A Bit More

There is another truly wonderful bit to pull from that icon of Adam I like so much.

Just as the Ancient of Days calls Adam to life with His breath of life and gives him a name and vocation, standing by his side as he fulfills it, so too the Ancient of Days calls us to life in Baptism. We then are all “Little Christs,” growing from His vine going about our vocations with Him beside and in us. We are remade in His image as God’s own sons (Eph 1:5; Col 3:10).

Wherever there is such faith and assurance of grace in Christ, you can also confidently conclude with regard to your vocation and works that these are pleasing to God and are true and good Christian fruits. Furthermore, such temporal and physical works as governing a land and people, managing a house, rearing and teaching children, serving, toiling, etc., also develop into fruit that endures unto life everlasting. Thus the holy patriarch Abraham and our holy ancestress Sarah will be commended and praised on Judgment Day for their marital life. Although the married estate will come to an end and be no more, as will all the life and activity of this world, yet this holy Sarah, and others with her, will receive their little crowns because they were pious spouses and mothers, not by reason of their works per se—for these had to cease—but because they did these works in faith. In like manner, the works of all Christians are performed to God’s everlasting pleasure; they will not be despised, as will those of non-Christians, but will have their eternal reward also in yonder life, because they are works done in Christ and grow from the Vine. (LW, 24, 220-221)

Adding Woman to the Narrative

One of my favorite icons depicts the Ancient of Days bringing Adam to life in the upper right portion, while Adam is naming the animals with God by his side in the lower, major portion of the work. The former work preceded the latter; God’s single work of breathing life into the clay that would become Adam is prior to Adam’s given work of naming the animals. Adam’s features are evocative of those of Christ’s own in other icons. This is to signify that Adam is God’s own son as Luke names him in Chapter 3 of his Gospel. 1Cor 15:45 makes the connection between Adam and the Last Adam. Christ took on Adam’s image for our sakes, as this icon makes clear for us to see. This is an icon of Adam before the fall, of Adam in his purest state. It is not a depiction of Adam when God declared that all was “Very good.”

For that a woman was required. And for that Adam was put into a deep sleep. This icon demonstrates Christ as the Agent of Creation, taking the woman from Adam’s side as he sleeps. After this was accomplished, God would say that His created world was “Very good,” and rest.



Now, feminists are not happy with this tale and even accuse Christianity of “not touching” the woman’s side of the story in this. In the first, Adam not only names the animals, he also, after the fall, names his wife. In their eyes, this reduces the woman to the same status as the animals because she isn’t allowed to choose her own name—ignoring the fact that Adam didn’t choose his own name either. That name was given him by God. The headship progression is already established: God names Adam, husband names wife. It’s Trinitarian. Jesus’ Head is His Father (as is demonstrated abundantly by the Gospel John; the husband’s head is Christ; the wife’s head is her husband. Paul lays this out for us in Ephesians 5:

23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Even Peter, speaking to the baptized, gives witness to this when he writes of Sarah.

1 Peter 3:5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

However, 1 Corinthians 11:4 makes the case the clearest, “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”

When we speak of the work of God’s creating and of either man’s or woman’s part in it, we are also speaking of the work of the Trinity behind them. Therefore, when we speak of Creation prior to the fall, we may also look at God’s work as a view of paradise. There is no reason to call anything God does in His act of creation either on His own or through His agent, the man Adam, as evil, inappropriate or improper. What God calls “Good” and “Very good” is beyond our standards of those labels.

Far from never examining the role of the woman in this narrative (as Aileen Kraditor claims), the church went forward from the time of the fall and built herself around the story of Eve. It was the woman who was deceived in the fall (Ge 3:13). Yet, it was upon Adam, as head of the race, that the burden for the sin fell. This did not relieve the woman of her sin. Adam, as the first of all mankind, pointed to Christ, who would bear his image to rescue all of mankind in by taking on all mankind's sin in His flesh. He would not be deceived as the woman was. He would protect His wife, as Adam ought to have done (Mt 4; Mk 1).

Having been found in sin, Adam blamed God for “the woman whom you gave to be with me” (Ge 3:12). As for the woman, the serpent was to blame. She was deceived into not being able to keep to God’s word. Now, an easy solution would have been to place each in a hemisphere and let them go their separate ways. The world was large enough. Adam was essentially asking for separation from the woman anyway. It was her fault, and none of his own. He wanted out. The woman might have agreed.

God would have none of it. Married they were, married they’d remain. Their lives would be hard, but He gave them hope. He gave them a promise. One day His own Son would be born, and that One would crush the head of the serpent, their enemy (Ge 3:15). It is at that time Adam names his wife Eve, Mother of all living. This is a play on words. Sin has not taken everything from them. They will still have the blessing of children. Not only that, one of those children will save them from their sins. Eve is the prototype of the Church, even taken from her husband’s side while he slept.

That Adam and Eve trusted in God’s Promise is indicated by the fact that they came together as husband and wife. Eve rejoiced in the birth of her firstborn, even thinking he was the Promised One, exclaiming (as the Hebrew makes clearer), “I have gotten a man, the Lord!” (Ge 4:1). It wouldn’t take long before Adam and Eve knew that Cain was not the Promised One. One of the remarkable things of Ge 5 is the constant refrain “and he died,” reinforcing the fact Paul makes clear in Ro 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.”

Eve, the Mother of all Living, is the mother of Mary, who bore the Second Adam, the Son of God. The Second Adam is the sinless Son of God, just as Adam, the created son of God was sinless before he fell in the Garden. However, the Son Mary bore was not created, but existed from eternity, conceived of the Holy Spirit, not by any human father. The God of Creation becomes our Father also when the Second Person of the Trinity takes on human flesh and becomes a Son whose sole purpose is to take on our sins and lead us back to His Father as sons (Jo 14:6). This is the Son of Mary’s womb, the one before whom John leapt inside his own mother’s womb.



Eve is the prototype, the foreshadow, of the church. Mary, as the Theotokos, is the Christbearer, the type. In Mary we see Christ within her, just as Christ is within the church. It is in the womb of the church that Christians are born by water and Word, and sustained by Christ's own Body and Blood in the bread and wine and the Word He serves us through His agents through preaching and Absolution. We can speak of Mary in a way that is healthy, without it becoming Mariolatry, and we should. Tying the threads of scripture unites the One Voice by which it was written. Eve leads to Mary, and there are a lot of women along the path that serve as a part of the story, too.

Far from women being the neglected or untouchable as feminists are wont to claim, God knew that Man needed a helper. His creation was incomplete without a woman. God built one for Adam in the Garden while he slept. While Christ, the WOrd of God, slept a tomb in another garden, the Church was being built from the blood and water that flowed from His side. The Christbearer, as the one who bore the Last Adam into the world, makes that proclamation of “Very good” ring even more joyfully now. The angels sang it so when Jesus was born, “Peace on earth, good will to men!” It is so even now when the chosen agents of Christ speak His word of Peace to us in the liturgy from the womb that is the church where Christ is present in His Word and Sacraments.

Honesty in Choices

Many thanks to my good friend the Rev. Mark Schlamann for alerting me to this blog posting. My position has long been “return to the source,” and here is a prime example of why this should always be done in the case of feminism.

In his blog article Albert Mohler identifies the problem as this, according to Antonia Senior:

If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too." That statement, published for all the world to see, perfectly distills the inescapable logic of the abortion rights argument. It is based on a willingness to kill - and on the horrifying audacity to call this killing "the lesser evil."

Feminists for Life make a brave front in their contention for both feminism and pro-life issues. They will even boast Elizabeth Cady Stanton as their hero, claiming she was staunchly against abortion. That she was against abortion and for feminism may be true. But there is a greater dichotomy undergirding Stanton’s position that eventually leads to where Antonia Senor goes, that of sacrificing the Greater Good for the lesser good.

I am not saying that those who are of the FFL would all (or any) agree with Antonia Senior. What I am saying is that feminism shares a common root with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and that root bears both a vine and branches which are connected. That there could be similar ideas from both is not beyond the bounds of coincidence. Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked to destroy the very foundation of motherhood in women's lives. With what has it been replaced? What does the world now catechize its women with regard to the sanctity of life and choices?

In other words, one evil is accommodated by another, so one must choose which evil should be in support of the other. It's application is seen in all walks of our life, whether one is pro-choice or against abortion. However, there is truly only one way to walk in this life, truly, and that is catechetically. But we will get to that later.

Senior, even though she admits the contents of the womb is a child from the point of conception, is willing to kill for her cause, feminism. She is a mother, and still supports abortion rights. Mohler contends,

In this essay, published in one of the world's most venerable newspapers, Antonia Senior goes public with the argument that feminists should just admit that abortion is the killing of a human life, and then they should go on to assert that the right to kill an unborn human life is just the price that must be paid if feminism is to be defended.

Well, how did we get to this point, and so casually that the world didn’t explode with such news?

Elizabeth Cady Stanton saw her life’s work as the removal of scripture from women’s hands and the dependence of religion from their lives. She wrote in “The Degraded State of Women, 1896:”

I have endeavoured to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church. I saw the first step to this was to convince them that the Bible was neither written nor inspired by the Creator of the Universe, the Infinite intelligence, the soul and center of Life, Love and Light; but that the Bible emanated, in common with all church literature, from the brain of man. Seeing in just proportion as women are devout believers in the dogmas of the church their lives arte shadowed with fears of the unknown, the less women believe, the better for their own happiness and development. . .

The honor and worship accorded the ideal mother, if the ideal man, has done naught to elevate the real mother of the real man. So far from woman owing what liberty she does enjoy, to the Bible and the church, they have been a greater blocking the way of her development. The vantage ground woman holds today is due to all the forces of civilization, to science, discovery, invention, rationalism, the religion of humanity chanted in the golden rule round the globe centuries before the Christian religion was known. It is not to Bibles, prayer books catechisms, liturgies, the canon law and church creeds and organizations, that woman owes one step in her progress, for all these alike have been hostile, and still are, to her freedom and development. . .

In her own efforts to teach, Stanton stepped up to the dinner plate.

I often saw weary little women coming to the table after most exhausting labors, and large bumptious husbands spreading out their hands and thanking the Lord for the meals that the dear women had prepared, as if the whole came down like manna from heaven. So I preached a sermon in the blessing I gave. You will not notice that it has three heresies in it: ‘Heavenly Father and Mother, make us thankful for all the blessings of this life, and make us ever mindful of the patient hands that oft in weariness spread our tables and prepare our daily food For humanity’s sake. Amen.” (Lutz, Created Equal, 201)

Such words are not unfamiliar to our ears, for they are the very words of feminist or inclusive prayers heard in many churches in our communities.

The language of choice rings well in our ears and throughout the land. We can’t get away from it. It is in our nature. Stanton was calling us back to it. Feminism thrives from that nature, clings to it. It is why Antionia Senior can hold on to two opposing dichotomies and yet be satisfied. She has her choices; her primal nature is being fed.

Scripture-less catechesis, as Stanton has already informed us, is one of those things of which we must rid our lives. The irony, of course, is that she set in motion her own form of catechesis. Consider this insight by Ravi Zacharias, “The establishment of new orthodoxies by the intellectual elite and the dismantling of others is not as formidable a task when the desired change propelled by scholars appeals to the common person’s autonomy while enthroning the elite at the same time.” (Deliver Us From Evil, 45). Granted, Stanton was no elite scholar. However, by systematically undermining the authority of scripture in the view of women, Stanton catechized women with a whole new set of ethics by which to live. There are no absolutes.

The “Woman’s Bible” comes to the ordinary reader like a real benediction. It tells her the Lord did not write the Book; that the garden scene is a fable; that she is in no way responsible for the laws of the Universe. The Christian scholars and scientists will not tell her this, for they see she is the key to the situation. Take the snake, the fruit tree and the woman from the tableau, and we have no fall, no frowning Judge, no inferno, no everlasting punishment, —hence no need of a Savior. Thus the bottom falls out of the whole Christian theology. Here is the reason why in all the Biblical researches and higher criticism, the scholars never touch the position of the women. (Aileen S. Kraditor, Up From the Pedestal, 119)

In fact, it is the absolutes of the Scriptures that give us the foundation of Christianity, of which the woman plays a major role. Feminism recognizes this, and yet, in her demand for choice, rejects what her Savior gives. Choice was the offer of the serpent, see Ge 3.

Of course, The Women’s Bible is not alone in catechizing women in choice. Choice is the airwaves we breathe. We are inundated with information overload that rips us away from the sacred and into the profane. There is hardly a TV show, radio station, commercial, movie, magazine, or internet site that doesn’t have an overtly feminist theme to it. And by feminist, I mean overtly sexual, choice-oriented, OMG-driven, sexually-oriented. Our lives are constantly driven to choose between the Greater Good and the lesser things, and in fact justify our choices and entitlement to the lesser things over and against the Greater Gifts from God.



At how many tables would it be clearly understood that even through much fuss and bluster, even though the pizza was delivered or the chicken brought home, God is the Giver of the meal? Only through catechesis can these things come to light to our children and ourselves.

The July, 2010, issue of For the Life of the World featured articles by Rev. John Pless, What does This Mean? Pastoral Forman: Thoughts About the Future), and Re. Brian Mosemann, (Forming Servants into the Future). Both articles were directed toward the formation of pastors. However, much insight can be gathered for a much younger set, and another sex.

This age seems to have adopted the Simone de Beauvoir ideology of childrearing: bear the child, and then outsource the raising. Underlying this system is the fact that the child will necessarily adopt the core values of his or her caregivers. If he or she goes through multiple caregivers, then he or she will have a multiplicity of catechetical choices already formed by the time he or she is ready for school (usually public), another major catechetical factory. It is rare today to find a child of seven who knows his Catechism as well as his ABCs, and yet, as the Jesuits would say, “Give me a child for seven years and I will show you the man.” Sounds an awful lot like Pr 22: 6.

Luther would have had it so.

These are the most necessary parts of Christian instruction. We should learn to repeat them word for word. Our children should be taught the habit of reciting them daily when they rise in the morning, when they go to their meals, and they go to bed at night; until they repeat them they should not be given anything to eat or drink. (LC, Short Preface)

That is where Luther would have us start. Here is where he suggests one stops learning the Catechism:

But this I say for myself: I am also a doctor and a preacher, just as learned and experienced as all of them who are so high and mighty. Nevertheless, each morning, and whenever else I have time, I do as a child who is being taught the catechism and I read and recite word for word the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Psalms, etc. I must still read and study the catechism daily, and yet I cannot master it as I wish, but must remain a child and pupil of the catechism—and I also do so gladly. These fussy, fastidious fellows would like quickly, with one reading, to be doctors above all doctors, to know it all and to need nothing more. Well this, too, is a sure sign that they despise both their office and the people’s souls, yes, even God and his Word. They do not need to fall, for they have already fallen all too horribly. What they need, however, is to become children and begin to learn the ABCs, which they think they have long since outgrown. (LC, P. 6)

The liturgical life of a seminarian can help to inform us how our own liturgical lives are meant to be. This is the liturgical life Stanton strove so hard to and, with others, in many ways successfully ripped away from both women and men who are also now caught the feminism that rules our age. Mosemann writes:

From the chapel. . . out into their daily lives where they die to self and serve the Lord by loving their neighbor. This rhythm of being filled with the Lord’s grace and living in that grace toward others forms servants in Jesus Christ who

• are strengthened in the Lord’s forgiveness and daily prayer,
• daily meditate on Scripture,
• grow in charitable ways in character and behavior,
• learn to live by the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s prayer, which will sustain them in their service an
• develop a healthy balance among all aspects of life: prayer4, worship, study, service, family and relaxation. (FTLOTW, July, 2010, 13)

The life of the Christian ebbs and flows from the liturgy of the Divine Service itself. This is where Mother Church feeds her young, and men and women alike first learn what God's design for motherhood is.

So what does FFL offer us in response to the pro-choice movement? Motherhood, yes, but what sort? Motherhood shared with fatherhood? Or that which is also considered smashingly wonderful between two mommies? And what of the Motherhood that can be received only from the womb that is the Church through the waters of Baptism? Absent the very foundation of which motherhood is in God's eyes, the FFL sacrifices the Greater Good for the lesser, for it springs from the same root as does all feminism.

The lesser of two evils is still an evil. Luther says to “sin boldly,” but he does not by that invite us to sin. We therefore do not rejoice in sin as the support for one’s chosen cause! The Fifth Commandment in Senior’s hands is a mere plaything. The lesser evil, killing one’s own child, as she would call it, is permissible for the sake of the Greater Good, feminism. However, abortion strikes at the heart of the Incarnation, for every child conceived is yet a reminder of the Babe born of Mary. Satan’s head is still bruised by the heel of that One’s foot! Still, if all sin is removed, as it is for women in feminism, then of what need is there for a Savior? No sin, no Savior. Yet Jesus only came for sinners (Mt 9:13). What then of mercy? Mercy is known only by what God gives through Christ. Oh, dear. What a Catch-22 we have here.

What a lost race we are when we decide what is we are to be or not to be.

Honesty and Fathers Part 2

“Why can’t anyone just get over the fact that I’m not perfect?!”

Bingo! That’s the whole point, buddy! That’s where we can start to rejoice.

If even our repentance is that for which we must finally repent, then we must at last admit that we are, as Luther would say, beggars before God. Then, and only then do we have Christ as our Savior and God as our Father. For, it is through His Son that God becomes a Father to us.

Still, as Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans, we cannot rejoice in our sin as if to say, “I’m forgiven; I’ll be forgiven.” Christ’s forgiveness is the very essence of the Christian and his life. We aren’t forgiven so that we may go on sinning. Neither do we rejoice in Christ’s forgiveness so that we may sin with freedom. As Steven Hein would say, “Now that you are forgiven, what is it that you want to do?” That is, Christ paid for your sins with His flesh and blood as the price. What is it you want to do for your neighbor? Faith in Christ is enacted as love for neighbor.

Pr. 26:11 likens a fool returning to his folly as a dog to his vomit. The fool in this case is the one who refuses to heed, listen to, or live in God’s word. Dogs are not often used as examples of uprightness in the Scriptures. Consider Dt 23:18; 1Sm 17:43; 2Sm 16:9; Jb 18:11; Ps 22:20. So when the Canaanite woman responds to Jesus, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table,”she is confessing both her utter unworthiness and her faith-wrought hunger for the food only Christ can give. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). Her daughter could be healed no other way than through the restoration Jesus could provide. This satisfied her immediate need. However, Jesus is the Bread of Life come down from heaven (Jn 6:33). To eat that Bread is to live forever; to be healed forever; to live forever. “Remain in Me and I will remain in you” (Jn15:4).

And then fruit will be borne.

Honesty and Fathers

It was a light week as far as attendance goes. One was on vacation, and another was battling the “bug.” On another day one has difficulties with her eyes. On one day even I was absent for pre-surgical work ups. So it wasn’t a week for introducing new material. I had to keep up with the Math lessons, though. We did that in the morning, reviewed History in the afternoon, and then watched some history videos. There was plenty of time for getting work completed, especially their weekly packet called Daily Work.

Daily Work is Geography, Handwriting, and Vocabulary in small chunks for every day. The students are expected to work on these assignments during free time or at home each day. Each assignment takes less than 10 minutes, tops–if they daydream between questions.

Throughout the week, with all the gift of free time, I reminded the students that this was prime opportunity for working on Daily Work. By one chose to read a book or do whatever else instead. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Oh, he was certain. He even promised that by Friday his completed Daily Work would be on my desk. He knew the consequences: Daily Work is graded.

On Friday we again had a large amount of free time after tests were completed, so I suggested once more he complete his Daily Work. He refused. Did he realize the consequence would be zeroes? He glared at me, then went on to some other work of his choosing.

By the end of the day his Daily Work was not on my desk. I reminded him of his promise to me earlier in the week, and told him I was now going to put those zeroes on his grades. “Thanks for making me feel bad!”

We like to do that, blame others for the misfortune of our own making. I didn’t let him remain there, but rather called him to be honest with himself. I asked him if he thought he’d tried his best to get his work completed. He at first said he had. So I reminded him of his responsibility to the assignment; his promise to me; and, the choices he’d made. It was tough to face. As he put it, “You just want me to say what you want to hear.” We don’t want to be honest even with ourselves. Finally, though, he admitted that he’d made the wrong choices and that he had not done his best to get his work completed.

It’s not easy calling children to be honest with themselves. They get angry and start tossing the blame around. It’s like dodging stray balls in a T-ball game. It’s all a part of their manipulation: Wait a sec. Let’s change the subject and make it about you!

All God’s children do that with their Heavenly Father. It’s a part of our Old Adam. Adam did it when God asked Him “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” His response was to blame God for the woman God had given him, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” So it was God’s fault Adam ate of the tree, not his own. One of the consequences of sin is we cannot be honest even with ourselves.

Satan offered Eve what she already had, to be in the image of God, and the result was Man is not in the image of another, the father of lies. Ken Korby used to say that the confessional is the only place a liar can tell the truth. However much truth there may be in that, it is still certain as Norman Nagel teaches that when we are finished with our confession, even for that there is much that requires repentance.

Offenses and Celebrations

He wanted to chatter about this-n-that. I’d asked him to get to his work. So I reminded him that his work needed his attention more than I needed his.

“I’m sorry if I offended you!” He said with as much attitude as a nine-year-old could muster.

So the manipulation war was on. That’s what it was. The focus was now on me for what I was doing and feeling. At first I was going to slough it off, “You didn’t offend me. Just get your work completed.” He growled at me.

Then I thought the better of it.

“You know what, you did offend me.” Now I had his attention completely, and it wasn’t pretty.

He hadn’t done what I asked him to do. It was a simple request: Do your work. At its completion, there would have been plenty of time for me to focus on what he wanted to tell me. But he chose to postpone his work by reversing the order, (a habit of his), causing me to issue a reminder to do his work. That irritated him, which made him lash out at me.

So yes, I was offended. For that, I forgave him.

He looked at me a full second. Then he smiled and said, “Thank you.” He went back to his work without another word.

This one needs to be prodded firmly. He’s so very bright that he sometimes out-manipulates himself. We are practicing Psalm 139 for the school closing. For whatever reason he can come up with, he won’t speak up with the rest of the group. He generally mumbles through. I know he knows the psalm. With only six in the class, they needed his help. Usually he says he’s afraid if he speaks too loudly he’ll drown out everyone else. We tell him to go ahead and be the leader of the pack! Yet, he’s still the silent one.

Yesterday he returned after a day’s absence with the “bug.” As we were walking to practice, he said he’d not be able to speak loudly because his stomach hurt still. To my mind I couldn’t see what the difference would be. The practice was dreadful. It seemed none of the children could recall the lines. So I decided to have another go after chapel. They agreed to “do their best.”

That’s all well and fine. I’m sure they all think they are doing their best, and I told them that. But there are other dimensions to doing and giving our best.

My disease is such that my future is not pretty. One day I will most likely wind up in a wheel chair or bedridden with someone changing my diapers. I told my students this. The day before we had planted some lilies, and they all worried about me bending over so much. I am in a “use it or loose it” situation. I have choices to make. I can choose to plant trees and lilies in gardens knowing full well that for days afterward I will hurt; I can exercise my body knowing that it hurts to do so; I can take long walks knowing that it hurts to do it; or I can do none of these things and lose the functions of my body more quickly even if I have my surgery. My not-too-pretty future comes sooner or later depending on whether or not I am willing to work through what hurts me now. And I can still say, “Well, I did my best.”

The beauty of the Christian life is that we don’t live it for ourselves, we live it for others. We aren’t reciting the psalm just to say words for ourselves, but for all those people who will be sitting in the pews. If legs ache, if tummies hurt, if throats are dry–all these things are just a teensy bit that will fly by and go away as soon as the psalm is said. What is important is that the people hear what God wants them to hear in the psalm. When we do our best for others, that’s a different kind of “best.”

It was the same thing for Jesus. He knew how much it would hurt to die, but He didn’t do it for Himself, He did it for you.

The children recited the psalm again, and excelled. This time, all six of them rang out with their voices. I asked my formerly silent one how it felt. “Not so good,” he said, “but great.” He was beaming.

They were all rewarded with special prize pencils.

Pains and Decisions

Several weeks ago I made a radical discovery: the drugs prescribed to treat my various physical conditions were actually my worst enemies. If Satan hadn’t enough slings and arrows in his arsenal on his own with which to assail me, he now had several man-made ones to rip through my soul and mind.

My body reads pain as depression. That is my first sign of a major migraine. I have what is known as intractable migraines. What this means is that I am fighting a low-grade migraine at all times, with the knock-out punch waiting in the background for the right opportunity to take me down. So, after much trial-and-error, the neurologist prescribed a painkiller alongside the anti-seizure meds to be taken as a prophylactic measure. It worked well. All I needed to do then was take an arthritis anti-inflammatory when that knock-out punch came along, and I was good to go. It seemed to be a good system. I’d wait for that time when I’d feel a sudden drop in mood or a sharp pain in my head, and then pop one of the anti-inflammatory pills. Perhaps the pain wasn’t completely gone, but I could at least function. I did notice that I increasing didn’t feel like “myself,” though. That I attributed to another reason.

Depression is a part of the spectrum of symptoms for scoliosis and spondylosis. Satan had a heyday there. There has the chronic pain and the sleep deprivation because of the pain. Then there are feelings of worthlessness: Formerly active individuals now have others making decisions for them (“Well, we didn’t ask you to be involved because thought you’d not be able to do it.); then there is loss of function that increases as time goes on.

The standing wisdom is, “Don’t do the surgery until you absolutely cannot live with your pain.” So I was on pain meds for the scoliosis, too. Nothing heavy. Just enough so I could continue to be active and be in the classroom. But even on top of the pain med for the migraine, both of which were mild narcotics, nothing relieved the pain completely.

My doctors wanted to be kind and treat me for the depression, and I accepted it as if daily bread. Depression for me isn’t only associated with the sciliosis and migraines. Not even a deaconess placement would have taken me to locations of long winters and great periods of rain. I crave the sun for relief. I am predisposed to depression in the first place, and the physical problems just exacerbate it. Drug therapies might help for a while. One sort even helped relieve the pain–for about six weeks. Perhaps for some people these drugs work well and can be received as if daily bread. In me I’m finding a different effect: they increase my anxiety. They drive me inward and upon myself.

Discovering that the drugs were causing me harm came by way of a different problem. The UTI was the catalyst. I’ve been suffering them in frequency, but not in tenacity until this one hit at Thanksgiving. It wasn’t cured even by January. so I went to the urologist. The bacteria that ails me is a nasty little bugger that will take months to cure, maybe even a year. The urologist also found a minor physical problem, and wanted to treat it with a drug. Half of the lowest dose of a drug used for hyper-tension. Sounds easy, right? The drug is also used for PTSD and ADHD sufferers. In me it was like poison. Instead of release, I was rewound!

That sent me to researching all my drugs. The end result is that I asked my doctors to take me nearly off all my pain meds. (I take one of the pain meds I formerly took for break-through migraines as needed, but not daily.) By the time I made the decision to go this route I was becoming nearly paranoid with just enough sanity to know I was and to also know the slings and arrows of my mind were not reality. I had to do it cold-turkey. I tried to ease off as the doctor wanted me to, but to remain that mental cell any longer was too awful. I’ll take the physical pain over the mental pain any day. I don’t know how addicts to real narcotics do it. I know how much I hurt in those days, and it was a trip I don’t want to go on again. Would I recommend this to others? Not at all. And certainly not without consulting the prescribing physician of any medication, as I did.

The truth is, I will be going on it again. With my various doctors’ clearances, I’ll be undergoing the same surgery Aaron Nemoyer had recently. I was scheduled for this procedure last year, but the heart stent was not ready for it. Now I need a clearance not only from my cardiologist, but also from the urologist. The last time I saw my surgeon he told me the surgery was no longer elective. The curvature was such that nerves were being pinched off. This time the surgery won’t be postponed “until school lets out next May.” My husband won’t go for that. Surgery will happen as soon as I have all my clearances. I’m currently scheduled for May 26.

I suppose I could have gone to a therapist, but I don’t do therapy. I do confession and absolution. I don’t have a Bev Yahnke near me. I do have a Pr. Rick Sawyer, whose ear is always open. And I have a husband who loves me as Christ loves the Church.

Psalm 101 became precious to me. God hates a slanderer. God keeps His own Eighth Commandment in Christ for our sakes in His Son’s blood–not only for others, but also for us. To pull back that blood, to look under it again, is to become a prosecuting attorney. Repeating Christ’s words to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” often became an exercise aimed at myself as well the Accuser himself. And yet, “I am baptized,” was the constant comforting refrain when I feared that I would be stuck in that gear while in this lifetime.

I’ve said to pastors before, and I’ll say once more: Whatever else Paul’s advice to husbands and wives may be in Ephesians 5, first and foremost submitting to each other is also that which involves confessing sins and absolving each other. We get it wrong when we speak only to who does what job in the marriage. The love with which Christ bought His Bride is that of giving up His Body and Blood for the sake of her sins. “Wife, are you still mine even through this for the sake of Christ who bought you?”; “Husband, will you love me even through this for the sake of Christ who bought you?” John is a man whose Head is Christ.

Priorities become sharper at the end of such a journey. I am as before: wife, mother, grandmother, deaconess. Of greatest importance, I am John’s wife.

Tebow and Elbows and Jane

I don’t follow football, so I don’t know a Tebow from an elbow. I’m told he has a great one, and that football is better by far because of it. So Tebow and I don’t have much in common except elbows. More precisely, Pam Tebow and I have not a lot in common except a couple: we’re both mothers of children with great elbows who’s doctors recommended they brought into the world.

I don't know why Gloria Allred should feel it fit to have such a hyssie fit over this sort of information, that a woman would be told to have an abortion and she then raises an amazing child. I’m suspecting it happens more frequently than is told. In my case, should I have chosen it, in 1971, abortions were not readily available in “Mormon Country,” were still considered therapeutic, but not a “woman’s right.” Therapeutic to whom?

Within days, maybe hours after being told I was pregnant with Jane I became ill with a virus. The doctor was perplexed by its tenacity and intensity. What should have been a simple localized thing, took over my body, ravaged it, and didn’t let go. It wasn’t life-threatening to me, but my OB was concerned for my child. The virus repeated over the course of my pregnancy. In fact, I still take drugs (once they were developed years later) to prevent its recurrence.



The doctor recommended abortion. Was it self-preservation because she feared post-delivery litigation? Or was it real concern for me, that she didn’t want me tethered to a “damaged” child? Was it concern for the child based on this new term being batted about, quality of life? Who knows. She told me that in her opinion the pregnancy would not end well. Throughout my pregnancy she would say things like, “Well, at least it has a good heartbeat.” She was clearly in disagreement with my decision. I didn’t have a choice. Jane was born in perfect health, to the entire surprise of the doctor. But that is entirely God’s gift to this tale. No matter the circumstances of her birth and condition, Jane is and ever will be the joy and delight of her father and me. She was my child from the moment of her conception. I was her mother even before she was conceived.

Vocation is what God puts into your hand to do. That includes many choices, all of them for the sake of the neighbor. My child, my neighbor, does not require murdering for the sake of my comfort. No child born after 1971 lives free from the shadow of abortion. Feminism likes to think abortion is the premier jewel in her tiara of rights. Strip that away and she whines she has nothing left: “My body, my choice.” That’s because she even denies the God by whom she receives her body, and the Body and Blood by which her body is redeemed and sanctified. Early feminists, even while working for the cessation of abortions and better conditions for women, nevertheless ushered in this present era when they “killed” God and His authority in women’s lives with their anti-religion stance.

Feminism’s (Allred’s hyssie fit) position is not so much anti-abortion as it is the same as Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s: anti-religion. Strip it all away and get to the heart of it abortion is about the right of a woman to control the influence of 1. man’s influence upon her body; and, 2. God’s control of her life. Kill the sperm and it’s product and God is contained; kill God and His word and men are controllable.

Pam Tebow followed her God-given vocation of motherhood after doctors told her not to. Is that so hard to believe? We don’t find it incredulous. However, Christianity and the claims of Christians will become increasingly under attack. Perhaps more of us who faced similar circumstances, even though we gave birth to children with less notable elbows, should speak up and let the Allreds realize that it isn’t such a rare feat after all. should feel it fit to have such a hyssie fit over this sort of information, that a woman would be told to have an abortion and she doesn’t then raises an amazing child. I’m suspecting it happens more frequently than is told. In my case, should I have chosen it, in 1971 abortions were not readily available in Utah. In “Mormon Country” they were still considered therapeutic, but not a “woman’s right.”

We follow the trail fairly easily: Eve is the icon of the Church, Christ's Body. We know this because Jesus said the "Scriptures everywhere testify of Me" (Jn 5:39). Can we not also follow the trail backwards and conclude that anything that attempts to destroy Christ's Body and otherwise deny Him thereby is an icon of sin, death, and the devil? Motherhood is sacred. Jesus' life from womb to tomb is guarantee of that. Women's lives are identified by the life of Christ: His in theirs, theirs in His through Baptism. Yet until feminism can abandon all other reasons than this one as an opposition to abortion, it is still advancing the agenda of all that is destructive to to women and to the Woman who is Christ's Body, the Church.

Christianity and the claims of Christians will become increasingly under attack. Perhaps more of us who faced similar circumstances, even though we gave birth to children with less notable elbows, should speak up and let the Allreds realize that it isn’t such a rare feat after all.

Gifts and Satan and Candles and Menorahs

Christmas Break is here. I can finally sit back and take a breather myself for a few moments before things get nicely hectic with my children and four grandchildren in Little Rock. My “Second Family” of six children are off with their own families by now. We had a half-day at school yesterday following the annual Christmas Program, party, and gift exchange.

While having all the usual elements of a school Christmas Program, Pastor Sawyer’s sermon makes this rather something closer to a “Lutheran altar call.” He misses no chance to catechize parents in infant baptism, and this year presented a prime opportunity. Three of our students became older siblings recently. One of these infants is headed for Baptism; the other is sadly going to wait until he makes his own decision.

As pastor pointed out yesterday, the one thing that makes a gift a gift is that it is given. It surely can be accepted, rejected, exchanged, or returned, but the one thing a gift must be to be a gift is GIVEN. Even these tiny newborns will be given gifts this Christmas, some even from Santa.




Imagine a note from Santa:

“Dear Baby,

I have a gift for you, but you are too young to accept it or even understand why it is given to you or what it means. So I can’t give it to you until you are older.

Love,
Santa”

Such a “Santa” might soon be known as “Satan.”

God through parents gives babies their first gift ever without them deciding that it should be theirs by accepting it. This is the gift of life. Babies are conceived and born without their permission. Can you imagine the poor mother whose child is slow in understanding what being born is all about or is not ready to accept his place in the world? “Mornin’ ma’am. How long’s it been you’ve rented that womb to your child? Eight years now?”

My Second Family understands this so clearly, primarily because they’ve been catechized every school day in the foundations of the Christian Faith, and by Christian I mean Lutheran. We pray the Catechism; we apply it to our lives in what we say and do. It becomes a part of who we are. By that it is the ABC’s of what we do and be.



The first week of Advent began as always. A young girl lights the menorah. In years when I have only boys, I will lights the candles. We read the passages to explain why we used this practice. In Jewish homes even now, Seder candles are lit by a female.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined, Is 9:2.

God promised His Seed would come through a woman (Ge 3:15), so the darkness would be overcome by that Seed.



The continuity of the Old and New Testaments is made certain by Christ who said, You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, Jn 5:39. So, the Advent candle is lit from the menorah. John 1 identifies the Life who is Light of Men, (4-5); He is Creator (3,10); He is the Word of God(1); He is the Son of God who tabernacled among us(14).

And yet this Gift of God the Father was and is today rejected. John 1 says “the light shines forth and the darkness has not overcome it,” (5). Furthermore, even though He was in the world the world He created, His own creation and creatures “did not know did not recognize their own Creator (10). He came to His own people, and His own people did not receive Him, (11). Jesus spoke to the Jews of His day who claimed to be Children of Abraham doing what Abraham would do. “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,”(8:11). Jesus told them that Abraham saw His day and rejoiced in it. There are some who have yet to do the same, but still claim to be Abraham’s Children. Others continue to lift up and look to Israel as a place of salvation for the world.

It is Christ who was lifted up for our sins. His Body and Blood is fed to us in the bread and wine He by which gives us Himself, and into our ears through which He comes by way of His words of forgiveness in the Absolution and preaching, and upon our heads in the water and Word. Rejection of God’s gift, or exchanging it for another results in a different way of salvation. “No thanks. No Jesus. I have another way.” Jesus told his hearers that those who rejected Him were of another father (8:44). My Second Family has no trouble at all understanding that anyone who does not have Christ as his Savior cannot have God as His Father; and where God the Father and His Son are, there the Holy Spirit is, too.

That took care of the first week. The second week dawned icon and one of my students asked, “What next? We need more.” So we searched about and one of them looked at the display of icons on the wall and said, “That one! We need to know that one means.” It was the Tree of Jesse icon. Jesse sleeps at the root, the Theotokos and her Son rest in the middle of the tree which springs from him. Twelve prophets sit in four branches, each holding an item identifying himself and his prophesy of Christ.

In the next few days I hope to write for you what was presented to my Second Family. A blessed Advent to you all!

That G-Spot

Yesterday afternoon John and I saw Love Happens starring Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Anniston. It was a pleasant enough movie: sort of an old fashioned boy meets girl comedic romance. Both actors did an excellent job in their roles, Eckhart as, Burke, a successful author and self-help life counselor; Anniston as, Eloise, a florist with a series of bad relationships.

While the budding romance between Burke and Eloise is the primary focus of the movie, it blossoms only amid the back story of the tragedy that set Burke on the path of authorship and self-help guru. Three years prior to the current events his wife died in a car accident near Seattle where they lived.

Burke has now returned to Seattle to conduct one of his “A-OK” seminars. For all appearances, he has completely recovered form his wife’s death. Attendees have (apparently) read his book and now expect the same sort of recovery for the tragedy in their own lives through group sessions and upbeat lectures by Burke. Now and again some pearls of “wisdom” are dropped from his mouth, the greatest of which is that those suffering from a tragedy in life must confront their fear before they can move on; i.e., overcome or move through their grief. The big surprise (Not really for those of us who can practically write such films in our sleep!) is that Burke has not come to grips with his own fear. (No spoilers here, but again, for those of us who can practically write these things ourselves, there were no surprises, either.)



“Fear” it seems, is a code word for guilt, the G-spot. Can’t call it that, of course, because guilt it tied to sin and sin means there is a God. Oh! what a piteous word-playing world we live in! Guilt often hides behind a mask, from sexual promiscuity to fear and anger. In Love Happens, guilt hiding behind a mask of fear, can be handled quite easily: Just do one thing you are truly afraid of, like walking on a bed of hot coals, and your g-spot is lessened. The release of tension brought about by one fear abated grants permission for another to be set free. Soon your g-spot is entirely set free.



What a concept! Perhaps we can do that in our churches. We can have coal-and-ash beds implanted into the entry way of every church so that as each one enters he can be absolved. His G-spot can eventually be eradicated. Isn’t that the way so many think of Confession and Absolution–as if they were being asked to walk on a bed of hot coals? As if it were the most fearful of all things imaginable? Yet we believe, teach and confess that “confession is to be retained for the sake of absolution” (AC: II; xxv; 13. Tappert).

Absolution is what the seminar attendees are truly seeking, after all. The death of a child can in fact be “just an accident,” but the parent who could not save his own son will nonetheless punish himself for what he could not do. Drat! that g-spot. The husband who was driving the car in which his wife was killed will do the same. There goes the g-spot again.

The guilt of grief takes many forms; each one finds its answer in only one place, and yet in this movie once again the world hears that the answer can be found in the silence of one’s own doing-ness. In another movie the lead character yelled to the night sky, confessing his sins to God. The answer was the silence of the stars brightly shining upon him. In Love Happens, the Absolution comes in shopping at Home Depot and walking on hot coals, but not in words of comfort relating to life and death itself. Too bad they weren't thieves hung on crosses so they could hear from their Savior Himself.



“It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.” How true. How very true. Accidents happen. Now there’s a good movie title: Accidents Happen. When accidents happen, who sends them? Scripture says God disciplines us as His own sons (Deu 8:5; He 12:7). Yet in the same way God took Abraham’s son and then returned him to Abraham by way of the ram He sent for the sacrifice, what God takes from us He gives back to us through His Son. God’s discipline is for the sake of our repentance. There is no such thing as an accident that happens for no purpose, as if to say “Accidents happen” with a shrug of the shoulder in the same way one would intone, “skubalon happens.” Joseph received all the injustices to his life from the hands of his own brothers as if purposed by God, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” Gen 50:50. Joseph spoke these words to his brothers when they stood before him, convicted of their guilt for crimes against their own father, brother, and God in heaven. Joseph’s words were an absolution to them. Ah! There’s another movie title: Repentance Happens.



All humans have the capacity to believe, and do believe in something. Movies like Love Happens bring to the forefront a need grounded in that capacity, to be absolved of one’s guilt. When repentance happens, who is there to speak the words of forgiveness as if Christ Himself is present? Christ instituted the means whereby His words of Absolution should be spoken by His servant and received by the hearer (John 20:22-23). If anything at all, Love Happens, in a quirky mixed up way, redefines why it is important to be where the things of Christ are going on and to receive them as often as one is able. That thief comes whenever he will. His Absolution is the only cure for that nasty g-spot that accuses and wills not to be silent. His comfort is the only true one, and is found nowhere but in the things of Christ and the unity of His Body.

JT's Here!

John Tristan Carder, all 8lbs 9oz and 20" of him, arrived at 12:51am today.

God be praised!

Shhhhhhh....

The wee one is being born tonight. More news as it happens. JT arrives on his own schedule, y'all know!

Listening to Children

“I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

That’s the day-in and day-out litany of the children in my classroom. My students apologize for the least little infraction.

“Remember to dot your ‘i’s’”

“I’m sorry. I won’t forget.”

With as much sincerity as the apology is given, they expect to hear they’ve been forgiven. “That’s OK. I know
you’re still learning.” This is the gentle pattern of our life in the classroom. The students learn that all their failings are carried by Another, and that One carried them to the cross to die for them. Perfection is not attainable because sin has robbed us of that ability. Besides, no sin, no Jesus; Jesus only came for sinners. That doesn’t mean repentance is cheap. For, holding onto sins is the same as telling Jesus, “No, thank you. This sin’s on me. I’ll die for this one.” The children get it. They live from it freely and openly.

I cannot count the number of sermons I’ve listened to based on Eph 5:22-33. I can tell you this: The number of sermons based on this text encouraging husbands and wives to confess sins and absolve each other can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I watch my students submit to one another daily. They admit their sins openly and freely. They receive each other’s absolution, and the gates of heaven are opened to each other. Anger is released, grudges are stopped before they are even begun. Gossip is halted in its tracks.

When the sins against each other are serious, the students are asked if they would like to speak with the pastor to receive Absolution “as if Christ was speaking Himself” into their ears. Often they do. Sometimes it’s not an option. They are simply sent to pastor so he can help them untangle the mess they have made for themselves. They do not return without his Absolution, and an apology to all concerned.

These children live from the Absolution as Christ intended it (Mt 6:12). Luther caught the whole of it in the first of his Ninety-five Theses: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite (Repent), willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.”

What of husbands and wives, though? Too often I’ve heard a sermon based Paul’s instructions to husbands and wives that seemed to want to only reminded me that “submit is not a dirty word.” Then it failed to tell me that the sort of confession of sin and forgiveness practiced by my students should also be practiced between husbands and wives. Of what higher service can any spouse be to the other than to speak Christ's words of forgiveness to the other? What better submission can any wife give to her husband than to ask that he forgive her, and he, in turn, die to her sins as Christ did for his, and hers?

This is not merely “looking over” the day-to-day trivia of human life encountered when two people live together. Did he miss the clothes basket again? Does she snore? Who forgot to close the refrigerator door or turn off the garage light? No, this is real confession of sin. Hurts and angers can submerge deep inside the heart and mind, not seeming to affect a relationship. Yet their edges poke and prickle, wearing away until finally they find a weak spot and emerge. Will it be confronted with more destruction? Or will there be an opportunity for forgiveness in Christ? Marriages can survive long and hard, even looking the healthy picture of Pauline dual submission, yet still be suffering without this joyous service between husband and wife.

Pastors, preach it as often as you are able! Husbands, wives, submit to each other with the confession of your sins. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church by forgiving her; wives, submit to your husbands forgiveness, for it is as Christ’s own to you--just as your wife's is Christ's to you. As Paul also says, “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God,” (1 Corinthians 11:4). But also as Paul's Teacher taught him, we are to forgive sins as we have been forgiven in and by Christ.

Emi and Maps from Here to There

Emi came to our house this summer. She spent her week again with us, all by herself. We picked her up in Little Rock and drove her down. She travels well, as she should. She’s made enough trans-Atlantic flights in her short life to take in a six-hour road trip like sand does water.

The first thing Emi did arriving at our place was pick a bowl full of blueberries–certainly a must if there was to be a tea party and muffins with Grammy in the morning. Emi helped make the muffins, of course. One of my students had given me a perfectly lovely tea set as a birthday gift. Little did they know what a treasure it would become.

Emi's daddy drove down with her little sister Lianna to pick her up. This gave Mommy some much needed rest during this last part of her pregnancy. Also, traveling is becoming hard on her right now. Lianna is two now, quite a handful, but so very precious. The three planned to go from here back to Arkansas to Cindy's parents' house. Her dad had a very mild stroke July 4, and the Army gave John time off to help him out around the house and with his recuperation. The night before they left here to go back to Little Rock Emi and her daddy studied maps to plan their route. Emi is fascinated with maps, an influence from the Dora show.

Emi is five-nearly-six. She has a late birth date, November. So she begins Kindergarten behind many other children born in her year. That’s often a blessing. She’ll benefit from that edge of maturity. Emi had already gone to VBS before coming to see us. One evening the television happened to land on a show in which a woman was knocked out or laid out or otherwise incapacitated. “Oh, Grammy,” Emi cried out, “she died!”

It wasn’t yet clear whether the show actually had taken that turn, but Emi perceived it to be that way. As I was trying to think of a response, she continued. “Don’t worry. She’ll come back alive again.” Now I didn’t know what to think. Was she already tainted by too much tv or video games, having seen too many characters ‘die’ only to been seen as ‘alive’ elsewhere? I decided to let Emi keep talking and let her tell me what she was meaning.

“Jesus died and He came back alive again. She died and she will come back alive again because Jesus forgives our sins.”

There it was, simple as can be. During Rev. John Rutowicz's lecture of The Augustana Ministerium's Challenge of Eastern Orthodoxy William Weedon can be heard to say, “Death is original sin made evident; and the converse is also true: original sin is death made visible.” Emi has already locked in the kernel of that maxim. For Emi, death is evidence of sin needing Christ’s forgiveness, and restoration to life is evidence of Life in Christ. Nice stuff even when a little child speaks that which flesh and blood has not revealed.

Emi with her pastor, Larry Peters of Grace Lutheran, Clarksville, TN, on the day she died and was resurrected in Christ.

War's Glory or Glorification

Pr. Peterson asks in his blog post The Cost of War, “Was there ever an idea so stupid as glory in war?” I’m not entering the thread that comment sprouted. It has by now taken on a life-form of its own, well removed from where it started.

Still, as the daughter, wife, and mother of military combatants, I’m somewhat pressed to answer that question. My father served in Vietnam, as did my husband. My son has seen duty in Gulf I, and now three tours in Iraq. This November he will see duty in Afghanistan. When the World Trade Towers were attacked he was in Kosovo. That is considered a combat tour, also. Al told that is six tours in combat zones.

My father once told me that the only glory in war was in the movies. My husband and son have echoed the same sentiment, but now include video games. I suppose, then, Pr. Peterson is correct on one level: Was there ever an idea so stupid as the glorification of war?

There is a distinct difference between there being glory in war, which is a result of human sacrifice for a greater good, and the glorification of war, which is magnifying war for its own sake. What I appreciate Pr. Peterson saying is the latter, not the former.

War is a necessary evil, now that we are subjected to sin in this life. While war reduces daily bread, a strong army protects the First Article gifts of the people.

It would therefore be fitting if the coat-of-arms of every upright prince were emblazoned with a loaf of bread instead of a lion or a wreath of rue, or if a loaf of bread were stamped on coins, to remind both princes and subjects that through the office of the princes we enjoy protection and peace and that without them we could not have the steady blessing of daily bread. (LC: LP, 75)

And yet why is there war? God chastises His children.

By nature we all have this beautiful virtue that whenever we commit a wrong we like to cover and gloss over our disgrace so that no one may see it or know it. Nor man is so arrogant as to boast before the whole world of the wickedness he has committed. We prefer to act in secret without anyone’s being aware of it. Then if anyone is denounced, God and his name have to be dragged in to turn the villainy into righteousness and the disgrace into honor.

This is the common course of the world. Like a great deluge, it has flooded all lands. Hence we get what we deserve: plague, war, famine, fire, flood, wayward wives and children and servants, and troubles of every kind. Where else could so much misery come from? It is a great mercy that the earth still bears and sustains us. LC: The Ten Commandments, art. ii, par. 59-60)

It is good to read The Children’s Homer with children. They get a taste of what war is really like. The men of Tory argue, “We are right! Our cause is just. Helen came with Paris willingly.” The men of Sparta argue, “Menelaus did no wrong. No man should have his wife stolen from him. There is a pact among the rulers, and it must be honored.” The children learn that on both sides there is honor and sacrifice for friends; on both sides there is dishonor in war.

We also read the book with this as our presupposition: “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Romans 2:15). There are no good works for those who are not in Christ, even by way of the Promise. It is a tough lesson to work through for some, but they soon get it.

This is a lesson the world about us doesn’t get, so it glorifies war itself. We don’t recognize that war is God’s tool calling the nation to repentance. Repentance? Repentance for what? That implies sin, and this nation has yet to identify real sin instead of its own made-up varieties of socio-political wrong-doings.

There are glories in war, true instances where soldiers have made sacrifices. Some, where, when or whom we can only leave to the Father Himself, are magnificent good works. These aren’t the same things as we now see portrayed in the movies and cheapened by video games. I understand that a hungry nation wanting to express gratitude to its Audy Murphys and SGT Yorks wanted to see their stories portrayed onscreen–but unending versions of Rambo and Empire: Total War are another thing entirely.

Sneak Peek

Introducing...



... John Tristan Carder, expected to arrive sometime in early October. Cute kid, isn't he?

Mother's Day Decisions

It’s Mother’s Day. OK, if Mom isn’t near you, you can at least pick up the phone and join in on the following exercise. Turn to her and say:

“Mom, thanks for toting me around for all those months. Thanks for putting up with sick tummies, swollen ankles, and sore backs just to give me a place to be nurtured before I was born. Aren’t you glad I decided to be born? Sure I know you did some pushing and had your part to do, but it was really my decision that brought me into the world, giving me life. And anyway, aren't you happy I chose you to be my mother? I sure am!”

Now I don’t know how things are in your families, but I know how they are in mine. Had my father ever heard me speak to my mother like that I’d likely not be sitting well for a couple days. Even if my dad hadn’t heard me speak such vile words to my mother, she’d have taken care of me herself. She’s that sort of woman. Good for her.

But let’s look at things a little deeper. Isn’t that statement the very same thinking that lurks behind decision theology? That’s the theology that says in large or small parts we make a decision that contributes toward our salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life in Christ.

I had a discussion recently with Bruce following my blog post Fireproof. Bruce took issue with how I characterized the speech of the actors who used words like, “Before I gave my life to the Lord... When I gave my life to God...” He said they themselves would not approve of the terminology “decision theology” because, if asked, they would say that the Lord had acted in their hearts, and all they had done was the Lord’s work. It was just their manner of speaking, but they meant what we mean.

My response to that was, “OK, then surely they also baptize infants.” Therein is the true test between those who reject decision theology in all its parts, and those who merely reject the appellation “decision theology” because it itches like a cheap wool sweater. There was other work to do before that question would be answered, though.

There was still that book, The Love Dare, the book from which the film Fireproof sprang. The Love Dare was written by Stephen and Alex Kendrick, both of whom serve as pastors at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, GA. They are also film makers. Fireproof is one of theirs. Reading through the book demonstrated just how much that term must be itching. There was more language of “receive” than of “accept.”

And yet, this is simply a slippery mask on a façade. Midway through the book is written,

Perhaps you’ve never given your heart to Christ, but you sense Him drawing you today. You may be realizing for the first time that you. too, have broken God’s commands, and that your guilt will keep you from knowing Him. But Scripture says that if you repent by turning away from your sin and turning to God, He is willing to forgive you because of the sacrifice His Son made on the cross. He is pursuing you, not to enslave you but to free you, so you can receive His love and forgiveness. Then you can share it with the ones you’ve been called most specifically to love.

The language of decision theology has changed. There is more talk of receiving what Christ gives, and an emphasis on the fact that it is the Holy Spirit who gives it. Yet in the final the movement is the penitent toward Christ, rather than Christ toward the penitent. Perhaps you’ve never given your heart to Christ. . . Christ is drawing, but the final work rests upon the one who gives his heart to Christ. It is a fascinating interest that so many of those who practice decision theology–even while they abhor its name and try to distance themselves from it–deny baptism to infants because it is this group of humans who cannot make that step toward Christ. So it is Infant Baptism that most clearly delineates those who are truly practitioners of decision theology, and those who are not. Soft words can cover a heap of indiscretions, but is the practice that will reveal the theology.

I wrote to Rev. Michael Catt, Senior Pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church, and asked him directly. “Do you practice Infant Baptism?” He had an assistant respond, asking that I include his entire response. I agreed. It follows here.

What about infant baptism?

Since baptism is for those who have repented and believed, we do not practice infant immersion. An infant cannot repent. An infant cannot believe. Hence, we practice "believer's baptism." Infant immersion began in the early centuries (by the year 200 A.D.) because of the development and distortion of two doctrines. One is called "baptismal regeneration" which said that baptism actually washed away one's sin or regenerated the person. The other distortion had to do with the doctrine of "original sin." The church came to believe that an infant was born not only with original sin, but also with original guilt which meant that an infant was guilty before God and God would hold him accountable for his sin. Thus, if the child died, then he was doomed for hell. Since the church believed that baptism actually saved the candidate, they began to do the next logical thing: they baptized babies believing that the rite saved the child if it were to die.

This idea is called the Sacramental View of baptism. A sacrament is thought to be a channel through which God bestows grace upon a candidate. Baptists have never been sacramentalists. We don’t call baptism a sacrament. We understand that the Bible teaches baptism to be a symbol. Thus, we use the term “ordinance” to describe the rite. An ordinance is something that has been ordained or decreed by God. Jesus commanded us to be baptized as a symbol of what has happened in the life of someone who has reached the age of accountability and consequently is old enough to repent and believe.

Many of the mainline Protestant denominations modified their teaching from a sacramental view to a symbolic one. They have continued to sprinkle infants, but they have poured new content into its meaning. Some consider it to be an act of dedication for the parents. Others see it as a sort of down payment on the infant’s salvation. They say that the infant is baptized that he may be saved rather than to save him. And then others believe infants are children of God because of their innocence and the faith of their parents. We believe that a child is innocent and if the child dies he is received into the eternal presence of God.

It helps to remember that when most mainline denominations were founded (in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries), baptism was not a major issue as it is with Baptist, and in most instances it was not even a minor one. Denominations like the Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians began because of issues totally unrelated to baptism. Hence, they kept the rite of infant sprinkling, but poured new meaning into it.

Baptists came out of the Church of England in the mid-1600s over the issue of believers’ immersion. Since the church and the state were one on the same in those days, their acts of immersion adult believers were considered treason. Thus our Baptist forefathers were harassed and persecuted and in some cases put to death because of this “new” and “heretical” teaching.

I’d like to suggest we reclaim the term “decision theology.” Let’s say we all gather together and hash this thing out, beginning with whether or not Baptism now saves you or if infants who leap in their mother’s womb at the sound of the Christ-bearer’s voice can believe. We can move on to what's for Supper and who rightly serves the Meal. Then it will be a good time to make a decision, a decision based on what scripture says. Then it will be time to decide to be Lutheran. And in making that decision, one would practice like a Lutheran, speak like a Lutheran and actually mean the same thing as Lutherans believe teach and confess, and worship as Lutherans–rather than trying to put otherwise style onto Lutheran substance. This all includes recognizing that we Lutherans already have a perfectly wonderful marriage handbook without all the little pitfalls of The Love Dare and Fireproof impinging upon our spiritual health and welfare. It’s called the Catechism.

Now wouldn’t it be something if we Lutherans paid as much honor to our own ABC’s as we do to the spz’s from elsewhere? Why, it would be akin to paying honor to our own Mother rather than to glorifying some flounced up actress playing a mother.

But this I say for myself: I am also a doctor and a preacher, just as learned and experienced as all of them who are so high and mighty. Nevertheless, each morning, and whenever else I have time, I do as a child who is being taught the catechism and I read and recite word for word the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Psalms, etc. I must still read and study the catechism daily, and yet I cannot master it as I wish, but must remain a child and pupil of the catechism—and I also do so gladly. These fussy, fastidious fellows would like quickly, with one reading, to be doctors above all doctors, to know it all and to need nothing more. Well this, too, is a sure sign that they despise both their office and the people’s souls, yes, even God and his Word. They do not need to fall, for they have already fallen all too horribly. What they need, however, is to become children and begin to learn the ABCs, which they think they have long since outgrown. M. Luther

Easter Pictures

As per request, here are pictures of the sanctuary taken last night and this morning, dressed for Easter. Last night we began Easter celebrations with the Easter Vigil. That's when two were baptized and confirmed into Christ, one renewed her confirmation into Christ, and two others were confirmed into Christ. It was a night and morning filled with hymns, readings, psalms, incense, oil, water, bread, wine, and CHRIST in all of these things!




The youngest children used cut flowers to adorn the cross. This is the first place I've ever been where this custom has been maintained. My first Good Friday here I participated in the liturgical rite: The pastor holding high the unadorned former Christmas-tree-now-made-cross and intoning, "Behold the life-giving cross on which was hung the salvation of the world;" the congregation then chanting in reply, "O come let us worship Him." That was an excitement in and of itself. Yet upon returning the next evening for the Easter Vigil, a greater one awaited. The bare cross pastor had carried to the four corners of the sanctuary was now shrouded in white bandaging. For all the world that cross imaged Christ in His burial garment to me. It was striking.




To maintain that imagery this year, pastor has decided to leave the altar adorned only with the fair linen throughout the Easter season. The altar is a work of art in and of itself. The superfrontal, which is no less a beautiful piece of art of a different kind, lays over a portion of the altar, as if it were a mask for the beauty underneath (A great lesson there!). But for the Easter season another lesson is being told to us.



Jesus burst forth from the tomb, leaving His burial clothes behind on death's bed where He slept for three days. The simplicity of the fair linen on the granite of the altar recalls this. The altar is the place where Christ is present for us in the bread and wine; Christ literally sits enthroned upon this altar. So to leave a bare slab of rock with only a strip of linen across it is not a far stretch to thinking, "This is where My Lord's Body and Blood lie for me; this is the place where the Church is born form Christ."

By the way, the cover is removed from the Baptismal font prior to each Mass. The font has water for those who wish to dip their fingers and make the sign of the cross.

So, more views--as Easter progresses. We left before the flowered cross was taken to the roadside fence for passersby to see as they drove by. My newest godson needed to get home. He'd already had a long day. I think he'd have gone on for more. He was acolyte today. Had a lot to do, lighting candles, holding books. I asked him if he felt any different today. He said he did. He said he slept better last night than any night he ever did before. Baptism's like that. And he's been waiting a long time for it.