thoughts

Was the American Revolution Unchristian?

/ Adam / 1 Comment

I’m beginning to do some reading on the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms (aka the Two Realms).  This is the concept that God is the ruler over all things, and all He rules over is based in two realms, His left hand (the “civil” realm) and His right hand (the “heavenly” realm).  But before I go any further, let me break this doctrine down very quickly (I’ll do a more in-depth post on the Two Kingdoms later…and special thanks to Pastor Joel Biermann and Concordia Seminary’s iTunesU videos as a source for information).

The “civil” realm is not just the government, but also includes the home, the economy, the environment, etc.  It is the realm of preservation, such as preserving peace and justice in the world.  It is the realm of the Sword, which the government (or those in authority, i.e. parents, teachers, bosses) wield to maintain order over the earth and those over which God has placed them.  This is a key point.  God rules over both realms, and as such, grants authority to those He wishes to have it.

The “heavenly” realm is the church, but not the little “c” church of this world, necessarily.  It is the realm of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  It is the realm of the Word, and is the realm of the work to bring salvation to those who believe.

The two realms are not opposed to each other.  They are not at odds.  Instead, they cross into each other and even compliment each other.  The work of the left realm is to maintain order and civility so that the work of the right may continue to save.  The right hand will bring peace and comfort to the soul, and allow the left to complete it’s task.

An excellent set of examples is the judge and the murderer.  The judge will work in the left realm, dispensing justice from the authority of the government to the murderer.  The murderer, who may repent and truly be sorry for his sins, will still be punished for his crime.  The judge does not let the repentance of the murderer sway him from his task of judgement, and the murderer does not expect that his repentance and forgiveness from God will remove from him the judgement he faces.  The murderer will be forgiven by God, but will receive the Sword of the left hand kingdom.  The judge will use the Sword, but may still work to spread the Word of the right hand kingdom outside of his job.

Still, both kingdoms are ruled by God.  He grants grace and forgiveness on the right, and sets up any authority He wishes on the left.  If God did not want an authority to rule, He would not allow it to be.

So, was the American Revolution against the will of God?  Did our forefathers sin as they overthrew the government which ruled them?  The answer is a resounding “Yes.”

Romans 13:1-2:  “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”

But God works through the sinfulness of man to fulfill His purposes.  Were our forefathers wrong?  Yes.  Does that mean that our nation is inherently evil?  Not necessarily (although THAT’S a discussion for another time).  God uses our country to fulfill His purpose.  May He grant us the strength to do His will when it is our time to complete it.

Now, ask yourself this:  Are the Occupy Wall Street protesters right or wrong?  Are they doing God’s will?  And is supporting them sinful?

A Persuasion to Prayer

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As we move through the stress and strain of our daily lives, sometimes we wonder how we should best handle our worries and fears, our hopes and desires, our needs and our wants. Where can we find help and strength to carry our in the burden of life? Stress relief is often the topic of many emotional self-help books and audio recordings, like the ones we see on TV at 3 am between Law and Order and Dracula vs. the Wolfman, Part 17. They tell us that we can look inside ourselves to find The Power of Living, as one so-called collection states. Yet, these always cost large amounts of time and rather large amounts of money, because, as we all know, 4 easy payments of $39.99 is not cheap to anyone in a recession.

However, I would like to offer a simpler, easier, more fulfilling method to handle to problems of this world. Something that is useful anywhere, in any situation. It’s inexpensive (actually, it’s free), anyone can do it, and available to all. The solution is prayer.

Now, you may ask yourself, why pray? Well, Paul tells us in his first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 17, to “pray continually.” I know that in my life things happen on a regular basis such that I need help, or just want to talk about them with someone. God is always there and ready to hear what I have to say. Christ commands us to pray in Matthew 7:7ff, when He says “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” God wants us to talk with Him. He is willing to listen to us in our times of trouble, or even to thank him for what He has done for us. Even medical studies show that prayer is helpful in the midst of an illness. Prayer relieves stress by focusing one’s attention and calming an individual. Prayer is the equivalent of a child’s time-out. It gives us a moment to step back and look at the things around us.

How, then, should we pray? Christ answers this question fully when He says in Matthew 6:9ff, “This, then, is how you should pray,” and follows with what has thus been known as the Lord’s Prayer. However, this is not the only way that we can talk to our Father. Martin Luther states one method of praying in his definition of the Second Commandment, taken from his Small Catechism, which states that we should “in every time of need call upon [God], pray to him, praise him, and give him thanks.” From this we can see three major types of prayer: prayer in times of need, praising God as our great and almighty King, and thanking God for the gifts He has given to us. When we pray in times of need, we should ask God not only to help us and watch over us, but those around us, such as our family and loved ones; Christ even tells us to pray for our enemies. Thanking and praising God should be the easiest part of prayer, because of all of the gifts we receive from Him should be more than enough of a reason to pray. All of these types of prayer can be seen in the most amazing collection of prayers ever assembled: the Psalms. Here we see many of the different ways that we can talk to God. But these are not the only ways. Even just having a plain, old conversation with the Creator of all (as ironic as that sounds) is a comfortable and helpful way to give peace to our lives. Some see prayer as a quiet meditation time, to look over the events of their lives and to seek God’s guidance. That is the essence of prayer. Asking for God’s guidance and strength, seeking His peace and love, searching for His will and desires in our lives.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of prayer? As for the latter, I see no drawbacks to talking with God. He commands it, and answers us. When we pray, He comes to us and comforts us in our time of need. All that He asks is that, when we pray, we thank and praise Him. To me, this sounds like a win-win situation. The benefits of prayer are even greater. Besides the physiological benefits of relaxation, rest, and rejuvenation, we receive many mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits as well. Peace, joy, happiness, restoration of the heart and mind, comfort, and strength are just a few of the things that we see in our lives after we pray to God. Also, God answers those questions that most trouble our hearts and minds, and He leads us to live lives of good and faithful righteousness in Him.

After having seen all of these reasons to pray, sometimes we are still unsure of what pray. Many daily devotional books and pamphlets, such as the Portals of Prayer series, updated every quarter, which is available online through Concordia Publishing House, are readily accessible to all. Also, leaflets, like Talking with God, are handy in looking into the discussion of prayer and its usefulness. The Treasury of Daily Prayer, and it’s corresponding app, Pray Now, are available at all times through any Apple device.

Prayer should be a major part in the lives of every Christian. Its benefits are far greater than even the person praying can ever imagine. We are commanded to pray by God Himself. It is not time consuming nor is it hard to do. We have a shoulder to cry on, someone to laugh with about the humor of life, someone to hear us and understand all of the things that affect us in our daily lives. With this kind of a deal, who could pass up the opportunity to be heard? The benefits are outstanding, and in the end, we will be glad that we did it. So go on, pray. It regularly gets me through this blog. It can get you through anything.

Luther, the Graphic Novel?!

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Well, it was only a matter of time, I guess.  And it has arrived:

Luther: The Graphic Novel

(See the sneak-peek trailer below…you can ignore the overly dramatic voice and get a look at the content)

In full disclosure, I should state that I haven’t read this book, or even looked through it, for that matter.  And I don’t think I need to in order to lay claim to the following thoughts.

If you grew up as I did, in a Lutheran home, or attended a Lutheran school as I did, you would most likely have run across these books.  The Arch Books were a part of my bedtime stories, required reading during book time in school, and something that introduced me to many of the Bible stories available to children for their learning and understanding.  “God, I’ve gotta talk to you!”, “Jonah and the Very BIG Fish”, and “SAMSON” were just some of the stories I remember hearing.  I’ve been lucky enough to read them to my son, who listens intently and makes me wait to turn the page until he’s gotten to inspect every single minutiae of every picture.  It was just one more way for us as a family to share the message of the Bible, the story of Christ, and the Works of the Lord throughout history and our lives.  I’ve been so happy to have those books in my life, and I would encourage anyone to pass them on to the children in their lives, whether it be sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, or the neighbor’s children from next door.  And what better way to spread the message of Christ than to do so through the Bible stories which can build and strengthen faith.

But there are two things which the Arch Books did not do that disappoint me.  First, they never moved beyond the realm of Bible stories into the history and material of the church.  Now, we can say that Arch Books are not intended for that purpose, and I would certainly agree.  The vehicle of the Arch Books is a proven one, and it was not applied to the next stories to come about after the Bible.  Where are the stories of Luther, or of the church’s struggles and hope throughout history?  Don’t we want to make that available as well?  What about the meaning of the cross, or the pictures of the lamb in stained windows, or the changing colors in the church throughout the year?  Those things are made available to adults, but in a format not quite as readable as Arch Books.

And the second thing which the Arch Book didn’t (and couldn’t) do was be accessible to the next level of children.  My son is aging quickly, and he’s moving beyond Arch Books.  A story, with the poetic writing and the cartoonish drawings of the Arch Book series are excellent for young children, but get left behind rather quickly as time marches on.

Enter the graphic novel!  This is an excellent idea.  The format is accessible to the youth/teenager, the cost is available to parents, and the story of Luther is a compelling one.  Bravo, CPH!  Now, can we take the Arch Books and move those stories to the graphic novel format?  The bubbly cartoons of Arch Books are just child-like enough to put off a growing child who is starting to see the world for what it is.  Let’s give them the Bible in a way that helps them understand the truth of it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s5OtMaoHk-Q]

On This Day

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On this day, we remember so many things. We remember the smoke, the sirens, the screams, the gray clouds roaring, the multitudes of people who lost identity and became one huge ash-covered mass of population.

We think about the faces on fliers, hung on streetposts and walls through the city, searching for the lost. The bright sunshine, an irony to the darkness of the day, shone throughout the morning. There were no clouds to cover the empty skies.

We think about the firefighters and the police officers rushing in, the people who didn’t run out, the soldiers who perished not on the battlefield in some distance land, but in the headquarters here at home. We think about “Let’s roll!” and those who fought back for us.

Most of all, we think about sin, the cause of our suffering. It’s Sunday, and maybe that’s appropriate. For today we remember that we live in a world filled with sin. We live in a world filled with death and destruction and pain and loss. How much more then do we need salvation?

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.

“It is finished.”

Amen.

There’s a clutter in my church life…

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How cluttered is your church/faith life?  I know mine is very messy.  From the choirs I sing in (yes, plural) to the Board I serve on to the Bible classes and the books to read and the things to discuss and wonder and about which to pray.  I spent so much of my time thinking about my faith life, trying to remember what I’m supposed to be doing next in my church life, how I’m supposed to fit it all in, and then wondering how to streamline my faith life and church life so that they can dovetail together.  I want my life at church to hum along like a well-oiled and maintained machine.

There’s a website I like to read called unclutterer.com.  It’s an organizational nirvana, with interesting stories about ways to align your life with your priorities and pictures of beautiful and well-maintained office spaces.  But my favorite part is “Unitasker Wednesday.”  Every Wednesday, the website’s author finds a device/tool/object that very strangely, and often times absurdly, completes only one task, and usually not very well.  This is the kind of stuff you would find on the TV at 3 o’clock in the morning, only far, far less useful.

This, of course, begs the question, “Is there some way for me to organize my faith/church life?”  A plan or system or alignment that can bring it all together and make me able to move mountains, get it all done, and still get to choir on time.  And the answer is:

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU, IT’S ABOUT JESUS FOR YOU!

There it is!  The Word of God is the ultimate Unitasker, only this one works as advertised and without fail!  All this time for working and planning and organizing, and completely missing the point!  I can spend the time I have doing things at church, being “involved” and trying my best to be a part of the church, but I’ve forgotten that I already am!  Jesus has called me to be His, to be part of His Bride the Church, in the Word with the Water in my Baptism.  He has called me by name, and given me Life Eternal in His Word.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  – Colossians 3:16-17

I don’t need to “organize” my faith life into my church life, and vice versa.  My Faith in Christ and Him crucified does it for me, not my own efforts or strength.  My priority is to read and study His Word, to listen to Him speak to me through the pages and the verses, and to repent of my desires to “be all that I can be” to the congregation.  A Faithful existence is not one filled to the brim with “church,” but one filled to the brim with God’s Word and Sacraments.  The clutter is swept away, and from that faithfulness comes the work that God has laid out for me, and the use of the talents that He has given to me to serve His church.

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in all sincerity and in faithfulness.”  – Joshua 24:14 (My confirmation verse…oddly appropriate.)

Responding to antidenominationalism (Is that even a word?)

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Now that I’ve had some time to think about Pastor Weedon’s blog post, and given what is the sensitive nature of the subject, I think it is best to qualify my statements before proceeding. I have family members who are not LCMS Lutheran. I have family who is not even Lutheran, for that matter. I find this subject to be somewhat disconcerting to think about, as the topic can be personal to many people. Denominational loyalty is becoming a thing of the past. The post-modern society in which we live doesn’t see the need to be stuck to one train of thought, and, in fact, looks down on anyone who would claim to be more right (or even the only one right, for that matter) than anybody else. Thus, it is difficult to hear someone stating, quite plainly and firmly, that everyone else has missed the mark. It makes one uncomfortable, like somebody in the room just told the inappropriate joke, and nobody laughed.

Having said that, I don’t think that Pastor Weedon has told the inappropriate joke at all. In fact, a better analogy might be that he’s the one who called out the guy who wrote the inappropriate comment on the bathroom wall, in front of an office full of coworkers. He’s gone and said the thing that needed to be said, and now everyone is looking around and trying to decide whether or not to agree with him. And I have to say that I do.

Yes, it’s not about denominations. Nor should it be. The Christian Church has split, unfortunately, and not down a line which can, or should, be drawn. We have not split on guitars vs. organs, or J.S. Bach vs. Stephen Curtis Chapman. We’ve split in a much more harmful way. We’ve severed our ranks on the Body and Blood of Christ. We’ve divided ourselves over God’s saving work in Baptism, and the faith it instills. We rendered the Church in two because some of us have decided that we understand God’s plan better than God does.

Is Christ the only Way to salvation? Yes. Is His death and resurrection that which saves? Absolutely. Does that mean that the rest of our doctrinal differences are just topics of conversation? NOT IN THE LEAST! Our faith, our confession of that faith, our belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God and our holding to that Word, the Word of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, is what makes us Christian. And we MUST believe what IT says, not how WE CHOOSE to interpret it.

Will members of churches with a confession other than that found in the Book of Concord be saved? Yes. Christ tells us that, in Mark 9:40, “For the one who is not against us is for us.” The Holy Spirit works in all manner of people, Lutheran or not. But He only works in those who believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, and the Savior of the world. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1.

Don’t let this make you think that the rest of the doctrine doesn’t matter, though. Mistaken doctrine is like a wounded body part. If the wound is allowed to fester, it can consume all of your body. It can break you down and kill you. Having an unsound doctrine may not destroy you immediately, though, but may instead spread slowly, seeping into your other parts and beliefs, breaking you down and creating doubt in the parts that were sure. Only the true belief in the Word of God can heal this wound, and lift you up out of your sinful ways.

I know that I was once of the mindset that a Christian is a Christian, and what difference does a little doctrine make? I can see now, through my own study and prayer, that God’s Word is true in only one sense. And I believe that the Lutheran Confessions are the true exposition of the Word.

May God be gracious to you and I, and may “the Word of Christ dwell in you richly,” Colossians 3:16.

Everybody’s Got a Favorite

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It’s true, and we all know it.  Everybody has a favorite hymn.  “Earth and All Stars” or “Rock of Ages” or (for you Lost & Found fans) “The Church’s One Foundation” are just a few that get picked pretty regularly.  But does anybody you know have a favorite verse in a hymn?  Well, I have two.

Now that might sound a little strange, perhaps even silly.  But I’ve found over the years that I’m drawn to two different verses from hymns in the hymnal.  And I think that’s a good thing.  Because these are the verses I hear in my head when the world is turning sour, or I’m in a bad mood, or I just need something to think about while I waiting in line at the grocery store.  Inevitably, one of these two verses will pop into my head during one of those situations, and I get to turn the words over as I hum the tune and think about what they mean to me.

The first, and probably the one I think about most, is the second verse of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

“With might of ours can naught be done, Soon were our loss effected; But for us fights the valiant One, Whom God Himself elected.  Ask ye, Who is this?  Jesus Christ it is, Of Sabaoth Lord, And there’s none other God; He holds the field forever.”

Or in another way: “We cannot win over sinfulness, no matter how strong we are.  We are lost to death.  But the valiant One comes from God for us.  And who is this, you ask?  It is JESUS CHRIST!  The Son of the Living God!  And there is no other Lord in heaven or on earth.  He will win for us eternally!  Amen.”

The other verse is the third of “Hark, the Voice of Jesus Crying.”  This is the verse which makes me stop and consider the most.  I find myself thinking this one over, wondering about the plans God has for me, curious if I will be faithful to the calling of God, whatever it is.

“If you cannot be a watchman, Standing high on Zion’s wall, Pointing out the path to heaven, Offering life and peace to all, With your prayers and with your bounties You can do what God commands; You can be like faithful Aaron, Holding up the prophet’s hands.”

This is also my favorite hymn.  What’s yours?

Oh, What a Preacher! (although he might argue with the praise…)

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This weekend was the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the ordination of Pastor Weedon at St. Paul’s in Hamel, IL.  I had the pleasure of listening to him lead chapel during my years of high school, and have been blessed by subscribing to his blog, Weedon’s Blog.  So first, congratulations to him.

Second, Pastor Matthew Harrison preached the sermon for the service this weekend at St. Paul’s.  And oh, what a preacher!  The link to the sermon is here.  Thanks to Issues, Etc. for the link.  So, take 14 minutes and 53 seconds out of your day and listen to our Synod’s president preach the Law and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

To God be the Glory!

What’s with this thing called the Divine Service?

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Here’s a link to an explanation of the parts of the Liturgy at The Brothers of John the Steadfast.  It’s a fantastic explanation of what God gives us in the service, and how we are blessed by Him through His Word and Sacrament.  It’s something to look through with the hymnal if you have one to tie it all together.  And, if you can, check it out and then go to a traditional Divine Service this weekend.  See how the parts work together and enjoy a deeper understanding of the gift of the Liturgy.