It was widely reported ….… before the 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Orlando that the ELCA had decided to halt development of more social statements. To be sure, the Church Council had recommended: “To bring no social statements other than Genetics, Faith and Responsibility to any Churchwide Assembly until completion of a review of the […]
“By your own bootstraps:” PC Pietism
“One of the best things about this rich devotional resource is the way Muller has utilized resources from Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Native American spirituality to evoke the pungent aroma of Sabbath.”[1] A sanitized version of the above book, titled “Sabbath: Being, having, and doing enough,” is featured in The Lutheran, July 2011. […]
Finally: Roman Catholic Sexuality Scandal Resolved
The fault is in the culture, not ourselves: …the past decade’s revelations of sexually abusive clergy had many causes, not the least of which was a toxic ambient culture to which the Church and its ordained ministers proved all too vulnerable. Further: …what we find, if we look hard enough, is a changed understanding of […]
Are 25% really GLBT?
A new Gallup poll finds that many Americans vastly overestimate the number of GLBT individuals in the population. U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian. More specifically, over half of Americans (52%) estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35% who estimate that […]
Preach the gospel, not the text – 1
What’s a preacher to do? Preach the text? Or the gospel? Even Gerhard Forde said preaching is “doing the text” to believers.[1] But doesn’t that work better with some texts more than others? For example, when the lectionary has those “take up your cross” texts which presuppose that we can and must do something to […]