The Wretch

Letter to LC-MS Board for Communication Services

2008-04-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

I sent the following letter to David Berger today to take with him to the Board for Communication Services meeting tomorrow and Friday, as suggested here. I almost immediately received a nice email note back from him assuring me that he would personally submit my letter and others he had received.

April 16, 2008

To the members of the Board for Communication Services:

From the LC-MS Ablaze! Website, we find the following:

Christ’s Great Commission:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

The focus of the 50 Days Ablaze! Mission Outreach Journey is spiritual growth and increased missions and outreach. The emphasis is on Christ’s grace and redeeming love for us. The mission response is seven-fold:
Learn, Pray, Give, Tell, Send, Go, Celebrate

When I look at what Christ said in that Bible verse, I see several action verbs, only one of which, “go”, is present in the seven-fold mission response. The action verbs that I see are: Go, Make, Baptize, Teach

Our church has been struggling financially, just as the Synod as a whole is struggling financially. But we are trying to continue the Great Commission in spite of financial difficulties.

We operate a grade school. The fees we charge to the families who send their children there are less than half of the actual cost. It has been suggested that we close the school because of the expense of operating it; however, the school is the best outreach tool we have. Every year, we baptize, catechize and confirm several adults and children as a direct result of the school. Rarely does this happen from any other form our outreach efforts have taken.

Therefore, we have cut expenses to the bone. We are operating as lean as we can. We have anticipated having to close our doors for several years now. We have nearly depleted special funds. We agreed over a year ago that we would draw them down to nothing before we would close the school, and then we trusted that God would provide what we needed as long as we were doing His will.

In the year since we decided that we would draw on the special funds until they no longer existed, we have not had to borrow from them. We are still struggling, but just when it looks like we’ll have to borrow from the funds again, the money comes in from somewhere.

In short, we are prepared to do whatever it takes and suffer whatever the consequences in order to continue reaching out, making disciples, baptizing and teaching.

It is understood that the Synod as a whole is struggling with financial issues as well; however, it seems wrong to me to cut costs by recalling missionaries, canceling Issues, Etc., and what I am afraid may be next, selling the broadcast license of the oldest Christian radio station in the U.S. These are wonderful forms of outreach. They should not be viewed in terms of “profitability”, and every effort should be made to continue them.

Listeners may not have been supporting KFUO-AM and Issues, Etc. to the level necessary, but I believe we are willing to do so. The problem is that no feedback has ever been provided. I’ve sent money from time to time, and I’ve heard the frequent appeals for financial support, but I’ve never heard any information on whether the support has been sufficient or not. If the program was canceled for financial reasons, why did this occur at the start of a new fund-raising appeal? Why were listeners not warned? Could we not have been given a fund-raising goal, a date by which the goal must be reached and regular feedback on how much had been raised?

We know that the Gospel is an offense to the unbeliever. There is no way to sugarcoat it through marketing methods. If you want to market the church to the culture, you have to change the message, and if you get people into the church by avoiding the Gospel, you cannot then deliver the true Gospel message. That is perpetrating the fraud of Bait and Switch, and those thus fooled will leave; however, if you continue to provide Gospel Lite to keep them, you may have warmed the pews but you will not have made a single disciple.

If you truly care for souls, the only way is to continue to preach the Gospel in all its truth and purity, and those who have ears, let them hear.

Why?

2008-04-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

About 80 people, including 8 children, gathered on this cool, blustery April day to simply ask the LC-MS why Issues, Etc. was canceled. We all know the official reasons, but they only create more questions than they answer.

Anyway, for those who could not be there, here are some pictures.

The crowd in front of the Purple Palace.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway.

Pastor Will Weedon.

Pastor Randy Asburry.

I'm sure there will be many more and better pictures than this. There was a reporter there from the Post Dispatch, so perhaps we will see a story and some pictures from them as well.

WSJ Weighs in on Issues, Etc. Debacle

2008-03-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

So many things have been going on regarding the Issues, Etc. debacle that I can't keep up. Now there is an article in the Wall Street Journal regarding this story. It is very well-written and sums up the larger issue of what is going on in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Cancellation of Issues, Etc. is just a symptom of that larger problem, which can be summed up in President Kieschnick's own oft-stated maxim, this is no longer my grandfather's synod, but I'm one of those who wants my grandfather's synod back! Here is a quote from the article.

Usually radio hosts have to offend sacred moral sensibilities to be thrown off the air. Opie and Anthony were fired after they encouraged a couple to have sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Don Imus lost his job after using racist and sexist epithets against the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

What would Martin Luther do?

But when the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod canceled its popular, nationally syndicated radio program "Issues, Etc.," listeners were baffled. Billed as "talk radio for the thinking Christian," the show was known for its lively discussions analyzing cultural influences on the American church. It seemed like precisely the thing that the Missouri Synod, a 2.4-million-member denomination whose system of belief is firmly grounded in Scripture and an intellectually rigorous theology, would enthusiastically support.

The full article can be read here.

Hiatus ended

2008-03-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

It has been nearly a year since I wrote on anything in this blog. I've been busy with other things. More on that later.

Right now, there is one thing in the forefront of my mind. That is the sudden and still unexplained cancellation of Issues, Etc., one of the very few Christ-centered, Cross-focused Christian talk radio shows on the air anywhere in the U.S.--and the sudden and still unexplained firing of host, Pastor Todd Wilken and producer, Jeff Schwarz.

Although there are plenty of us who are very unhappy about this situation, the powers-that-be in the LC-MS simply refuse to give a cogent explanation or reconsider their decision. KFUO radio says "The decision was made..." and it was for "programmatic and business reasons". President Kieschnick said, "The KFUO decision transpired with my awareness but neither by my order nor at my direction."

So who finally made the decision? Won't the real decision-maker stand up and explain him or herself? No one wants to take the credit/blame. No one wants to explain why the one program that brought in the most money to listener-supported KFUO was canceled for business reasons. No one wants to explain how one of the best outreach tools the Synod has was canceled for programmatic reasons.

And if this decision transpired with Dr. Kieschnick's awareness, would he care to let us know of his opinion on the decision? I mean, it was not at his order or direction, but does that mean he doesn't concur with it? Or does he concur, but just doesn't want to take any of the heat. Sir, you are the President of the LC-MS. It seems that you could and should be a great deal more forthcoming on this issue.

I wrote to David Strand, Executive Director of Communications for the Synod. I expressed to him how upset I was over this situation, asked for an explanation and asked for the show to be brought back. I did receive a response. Basically, he said he was sorry I was upset. That's it.

Well, the decision has been made to remove the KFUO donations line in my household budget. I was aware of this decision, but it was not made at my order or direction. It just sorta happened.

I'm not sure that those involved in this travesty were aware of the outcry this action would provoke, but one thing I am absolutely sure of was that they were fully aware that what they were doing was wrong and very un-Christian. Otherwise, those who made the decision would be willing to identify themselves and give a cogent rational reason, not mealy-mouthed, wholly unsatisfactory proclamations.

For more information, to sign the petition or to donate to the fund for Pastor Wilken and Jeff Schwarz, see the right sidebar.

Beachball

2007-05-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

The folks over at Worth1000 disqualified this picture because it didn't fit the theme. The theme was to take an "item" that was not normally spherical and make it so. I interpreted "item" rather broadly, I guess, because they took issue with the idea of a beach being an "item". I could argue semantics with them, but it would do no good and just irritate them. I can, however, post a link to it on my blog.

Virtual Reality???

2007-05-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

My husband called me in. "There's something I want you to watch on TV." I watched. It was some story about virtual reality Christianity. Apparently, there is some church that is broadcasting its services over the Internet, but not as video. Instead, it looks like a 3D video game. When you join the service, you can apparently create an image in the "congregation" that suits you. The service is exactly the way it occurs, the sermon is exactly as delivered, but there are no real images, only these 3D images. They showed one "attendee" who arrived as a cheetah wearing shorts.

The sermon itself, what they showed of it, never mentions Christ. There are musicians on the main stage that perform "praise" music.

"What do you think?", he asks. Where do I begin?

This is a typical example of the cultural religion. This is not Christianity! This is entertainment. What on earth does anyone get out of this? What does the cheetah in shorts get out of it?

OK, maybe you bring them in, these people raised in this technological age, but then you've got to define the problem (our sinful nature) and the solution to the problem (Christ and Him crucified). Otherwise, what's the point. It's just another virtual reality game.

Faith-based Decision?

2007-05-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

I just read a recent editorial in the Chicago Tribune, Our Faith-based Justices, regarding the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on so-called partial birth abortion, actually termed intact dilatation and extraction (IDX).

Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Roman Catholic. The four justices who are not all followed clear and settled precedent. It is distressing to have to point this out. But it is a fact that merits attention. In similar circumstances, where a decision could not credibly be explained in terms of traditional legal analysis, the same sort of observation would be appropriate and necessary if five Jewish justices disregarded precedent to vote in favor of the interests of Israel or five African-American justices disregarded precedent to vote in support of black reparations.

First of all, is there anyone who does not bring their own worldview into every facet of their lives including their jobs? It is, after all, who we are. We can apply this same reasoning to the four justices who are not Catholic. They voted the way they did because they apparently do not fundamentally hold a view that all human life should be respected and protected. It is actually their view that cannot credibly be explained in terms of traditional legal analysis.

What I mean is this. The challenge to the ban was based on the assertion that it could not be applied constitutionally because it did not contain an exception for the health of the mother. This challenge, that the law could not be applied constitutionally, is called a “facial” challenge.

Congress, when they passed the ban, had found, after examining all the evidence, that there were other alternatives available to protect the health of the mother and that if no alternative is available in a particular instance, the federal ban could not be invoked to bar IDX. The Supreme Court affirmed this finding by Congress. The court also concluded that this ban does not impose an undue burden on the abortion right, since women could still choose to have abortions, just not this particular type of abortion.

True, the majority opinion affirmed that respect for life is among legitimate government interests, but how is this a particularly “religious” view? Shouldn’t we all have respect for life? If not, why are our prisons filled with convicted murderers? Let them go! They’ve done nothing wrong, because “Thou shalt not kill” is a religious law, and we can’t be imposing religious laws on the state.

IDX is a particularly barbaric procedure that only avoids being considered infanticide by inches. Ask your doctor if he/she would ever perform this procedure on a woman whose health was at risk. If a woman’s health is at risk in the latest stages of pregnancy, the procedure of choice is delivery of the baby via cesarean section, since IDX actually would put the mother’s health more at risk.

IDX requires inducing a breach birth in a near term pregnancy, then while the baby’s head is still in the birth canal, the skull is punctured and the baby’s brains are sucked out. In a healthy mother where the baby is in breach presentation, the doctor will try to turn the baby. If unable to do so, the doctor will perform a cesarean section, since a breach birth is much more dangerous to both mother and baby. Why then, would a doctor choose IDX for a mother whose health is at risk?

Frankly, they wouldn’t. Even Justice Ginsberg acknowledges this in a twisted way in her dissenting opinion.

In this insistence, the Court brushes under the rug the District Courts’ well-supported findings that the physicians who testified that intact D&E is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman had slim authority for their opinions. They had no training for, or personal experience with, the intact D&E procedure, and many performed abortions only on rare occasions.

Oh, I see. Those doctors who routinely work to preserve the lives of both mother and child would never use IDX to preserve the health of the mother, but their opinions don’t carry authority because they have never used IDX to preserve the health of the mother.

Why such twisted logic? Why is there such an outcry over this decision from the pro-abortion forces? The dirty little secret that they don’t want to give voice to is that IDX is never used to protect the health of the mother but almost exclusively used to kill a child with birth defects.

Racking my brains

2007-04-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

Consistency is Key

2007-04-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

Controversial Archbishop Raymond Burke of the St. Louis Archdiocese has resigned from the board of Cardinal Glennon Children’s Foundation, the fund raising arm of Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center, over the board’s decision to host a fundraiser featuring rock singer, intellectual and Missouri native, Sheryl Crow. The singer is known for her sagacious pronouncements on how to prevent wars and promote peace—don’t have enemies—and how to prevent global warming—use one sheet of toilet paper at one sitting.

Apparently, Ms. Crow also supports embryonic stem cell research. Archbishop Burke feels that even though the money is for the Bob Costas Cancer Center at Cardinal Glennon, asking Ms. Crow to appear sends a very wrong message.

Personally, I think Archbishop Burke is to be commended for taking such a strong stand. He is no stranger to public condemnation for standing on principle. While his actions may not be popular, they are certainly consistent with his views. I have to ask, even though this concert is for a good cause, how consistent is it for a Catholic charity to ask someone who advocates killing children for research to perform to raise money to save children with cancer?

Great Idea from the Herr Doktor

2007-04-21T17:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've had my laugh for the day. I was just checking out some other blogs and found this great post on a proposal for a Lutheran Singles Online website at Luther at the Movies. Great stuff!

And then I continued to read this blog, which I had not visited heretofore. I do believe it's going on my favorites list from now on.

Hat tip to Dr. Luther in the 21st Century over at Lutherama.

How Sad

2007-04-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

My church operates a grade school. Recently, the grade school curriculum was changed to a classical one based on the Trivium. For anyone not familiar with that, it simply takes advantage of the way children learn as they grow. They start out with a voracious appetite for facts, which they acquire quite easily via memorization. So in the early grades, memorization is the basis for teaching. As they get older, they they learn via critical thinking and argument, so logic is taught. Then finally, they learn rhetoric, as communication, both oral and written, become the key.

Our neighborhood has a Yahoo Groups list, and this question was recently posed on that list.

I had heard that Hope drastically changed it's curriculum last year to a more fundamentalist type of program eliminating or cutting back
science and social studies to closer reflect Biblical teachings, and
that they lost a large percentage of students in the process is any of
that correct? I had also heard that they were advocating corporal
punishment in some cases, is that true?

Quite a discussion ensued on the list as a result of this question (which remained thoughtful and courteous and respectful), although no one really addressed his unspoken question, which, if I am reading between the lines correctly, is whether the school teaches creationism without teaching evolution.

The school certainly does teach creation, in religious instruction where it belongs. The school also teaches science and scientific method. Evolution is nothing more than a theory, for which no evidence exists. In fact, the scientific evidence does not support evolution; however, there are people like the gentleman who wrote that question, people who were educated in the public school system, who do not question evolution. They were not taught scientific method. They were not taught logic or critical thinking.

They were taught that no one has disproven evolution, therefore it must be fact; however, you can't prove a negative. Scientific method means that you formulate a theory and test it. If you can't prove it, it remains theory only. No one taught him that. Now he wants his children educated in that same shoddy way.

Since the school proposes to teach critical thinking and logic and communication, perhaps he is afraid that his children would show up the education that he received for the sham that it is.

Of course, there is that last part about corporate punishment as well. Someone got a quote from the principal and printed it on the list. It was as follows:

We live in daily grace and forgiveness. We know children will stumble and make mistakes, this is called 'sin'. But we live in the love and
forgiveness given us by Jesus Christ and we work with children to
recognize our sin and to turn from it. Children apologize, work to
restore friendships and ask for forgiveness, we even pray together.
This is a key factor in our discipline approach.

To which our friend replied,

On a personal note it appears to be a good program but is definitely faith based and may not present all theories/facts equally to the
extent I might like. As for the mistakes children make I do not
consider them as sins just as innocence and naivety which is the only
thing that keeps us from eating them when the mistakes occur.

"Eating them"? And this guy is asking about corporal punishment?

Just for Fun

2007-04-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

The idea was to divide a picture in half to show how something changes over time. I chose to show how swim suit photography has changed over time, but this is hardly a case of then and now, since this is much too tame for "now", so I chose to portray "then and then a little later". This is from a black and white photo of Joan Blondell. I've colorized half, removed a portion of her suit, and changed her make up a little.

I wonder

2007-04-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

I heard the other day that a bill has been introduced in the Texas legislature to require schools to offer a course on the Bible. Students would not be required to take the course, but the public schools would be required to offer it.

According to the bill's sponsor, Warren Chisum, “We’re not going to preach the Bible. We’re going to teach the Bible and how it affects all of our writings, documents, and the formulation of our government. We’re taking it as a document that has historical value. It’s the most widely distributed book in the world.”

Sounds good, but I wonder.

I wonder what will be required to be taught from/about the Bible. I wonder what qualifications the teachers will be required to have. I wonder what version/translation would be used. I wonder how they would handle those controversial questions like creation vs evolution and whether it really rained for 40 days and covered the entire earth with water and whether Jonah really got swallowed by a big fish and whether Jesus' bones are really in an ossuary in Jerusalem. I wonder what Jews and Muslims think about this proposal. I wonder if it could ever get past the appellate courts if it even gets through the Texas legislature.

I wonder how many Christian parents really think this would be a good thing.

But most of all, I wonder if teaching the Bible in public schools would be any different than what passes for preaching God's Word from many so-called Christian pulpits on Sunday.

Go Figure

2007-04-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

I find it curious that I've often heard people mock Christians as gullible and foolish because they believe that the story of Jonah being swallowed by the fish is literal. I find this curious for several reasons.

First of all, not all Christians believe that the story is literal. Some believe it is allegory.

Second, it is not entirely impossible. For example, we don't know what kind of creature swallowed Jonah, but a sperm whale could be large enough, and a small man could conceivably remain in a sperm whale's laryngeal pouch where there are no gastric juices and there would be air to breath. Some speculate that a whale shark is also large enough, and there are anecdotes regarding whale sharks swallowing sailors who were then rescued and survived the ordeal.

Third, and this is what I really find curious, why is it this particular story that they find so unbelievable? For those of us who believe that God created the heavens and the earth and everything therein, and that God set out the "laws of nature", it is entirely consistent for us to believe that God could suspend those same laws to serve His purposes. The book of Jonah states, "Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." - Jonah 1:17 He "prepared" a fish. This was clearly a supernatural, miraculous occurrence, which God can do at any time He chooses, and this is entirely in accordance with our beliefs and world view.

(As an aside, there are regular observable occurrences of a law of nature being temporarily set aside. For example, if a man jumps off a cliff, he will fall and be seriously injured or die on the rocks below due to the law of gravity. Give that man a hang glider though, and the law of gravity will be temporarily set aside for the laws of aerodynamics.)

Furthermore, the central belief of Christianity, the one upon which everything stands or falls, is in the perfect life, atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now there is no indication that any human being before or since has died and been resurrected. All indications are that all human beings who have died remained dead. Even those who may die for minutes and then be revived have not been resurrected. The distinction is that those who have been revived still eventually die and remain dead. Christ was resurrected, never to die again. Instead, He ascended into Heaven.

So doesn't it follow that if we Christians are to be mocked for our gullibility and foolishness, it ought to be for our belief in Christ's death and resurrection, not for our belief that the story of Jonah is a literal one. There are those who try everything in their power to disprove that Jesus died and rose again, which would imply that they take the story seriously enough to feel the need to disprove it. Meanwhile, they talk about those silly, bubble-headed Christians who believe that a man was literally swallowed by a fish and lived to tell about it. Go figure.

Three-incarnation

2007-04-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is the third time I've re-invented my blog. Hence the title of this post.

I expect to post my occasional thoughts about things I've seen and heard. These will tend to come from my confessional Lutheran viewpoint, but not always. I may also post the occasional photo, like this one of our dog, Kibbitz, playing the piano.

She doesn't really play the piano. She's probably smart enough, but she won't sit still long enough.

The photos are to publicize my new business, Pixeldigitator, a very affordable digital photo retouching/restoration service.