My daughter Mary Moerbe, over at her blog Meet, Write, & Salutary, is trying to think through a theology of writing and a theology of fiction. She is seeking input and possible contributors. See where she is with this after the jump. (more…)
My daughter Mary Moerbe, over at her blog Meet, Write, & Salutary, is trying to think through a theology of writing and a theology of fiction. She is seeking input and possible contributors. See where she is with this after the jump. (more…)
Roman Catholicism famously doesn’t believe in divorce. But it does believe in annulments, a procedure which determines that for one reason or another–immaturity, not knowing what they are getting into, etc.–a valid marriage never took place.
The implication is that many couples who had a church wedding and a marriage license, who have had children together, and who have lived their whole lives together are not really married. I suppose this comes out if the couple wants to break up the marriage and, if they are Catholic, receive an annulment, but even if they stay together, they can never really know if they are married.
I would say that, from a Lutheran perspective, this is another example of Roman Catholicism’s being not nearly sacramental enough. Catholics believe that marriage is a sacrament, but the objective sacrament doesn’t make the marriage, just the subjective experience of long ago when they first became married. Similarly, Catholics can’t really know if they have been saved, even though they have been baptized, received Holy Communion, etc.
Jake Meador, a thoughtful young evangelical, reflects on monasticism and says that one thing we can learn from that practice is the virtue–yes, the virtue–of indifference. (more…)
Most military recruiting ads lately have had a self-help theme (“be all that you can be”) or have encouraged enlistment for all of the job training you would get. But this ad, shown after the jump, invokes the purpose of military service. And it reminds us why we should all be grateful for those in military vocations–particularly those who laid down their lives for their neighbors–on this Memorial Day. (more…)
The Lutheran educational tradition, according to Thomas Korcok, is classical liberal arts education + catechesis. In his book Lutheran Education, Dr. Korcok, now a professor at Concordia Chicago, shows how the enthusiasts just wanted Bible-reading schools; the humanists just wanted classical education; the pietists just wanted vocational training; the Enlightenment just wanted science education–but orthodox Lutherans at every stage insisted on classical education + catechesis. More and more Lutheran schools are returning to that double emphasis.
The 16th annual conference of the Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education will be held at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN, July 19-21. The theme will be “A Pedagogy of Goodness” (the last two years featuring the other absolutes of truth and beauty). Dr. Korcok will be one of our speakers. I’ll be leading a series of workshops on Moral Education and Literature. See the other speakers and topics after the jump.
There is a new book out from CPH that is very much worth reading: Being Lutheran by A. Trevor Sutton, a young pastor in Michigan. In the vein of my Spirituality of the Cross, this book explains in an utterly fresh way not only what Lutherans believe but also what it feels like to “be” Lutheran. This is a book for life-long Lutherans, confirmation drop-outs, “seekers,” interested fellow-travellers, non-Christians, millennials, and “nones” who are “spiritual but not religious.” I wrote the foreword. An excerpt from that, plus a link to Amazon, after the jump. (more…)
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