Christmas Eve eve

Funny Links of the day:

Now in THX
He may have married the wrong woman
The real lego pressence
Jesus defeats Scientology
Inspiration for time travel dude's saying
Safety not guaranteed
Daylight savings not guaranteed
Homer's safety not guaranteed
Picard teaches connect the dots

Icon of the day:
St. Christopher-My patron saint and martyr whose name means "Christ Bearer" because in Western Christianity he is reported to have ferried the infant Christ across a stream. Christ was actually a small child and the weight of him nearly crushed St. Christopher (who was Offero at the time). When he revealed himself as Christ he said that the weight was him bearing the world on his shoulders. He then baptized Offero who became St. Christopher. His life shows us that we need to carry Christ to the world, even when it seems as though the weight of such a task will crush us or we will die because of it, because Christ is with us into eternity.

What does it mean to be Confessional in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod?
This might seem to be a quaint question, yet it is one that is all the more troubling to me recently. Being "Confessional" in many ways is to be traditional and to accept the traditions of the doctors of the church who wrote down their thoughts in the Lutheran Confessions. While traditions have become a bad word in the Lutheran church, we need to be careful to use the term correctly. When we say "traditions of man," it is in a negative way, usually as a tradition that hinders the Gospel. However, there is a class of tradition called "Holy Tradition" which is the guiding power of the Holy Spirit and these teachings which are passed on to the church through time.

Ask yourself what is the difference between the writings of the church fathers and the writings of modern theologians. Why are the fathers given more authority? Why do we trust their list of the cannon of Scripture and their decisions on the orthodox understandings of the Holy Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, etc.?

Why do "Confessional Lutherans" tend to dislike or reject things like contemporary worship, syncretism, the ordination of women, and the tendency to undermine Holy Scripture. The other VERY important question is why do we seem to be in the minority in our synod?????!!!! Why do people call themselves Lutheran if they are not? Why does our synod still claim the name while the leadership continues to undermine the work of the Blessed doctors of our church who were guided by the Holy Spirit, without whose guiding help the church would have continued into ecclesiastical darkness? Perhaps it gets down to idolatry, and the notion that what is newer is inherently better. Many feel that new ways of worship attract more members. Regardless of the fact that it is causing many of our oldest members to leave the synod for either more conservative ones or for the Roman or Greek churches. In light of the direction much of our synod is going, I cannot blame them for going to a church that has trouble understanding justification properly......at least that is one of the few things they mess up (though I think this is trading one problem for another of equal importance).

President Kieschnick is going to be preaching at my church during its 150th aniversary this year.....and I'm half tempted to send him a letter expressing my dissappointment with his presidency. I know it will go unheard, unread, unresponded to, and overall ignored, but nonetheless I feel that I cannot just stand by while the tides of theological liberalism sweep into our synod and alter the clear teachings of Holy Scripture and overstep the boundaries of leadership. In essence he has become another pope, and a return to the Reformation must occur, or else we will continue to fracture and schism until the clear line that separated LCMS from ELCA becomes blurred to the point of assimilation. I have greatly considered joining the Orthodox church, because I feel there is room for Confessional Lutheranism within it. However, I cannot just abandon my church in its time of greatest need. What needs to occur is a greater push for confessionalism within the laity. If they are able to understand that the teachings currently being undermined are important for the Gospel, perhaps they will be more understanding.

What we also need is a push to make the leaders of our synod realize that by undermining the teachings they are, that they will end up becoming nothing more than another mainline evangelical church, and therefore no one will really care about their church. Also, the undermining is causing them to lose the members with the deepest spiritual roots while opening their arms for new Christians who don't have enough to spiritually grow on. What good is church if the means of grace are not administered at every Divine Service, or not administered rightly. What good is church if there is heterodox preaching and the ultimate goal of faith is to serve the individual in this life by making them happy and "purpose driven" rather than filled with the Spirit and responding in praise to Christ?

Alas, it is lost on most people that the beauty of the Liturgy is not in the beauty of the worship style itself, but on the Scriptures and understanding of the means of grace that Lutheranism has. It is beautiful becaue Christ Himself is with us and comes down to us......we don't need to reach up our hands and try to grasp Him as if he is an abstract concept that we want to "feel." In all things, we pray for the Holy Spirit to guide His church and to repair the ark of salvation so that it does not have holes that allow death to seep in and overtake its members. In all things I realize that my letter will do nothing, nor our efforts to repair the church, without constant prayer and the realization that repair must take God's grace. In all things we must ask that His will be done.

Amen