The problem with public official prayers

Last updated on: October 1, 2014 at 7:34 am By Gene Veith

We believe in freedom of religion, something that is becoming more and more important to Christians in light of the possibility of official suppression. Along with that comes the rights of non-Christian religions. Public governmental meetings are allowed to open with prayer, but that prayer cannot discriminate against the various religions.

Recently, a member of the Escambia County Commission in Florida walked out of the meeting, after an “Agnostic Pagan Pantheist” did an “invocation” that he found weird and satanic.

Wouldn’t it be better not to have any prayers at all at these meetings, rather than force those in attendance to participate in such syncretism? (more…)

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“Can Nadia Bolz-Weber save evangelicalism?”

Last updated on: September 16, 2014 at 8:28 pm By Gene Veith

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As we’ve blogged about, Nadia Bolz-Weber has been getting a lot of attention as an ELCA “pastorix” who, for all of her tattoos, ministry to gays, and violation of “culture wars” stereotypes, preaches justification by grace through faith, Christ’s Atonement for sin, and the theology of the Cross.

Now a British journalist has written an article that asks the question, “can Nadia Bolz-Weber save evangelicalism?” (See excerpts after the jump, along with my thoughts.) But I wonder if what people are so impressed with is just a matter of her “style” or if it isn’t even more so a reaction to her Lutheran theology, which comes across as new, mind-blowing, and just what people need to hear. (more…)

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Luther on changing a baby’s diaper (rerun)

Last updated on: September 14, 2014 at 8:46 pm By Gene Veith

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[Mollie Hemingway’s quotation from Luther’s “The Estate of Marriage” (1522) reminded me that I blogged on that sermon in 2007, several platforms ago. So I thought I would rerun it.]

In working on an article about vocation, I was looking for the source of Luther’s famous saying about the holiness of changing diapers. I found his sermon “The Estate of Marriage” (1522) posted online here. A priceless excerpt:

Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason (which the pagans followed in trying to be most clever), takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, “Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labour at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else of bitterness and drudgery married life involves? What, should I make such a prisoner of myself? 0 you poor, wretched fellow, have you taken a wife? Fie, fie upon such wretchedness and bitterness! It is better to remain free and lead a peaceful. carefree life; I will become a priest or a nun and compel my children to do likewise.” (more…)

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The problem with cops in camo

Last updated on: August 17, 2014 at 3:48 pm By Gene Veith

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Why would police officers, as in those in Ferguson, Missouri, wear green camoflage jungle fatigues? If it’s necessary to hide from urban bad guys, they should wear black, grey, and dirty white camoflage so as to blend in with asphalt, concrete, and dilapidated houses. (Like this.) The answer, of course, is that since most of our military’s fighting these days requires desert camoflage, our government unloaded the jungle pattern for police departments and whoever else wants them. So now the police are purposefully dressing up to look like soldiers. This signifies a confusion of vocation. (more…)

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Half of marriages aren’t valid?

Last updated on: August 4, 2014 at 9:24 pm By Gene Veith

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Roman Catholics don’t believe in divorce. But they do allow for annulments. These involve ecclesiastical tribunals that rule that a valid marriage never existed in the first place. If it was determined that a couple was too young and didn’t know what they were doing or that they didn’t understand the Catholic theology of marriage, their marriage could be declared invalid. Despite receiving the sacrament of marriage in their wedding, despite living together for decades, despite having children and raising them to adulthood, they weren’t really married, thus ratifying their civil divorce and allowing them to marry someone else.

Catholics who do get a divorce and remarry without an annulment (which is a very expensive and time-consuming process) incur automatic excommunication, meaning that they are not allowed to receive Holy Communion. This affects lots of people, as you can imagine, and cuts seriously into church attendance. So the church is reconsidering its practice, trying to find a way to allow remarried people to take Communion.

A leader of that effort is the retired German archbishop Cardinal Walter Kasper, who, in the course of an interview in Commonweal Magazine, dropped this bombshell that, strangely, has drawn little attention: “I’ve spoken to the pope himself about this, and he said he believes that 50 percent of marriages are not valid.” (more…)

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The street and the altar

Last updated on: July 2, 2014 at 7:48 pm By Gene Veith

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The Lutheran pastor, Christian Führer, whose prayer meetings became a catalyst for the protests that overthrew Communism in East Germany died Monday at age 71.

I was struck by this quotation from him: “It is not the throne and the altar, but the street and the altar that belong together.” That’s an interesting version of the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. That concept is often taken to refer just to the relation of the church to earthly governments. That’s part of it, but I think it applies more broadly to society and culture as a whole, where God is also active in vocation and in caring for His creation. (more…)

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