Here is the beginning of a somewhat longer piece, please read the whole thing here.
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 Sir Harry Flashman.
Now, mind you, the procedures for pressing charges against a fellow member of the Missouri Synod are so convoluted that very few people other than law professors from Boston can understand them, and they are so laden with land-mines that rumor has it that Angelina Jolie is considering bringing the issue before the United Nations. Therefore, my expression of "shock and appall" (even if only for an instant) must not be construed as some kind of charge of theological error. Of course, we don't err in the Missouri Synod. Our president assures us that we are united as never before. And as David Strand says: we're all confessional Lutherans. But of course.
But I'm still appalled...more.
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 Sir Harry Flashman.
Now, mind you, the procedures for pressing charges against a fellow member of the Missouri Synod are so convoluted that very few people other than law professors from Boston can understand them, and they are so laden with land-mines that rumor has it that Angelina Jolie is considering bringing the issue before the United Nations. Therefore, my expression of "shock and appall" (even if only for an instant) must not be construed as some kind of charge of theological error. Of course, we don't err in the Missouri Synod. Our president assures us that we are united as never before. And as David Strand says: we're all confessional Lutherans. But of course.
But I'm still appalled...more.
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