unique about the Lutheran understanding of church.

I often have this issue with Netflix, I've watched many a flick I have no idea why I ordered because my queue is 60 movies long and it sometimes is a few months before I get around to seeing ones I put on the list, and then I wonder, what was I thinking???

These are by William Weedon on his blog . Really good stuff. First: Hey, You know What the Eucharist is? It's the anti-rejection medicine that God prescribes for you after the heart-transplant that He performed on you in Holy Baptism. Then: And lifting up His hands... ...He blessed them. Have you ever followed the hands of Jesus? See them as Mary first held him, and his tiny hand wrapped around a finger as He nursed in the warmth of her embrace. See his hands as he reaches out to touch the grizzled beard of Simeon in the temple. See his hands as He learns to plane the wood and help Joseph in the carpenter shop, hands growing calloused even as a youth. See his hands as he opens the Torah and reads from it, a finger tracing along with the words. See his hands as they fold when John puts Him beneath the waters of Jordan. See his hands as they crack in the dryness of the wilderness, his whole self parched and weary. See his hands as he touches ...

May 1st is a " National Day of Prayer " or so I've been told. Prayer to what or who? This is yet another example of that American Civil Religion that is so pervasive these days. There is some vague undefined power out there called "God" who all Americans are supposed to believe in. Who or what is he? I honestly don't get it. Muslims deny the deity of Jesus Christ and call the doctrine of the Trinity polytheism. Hindus pray to hundreds of gods and goddesses, Buddhists claim no gods at all while the Baha'i faith claims all the gods and prophets as their own. There is only One True God, that is the Triune God as described in the Holy Scriptures, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Sorry if that sounds intolerant but there can be no compromise on this issue. God is very real and very specific, He is the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and not Krisna, not Allah. Those who pray to these other gods are praying to false gods, praying to lies, indeed, they are ...

I have packed... um... yep, nothing is how much I've packed so far. I did shove most of my camping gear into the car and dump it in the garage of the new house though :-) My excuse is I'm working this week my normal schedule... Lucky for me that Mike and Lora are packing like fiends in the rest of the house! Serenity is staying with the Domkes for a few days so she is out from under foot, that makes things marginally easier I suppose. In honor of my fine skills we present this from Wondermark Manor (click on image to actally read the thing):

Here is the funniest headline of the day, maybe the week from the BBC : 'Free Tibet' flags made in China Made in China? Police believe some flags may have already been shipped Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say. The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile. Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning. But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper.

Gah, I really hate moving. Wednesday we are moving four miles south, over the border into Pleasanton. I'm looking forward to it being done and dreading doing it. There will probably be nothing here until after Thursday. Then again, maybe there will be, who knows :-)

The Rev. William M. Cwirla has a post on his blog called: The 8th Commandment - A Brief Catechesis He does a much better job than I do on explaining the atrocious misuse of the 8th commandment by our synod rulers . An extended excerpt follows, I urge you to read the whole post as well: ...the 8th commandment is not a protective blanket of immunity from criticism for those in public office. Public accountability means being open to public scrutiny and criticism. Anyone who runs for public office knows this and ought to expect it. The very nature of checks and balances requires that those who hold public office, whether in the state or the church, be subject to the scrutiny of those they are elected to serve. The 8th commandment was given by God to protect one's personal reputation, not as a set of skirts to hide behind when the hounds of criticism are on to your scent. The 8th commandment forbids us from attacking a person's name, reputation or character; it does not forbid cri...

There are a whole series of them here , perfect! :-)

The 8th commandment, by the Lutheran and Catholic numbering system, is: The Eighth “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” The small catechism of Luther says: 16 What does this mean? Answer: We should fear and love God, and so we should not tell lies about our neighbor, nor betray, slander, or defame him, but should apologize for him, speak well of him, and interpret charitably all that he does. In other places Lutheran frequently use the phrase, "Put the best construction on everything," when describing what this means. I really have a problem with that, or at least in the way that it is frequently used by perpetrators of wrong to prevent anyone saying a word against them. This comes up for me this morning because I read a response from Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick, President, The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod about the uncalled for, unjust and improper removing of the program "Issues Etc." from KFUO. You can find the whole letter on the ...

Two stories from England about how schools mess up kids, these are full of great quotes :-) Sample quotes: I offer these examples as proof of my point: as a method of delivering education, school is overrated. This was Bertrand Russell's view. "Men are born ignorant, not stupid," he wrote. "They are made stupid by education." Robert Louis Stevenson was of the view that "full, vivid, instructive hours of truantry" were a better education than sitting in a classroom having information drummed into your mind by Gradgrinds intent on producing obedient wage slaves. Idle parenting means happy children Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 16/02/2008 Page 1 of 3 Cancel all clubs, ditch the after-school activities and leave those kids alone, urges Tom Hodgkinson The idle parent: the less school, the better Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 15/03/2008 Tom Hodgkinson says the idea that school is good for us doesn't bear examination

Some time ago I began to eat more fruits and vegetables, this drifted over into an exclusively vegetarian diet after a while. My motivation for this change was twofold. First there was my own health, I am convinced that a diet made up primarily of fruits, grains and vegetables is the one our bodies are designed to use. Small amounts of meats are probably not that bad but I really don't care much for meat, or should I say the very idea of eating the burned corpse of some murdered animal simply makes me feel a bit queasy. ;-) My second motive was that producing meats uses more resources, land and fuel, than producing an equivalent food value for a vegetarian diet. My thinking was that to feed all of the people on the planet we needed to move toward this sort of eating, we just can't feed 6 billion people beef! Now there is a study out that demonstrates just how important this idea really is, this time with an eye toward reducing our carbon footprint, reducing greenhouse emissio...

Here is the beginning of a somewhat longer piece, please read the whole thing here . Saturday, April 19, 2008 Muslim Friendly Worship? The delightfully candid cowardly amoral anti-hero Harry Flashman in the series of novels by George MacDonald Fraser was so despicable, one could not imagine anything being shocking to him. There is a line Flashman would utter once in a great while when he witnessed something so debased that even he had to raise an eyebrow: "For an instant even I was appalled - but only for an instant." Caught between the pincers of the world and the church, I find myself so jaded these days as to rarely find the energy to even shrug my shoulders at what I see going on around me. But, in the case of the following published paper by the chairman of the Missions Department of Concordia University, Portland, the Rev. Dr. Herb Hoefer, who is, of course, an ordained minister of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, I have nothing else to do than to quote ...

April 19, 2008 Prosecuting No-Threat Stumblebums by Alan Bock E arlier this week a federal judge in Miami declared a second mistrial in the case of the so-called "Liberty City 7," a group of men accused of a terrorist plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Only six men were on trial this time because last December a jury acquitted one of the so-called plotters and was deadlocked on the charges against the others, included the purported leader, one Narseal Batiste, 33, who was supposedly the leader of a self-styled sect called the Moorish Science Temple. The prosecution had at its disposal hundreds of FBI audio and video recordings documenting supposed plots, includi...

David Strand, the clearly mentally challenged dude who took the ax to the only truly Confessional Lutheran Voice to the world, said in a recent interview (source is this story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ) that the new Afternoon Show they replaced Issues Etc. with " is different from "Issues, Etc. in that it doesn't dwell largely on Lutheran apologetics at a sophisticated level. It still takes its Gospel proclamation seriously, but it finds new ways to capture attention." In other words, he said that they replaced a sophisticated apologetics program , that has brought thousands to understand that Confessional Lutheran theology is Biblical theology , with the stinking dung of generic American evangelicalism. That is the same stuff that you can scrape off of the bottom of your shoe after trolling through TBN for a while. Sure it will "capture attention" as he said, but only long enough to scrape away it's annoying smell, it will not feed anyone...

The real reason my beard comes and goes from time to time:

One of my favorite pet peeves is the existence of "Revenue Generation Lights", known to most people as "traffic lights." These vile frauds cause massive death, destruction and waste of resources, mostly time and gasoline, all for the profit of Govco, that organized crime syndicate that just today forced millions of people to file reams of paper and send in gigantic checks to ensure it's parasitic and murderous existence continues another year. It was with great pleasure I read Obedience as a Radical Act by Butler Shaffer. A recent news story told of cities that are removing their cameras that photograph cars running red lights at certain intersections. The reason? Drivers are aware of such devices and, rather than run the risk of getting a ticket in the mail, they stop in time. One would think making intersections safer might be a caus...

Since today is the 52nd anniversary of my baptism I have been thinking about the concept of baptismal regeneration for much of the day, in the little bits of time here and there during the work day when nothing much is happening, though today is a pretty busy day what with a water shut down, extra engineers and plumbers wandering about causing extra work. Anyway, baptismal regeneration is the concept that baptism actually does something concrete and is not merely "an outward sign of an inward faith" or however that goes. See this post in Ask the Pastor for a good explanation of original sin, the need for infant baptism and baptismal regeneration. Well thinking about baptismal regeneration and listening to a podcast from Stand to Reason , a very Calvinist apologetics ministry that I like to listen to that tries to be rigorously logical, got me to pondering the fact that Lutheran Christianity is unique in its embrace of paradox . Calvinists and others try to force Christia...

On this date in 1956 I was baptized into the family of God. Luther's Flood Prayer Almighty and eternal God, according to Your strict judgment You condemned the unbelieving world through the flood, yet according to Your great mercy You preserved believing Noah and his family, eight souls in all. You drowned hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his host in the Red Sea, yet led Your people Israel through the water on dry ground, foreshadowing this washing of Your Holy Baptism. Through the Baptism in the Jordan of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, You sanctified and instituted all waters to be a blessed flood and a lavish washing away of sin. We pray that You would behold this child according to Your boundless mercy and bless him with true faith by the Holy Spirit, that through this saving flood all sin in him, which has been inherited from Adam and which he himself has committed since, would be drowned and die. Grant that he be kept safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian ...

First, Mom checks 3 books on electricity out of the library, then the kids make models of light bulbs, read a biography of Thomas Edison, and do a skit based on his life. Next, everyone studies the history of lighting methods, wrapping up with dipping their own candles. Next, everyone takes a trip to the store where they compare types of light bulbs, as well as prices, and figure out how much change they'll get if they buy 2 bulbs for $1.99 and pay with a five dollar bill. On the way home, a discussion develops over the history of money and also Abraham Lincoln, as his picture is on the five dollar bill. Finally, after building a homemade ladder out of branches dragged from the woods, the light bulb is installed. And, there is light! Ah, so that's how it's done!

Here is an implausible, though just barely possible, but still very entertaining, for empire haters like myself at least, scenario for the collapse of the American Empire: Decline and Fall from LewRockwell.com Paul Craig Roberts on the end of US hegemony.

This last weekend we had our first stretch of really nice and warm weather, it got up into the 90's even. Serenity and I spent most of three days at various parks :-) A day at the park is generally better than any day in the house, especially when it's this nice. There is a larger set of photos here .

What is the difference between a criminal gang and a government? Size! Yep, that's about it. Check out this wonderful cartoon aimed at kids of all ages.

The Olympic Torch came to the Soviet Republic of Frisco today and they wound up sending it up empty streets away from the crowds in order to obtain the best propaganda videos possible for their good buddies the murderous, massively polluting, genocidal, Communist Chinese government. The torch run here was a complete farce, as befits a propaganda event as farcical as having a murderous totalitarian state hosting the Olympics in the first place. I think they need to just build a permanent Olympic village in Greece and quit all of this nationalistic bull shit they smear the athletes with these days. I wasn't going to watch the Olympics before and wasn't going to even bother commenting on them but this pathetic display of pandering to the communists made me want to scream. OK, not just want to scream, I did shout a bit, right here a couple of blocks from several thousand demonstrators, many carrying Red Chinese flags, those folk just need to go back to China... if you love ...

I have had to revise my impression of Senator McCain after reading this story in the New York Times about his son's decision to join the Marine Corps. Senator McCain objected to the printing of the story: The McCains declined to be interviewed for this article, which the campaign requested not be published. “The McCain campaign objects strongly to this intrusion into the privacy of Senator McCain’s son,” Steve Schmidt, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “The children of presidential candidates in this election cycle should be afforded the same respect for their privacy that the children of President Bush and President and Senator Clinton have been afforded.” (To protect Lance Corporal McCain in case he is again deployed to a war zone, The New York Times is not publishing recent photographs of him and has withheld some details of his service). It tells me a LOT about the sense of honor and service that was taught in that family that a son of privilege like Jimmy McCain would...

No commentary needed...

Following is an excerpt from a Mason Beecroft's "Wayfarer in the Desert" blog about the cancellation of Issues Etc. If you are at all concerned or interested in this huge problem in the LCMS please read the whole article here . ------------------------------------------------------------------ I would argue that there is a prevailing ideology influencing Western Christendom in our day. My neologism for this ideology is “Hybelspongism.” The ideology proclaims that the church must change or it will die. In its liberal forms, this requires widespread acceptance of the cultural and social norms of the day, including tolerance of sexual deviancy, inclusion of all religions while denying the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and embarrassment for Christian faith. Instead, this ideology reduces the church to social activism (inclined toward the Democrats) and bows to pluralism. Spong is a representative figure of this wing. In its conservative forms, Hybelspongism rejects the historic l...

"A Spiritual Hiroshima" from Father Hollywood by Father Hollywood Thanks to Dr. John Stephenson of the Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Catharines, Ontario for sending me this brilliant essay based on a presentation by Dr. Peter Kreeft (pictured) of Boston College. While his speech was obviously written from a Roman Catholic perspective, and bewails his own communion's failure (at least in America) to mount a defense of the Gospel in the face of the "Culture of Death" - both among the hierarchy and in the church's colleges - we Lutherans are largely fighting the same battle. Like Nero who played the lute while Rome burned, our church leadership fiddles with silly marketing gimmicks and programs while our antichristian culture is Ablaze!(tm) with the "crafts and assaults of the devil ." Our bureaucrats seem to have no clue that we are living in apocalyptic times. Our hierarchy pushes the marketing of the emerging gurus, when what the Church and...

Devotional Reading for: 4/2/2008 Associated Scripture Readings: Colossians 3:12-17 Psalm 90:12-17 The Architect’s Reputation Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. Colossians 3:23 ...

The decision is harder this round than most... FYI, I was trying to use Google Reader to read my blog and at first it did not work, then today it seemed to, so try it out if you want, it really is the best way to keep up with several blogs if you are into that sort of thing.

Kieschnick Authorized $5 Million Line of Credit for Ablaze ** Updated ** NOTE: This is NOT an April Fool's Joke Yesterday President Kieschnick claimed that Issues Etc. was losing $250,000 per year. In the course of putting that figure into its proper context that we also explained that the Ablaze Fan Into Flame initiative lost $2.2 million during the same timeframe that Issues Etc. lost $250,000. Please go here to read the entire article.