Crunchy Reformational monastics?

The old cover of Rod Dreher’s “Crunchy Cons”

I’ll admit, as cynical as I am about politics, even I was a bit taken aback at this piece from Rod Dreher’s blog today (he has a lot of good things to say lately….)  A bit from that…

My colleague Leah Libresco has been at CPAC, where she observed that the libertarians didn’t really want to have much to do with social conservatives…. Leah goes on to say that the panel left her feeling the truth of Ross Douthat’s observation that on gay marriage, social conservatives are now negotiating the terms of their surrender. I take her to mean that the CPAC panel made clear that the “surrender” is not simply over the resolution of gay marriage, but more broadly — even within the conservative movement.

Oye.  Dreher goes on to give some sound advice – one bit is which to read his 2003 book, Crunchy Cons.  And I noted with real interest how he ends his piece:

If I were a social or religious conservative who had money to donate, I would not give it to political causes. I would use it for strengthening our institutions as places of effective cultural resistance to the times we’re in, and the times that we’re entering. Make them function like the Benedictine monasteries of Western Europe did during the Dark Ages: as institutions and communities that bear and pass on our moral and spiritual vision in a time and place that does not share it, so that one day, far into the future, it will be there for rediscovery, and the rebuilding of society out of the ruins.

All of this put me in mind of a longer piece I wrote about seven years ago called “A child at peace in the presence of his father: a Lutheran monasticism?“  I will admit that to talk about Lutheran monasticism sounds like an oxymoron, but I invite you to check it out – am I on to something?

Here is a clip from that piece:

Bouncing between what seems to be the extreme of attaining material wealth and comfort (often smuggled in to definitions of “quality of life”) for all, and the other extreme of a spiritual liberty (spiritual power and comfort) that degrades the physical (particularly, the human body) men these days religiously strive for a “progress”, often operating in intellectual isolation from any possible consideration of any true progress that may be due to the Christian message (popularized in books like Alvin Schmidt’s “How Christianity Changed the World” or Vishal Mangalwadi’s “Truth and Transformation”).  They do not seek to be found in a renewed creation in Christ, where they may more fully grow into a realization of what it means to be creatures made in God’s image.  Instead, bolstered in part by the liberation the world has experienced because of the Christian Gospel, they fight against the ancient pagan notions of an unchanging natural order and fate in their own way.  The worldly wiser among them do not reject notions of realism, for there is indeed “the world as it is”, even as there is also “the world as it should be”.  Still, whether they atheistically embrace the material, seeing it as the only reality, or whether they seek liberation from the material in a more spiritual sense, they both see the need or imperative, now driven more so by new medicines and technologies, to liberate humanity from what it previously meant to be human. They will not “destroy the old man” in God’s way, through the Law and Gospel found in Christ, but rather via their own means, and to their own ends.

Further: all of this takes place as relationships are becoming increasingly atomized, self-focused.  The Darwinian life that seems to be required of our persons in the ever-more demanding meritocracy which is our world lends itself to all manner of difficulties, leading to temptations to sin….

But the “private sector” (free market) is not the only one which has become increasingly oppressive.  The same can be said for the public realm, the realm of those who govern.  After all, families and churches, working hard where God has placed them, making a difference in “Good Samaritan” moments – especially remembering in Christ’s name the poor among them – being supported in their good deeds by a government set up to encourage such work, are not enough….

Here is how I end:

….The new monastics, especially, would be permitted to, in a very real sense, rest in their redemption in Christ.  They would retreat from both storms external and internal into the shelter of His house.  Like a baby as in a mother’s arms.  Like the child playing at peace in the presence of his father.  All striving for perfection, doing excellent work with the explicit goal of to promote Christ, sharing His Name upon “re-entrance” into the world, the “secular realm”, would necessarily spring from this truth.  And since people, generally, do not know what their real needs are, perhaps this will shake them up enough to start catching a glimpse of just what it is they are lacking – forgiveness, life and salvation in Jesus Christ, the exact representation of God the Father.

+Nathan

 

Re: the Zeitgeist and repressive tolerance

Herbert Marcuse, just ahead of his time.

Rod Dreher has an important post up reflecting on what will increasingly be happening to Christians in the Brave New World that is approaching us.  Just a clip from the end of the post (the “update”):

“I heard from a pastor this morning who said a parishioner approached him last week to ask his advice. His parishioner said that a colleague in his workplace is openly gay, and keeps pestering him to declare his views on same-sex marriage. The parishioner is a traditional Christian who doesn’t believe in SSM, but he also doesn’t believe the workplace is where this sort of thing should be discussed. The parishioner just wants to get on with his work, but the colleague, who is in a semi-supervisory capacity, won’t let it drop. The parishioner said that the climate in his workplace — a business that has nothing to do with marriage or social issues — has shifted to where one is expected to declare one’s support for SSM, or be suspected of harboring hateful views. The parishioner just wants to be left alone, but he doesn’t want to be accused of being ashamed of his religious views. He wanted to know what he should do.

This is coming. What is wrong with policing a work colleague’s behavior, not his thoughts? If the parishioner were treating gay colleagues disrespectfully or otherwise unjustly, then sanction him. And if not, what business is it of anybody’s if he’s guilty of thoughtcrime?”

As anyone reading this blog regularly knows, I am currently doing a lot of reflection on culture and technology for an upcoming presentation.  During my reading, I have dipped back into C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man.  Here is a sample of the harrowing stuff from there:

“what we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument… For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means… the power of some men to make other men what they please…. If man chooses himself as raw material to be manipulated, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his dehumanized Conditioners” (67, 70, 80)

Read all this in conjunction with this other post from Dreher, which shares a rather frightful, but unsurpising, piece recently published in the Harvard Crimson (that is their student newspaper).  A clip:

Yet the liberal obsession with “academic freedom” seems a bit misplaced to me. After all, no one ever has “full freedom” in research and publication. Which research proposals receive funding and what papers are accepted for publication are always contingent on political priorities. The words used to articulate a research question can have implications for its outcome. No academic question is ever “free” from political realities. If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”?

Everyone has always known that, but now, as the winds blow a particular way, more people can start to say that (like Marcuse, ahead of his time, tried to do in 1965 but failed).

And… there is the Ross Douthat piece that everyone is talking about, The Terms of Our Surrender – NYTimes.com

In it he says:

I am being descriptive here, rather than self-pitying. Christians had plenty of opportunities — thousands of years’ worth — to treat gay people with real charity, and far too often chose intolerance. (And still do, in many instances and places.) So being marginalized, being sued, losing tax-exempt status — this will be uncomfortable, but we should keep perspective and remember our sins, and nobody should call it persecution.

Douthat is brilliant, but I don’t think he should have said that.  That, it seems to me, is called “a green light”.

And how might technology fit into all of this?  I have one word that I think gets to the bottom of that: “enhancement” – whether for good or ill.

A quote I recently came across in the new book The Second Machine Age:

“The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

But fear not little flock, for Christ has overcome the world.  Your many sins have been forgiven, and the second death shall not touch you.  Hallelujah indeed!

Go in peace – yes real, eternal peace – and serve the Lord.  Onward.

 

Daring to deny Darwin II: how Christians can apply Marx’s largely correct views of human nature to today’s Darwinian climate

In a past post, I said: “[Casey] Luskin reinforces what should be the obvious notion that science is not the impartial search for truth, but is also governed by important sociological and political factors (and spiritual of course) as well.”

When it comes to talking about ideas regarding the history of the world – and the highly abstract theories and models* that evolutionary thinkers depend on to tell these stories – there is no real reason to assume that what comes out of the scientist’s mouth has to do with truth.  I am simply taking their own theory to its logical conclusion.**

Let me explain. 

I am not saying that these persons can’t come up with plausible and somewhat reasonable-sounding explanations of why things are what they are and have come to be – and along with this, why what often appears to be the case, really is not the case (for example, why dinosaur bones that appear to be young by virtue of the fresh tissue inside of them are really 65 million years old or more***).

Pressing Karl into the Lord’s service.

I am simply saying this: if we assume as true that which most modern scientists base their thinking on – that is, cosmological and then biological evolution – then what is really important is precisely what I mentioned above: that a person come up with plausible sounding theories about why things are the way they are and have come to be (and when it comes to scientists living in theistic nations, one’s ability to do this will be directly correspond to the readiness of a culture to disbelieve the writings that support these theisms, not by any “provable” scientific argumentation per se).

In other words, what really matters for these scientists expounding on survival of the fittest (that does not mean strongest, that means those who “fit” best with their environment and hence are able to pass on their genes to the next generation) is that they simply sound smart, possessing the requisite rhetorical and conversational abilities to convince a wide range of the population that they are contributing something of value.

Why do they not actually need to produce anything that has real value?  The point is that they only need to be associated with those who do, and to borrow from the capital these fruit-producing persons possess.  In other words, those who put forth evolutionary theory as truth can only do so because they parasitic on those who are essentially creative engineers and really do have some real connection with what is truth.  Everyone will acknowledge that there must be a significant amount of truth in theories coming from men like Newton and Einstein because their theories have been clearly seen to be absolutely foundational in attaining practical inventions and results that everyone can experience.

This is truly powerful.  And as neo-Darwinian thought tells us, with power comes the ability to not only survive – the power to fit into one’s environment – but to pass on one’s genes.

It does not matter if not every person claiming to be able to do historical science, (as someone like Ken Ham defiantly calls it vs. those who say there is nothing to such a seemingly sensible-sounding distinction) sees practical results coming out of their intelligence.  It is simply the case, that as far as evolutionary theory is concerned, it is not only brawn, but brains that are essential for passing on one’s genes – even as certainly one wants to have both, because some women, for example, have a hard time looking past physical strength (yes, good looks help to).  Enough people value these intellectual traits because they “know” – subconsciously if not consciously – that having them can make all the difference – especially as the intellectual arms race increases – so that their genes will be favored to survive.   And it is very often the case that one only needs to appear as if one has the potential to come up with things that would be useful for helping one to survive, or better yet, thrive. 

So that alone, according to the theory of evolution itself, is the truth – of course there is nothing intrinsic about things like beauty, justice, love and meaning.  Therefore, it is not necessarily true that whatever comes out of the even the most respected proponent of evolution’s mouth has any actual basis in reality whatsoever.****

What will defeat this argument?  Well, if we are talking about actually persuading the person holding it via reasons, to a large degree this will depend on the person’s confidence in their dogma.  I might suggest this as a start though as something that might perhaps make a real difference (since I do believe that for many of us evidence which is public, relevant and convincing is important): specifically explain how certain scientific discoveries that everyone can clearly see are discoveries could not have been made unless the one making them had depended on evolutionary theories.

FIN

* Of course, I think we all must give the nod to “common sense realism”: we are still be able to agree with most any other human being that knowing some basic facts or “truths” (little t) on the ground might have some obvious, immediate survival value, for instance, when we both immediately respond to the sight of the hungry tiger and run away.  But the key question is this: why would our evolved (and evolving) reason and sense “equipment” be useful for anything more complicated and abstract than this – and if it seems to be, why should we trust it?

**The great Alvin Plantiga has done something similar, but my argument is a bit different.  The first footnote features one such distinction.

*** based on their understanding of radiometric dating methods, the geological column, taxonomy, and sequences of “index” fossil.

****To briefly address another angle of this argument:  why should we assume that any living being should be capable of producing complicated theories and models that are accurate representations of reality that have no obvious immediate survival value?  Why should it matter whether our reason and senses can accurately map reality or not?  What is ultimately important is that they exist to help us survive – and if this means they will “deceive” “us” (what are “we” anyway?) from time to time, perhaps that is for the best.  In short, it would seem that the very act of constructing a theory to explain man’s existence belies an inherent theism within man which evolution is hard-pressed to justify.

 

Gems from my students IV

Do Lutherans do personal testimonies?  Well, we don’t emphasize this, because usually they are a bit boring (yes, I’d say this is typical, even as it is entertaining).  That said, we do have our adult converts. Some great stories can be read in the regular “Wittenberg trail” feature of the Issues ETC Journal (read them here), and this account from Brian Wolfmueller is both powerful and entertaining.

 

One of my students has had a rather arduous and amazing journeys, and was kind enough to share it with me and gave me permission to post it here.  I give you Kendra.

 

I guess that my journey with the Lord started at the age of nine. I remember asking my mother to pray with me in my living room to accept Jesus into my heart. The tv was blaring in the background, but at that moment I sensed peace and quiet in my heart. I grew up in a small town where everyone knows everything and I went to a tiny baptist church with a congregation of about 30 people. I have an older brother and younger sister and we are all 5 years apart. My father was severely bipolar, so when he was on his “up” times, he came to church with us and was a great witness to others, but when he was depressed and low he was an alcoholic and very abusive. I remember at a young age witnessing him beat my older brother and mom in front of my sister and me. There were many nights that we left our home to stay at my grandma’s and I can remember laying in bed and not knowing where we would go tomorrow, but having a calming feeling inside me that at least we got through today. I still felt safe and secure and I know that was Jesus holding my hand throughout those nights. Over the next few years his illness got continuously worse and at the age of eleven my dad started sexually molesting me. It started when my mom would work nights and my brother would go out with his friends. I knew when it was going to happen because I would get a dark feeling in my stomach and I would want to go to bed early with my sister. This happened over the course of a few months and I left this painful secret with me until I could bare it no more. God was telling me that I had to do my part to protect myself and the future of my sister. I needed to be brave, so after months of going on this way I finally told my aunt on the car ride home from school what had happened. We went to my pastor’s house, just her and I, and he prayed over me. I knew after that night that he could no longer harm me and that the lies he told me wouldn’t happen. I was safe again. We went to a town home and that night my dad was arrested. At that age I didn’t really know what to think about the whole process. I had so many people talking to me and everything happened so fast that all I could do was hold on the Jesus’ hand and know that he would hold me another day. Four days after my dad went to jail he was released on bail and that night he committed suicide in our home. I can’t really explain to you what it was like that night that we found out. So many things went rushing into my mind: What have I done to my daddy? If only I would’ve kept my mouth shut, he would still be alive. So many doubts rushed into my mind that I really started to question myself and most of all, God. Why would he take my dad away that way? Why would he allow my dad to do all he did and give me the courage to speak up and then to feel like I got punished for it anyway. I was very lost those couple of days and very unsure, but I know I was being carried through this wilderness and I wouldn’t have gotten through it had it not been for my faith. It took me many months after his death to realize that it wasn’t my fault and that his decision was his own and it truly wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. Knowing this and being able to go through the process of forgiving my father was the most amazing weight being lifted from an eleven year old’s shoulders. I knew that if Jesus could get my through this then I could do ANYTHING THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME.

 

The year after my dad died was quite the roller coaster. My mother had been with my dad since she was 14 and she was very co-dependent on him, so she took his death very hard. After that night she took a very hard turn and she was never to be the same again. Nine months after he died my mother was married to his older brother and we were moved to New Mexico, a place I had never visited and never wanted to live. We were made to leave our home, our family, and our comfort for this desert. I resisted my mom more than ever before. This barrier was now in between us and for some reason it would never be broken. My brother, my protector, my rock, and my best friend, had joined the military directly after our move and I really felt like I was alone. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t have any family and my mom and I weren’t on good terms. Over the course of 4 years I would make the journey back and forth from Minnesota to New Mexico every 6 months, or until my mom decided she wanted to me live with her, or wanted me to live with my grandma. My stepfather wasn’t very accepting of my sister and I and there was some violence in the home and I just didn’t know where to turn. I knew where my home was and I wanted more than anything to resist all change and stay in Minnesota, but something called me to finally stay in Albuquerque my sophomore year and I did until my junior year when I graduated a year early. I have no idea how I achieved graduation that year, all I know is that it took night classes, summer school, online courses, regular school, a part time job. LOTS OF CAFFEINE, and the Lord. I did it. I graduated and I could now have my independence and I could go where I wanted. This is the year my mother started her downward spiral from us. She began to steal and lie. She stole from me, my brother, and my grandma. We didn’t know where this money was going or what was going on, but because she was my mom and because I still loved her, I forgave her. After I finished school at the age of 17,  I moved to Seattle to go to art school and live with my brother and my beautiful baby twin nephews. I guess you could call this year of my life, my oasis time. I was very happy with my brother and watching my nephews grow, and most of all doing what I loved to do. My art. After that year my brother decided to finish his time with the military and move back home. I was going home. As much as I loved my year away, I knew that God was directing my life and my future to Minnesota. I had no idea what I was going to do, I had no idea where I was going to work, but I knew that it would be taken care of, because I was always taken care of and that was because of my FATHER, my real dad.

 

The next year to come went by very quickly and I grew up a lot. I got my own apartment, I worked full time and I was in the same apartment building as my brother. That year my mom left my uncle and she took off in the middle of the night to move back to Minnesota. What at first seemed like a home coming and joyous time for her, quickly turned very unfortunate for us, very soon. My mom was on some sort of path that none of us could quite figure out. We still had some what of a relationship, but nothing of substance and I was now the mother to her and I hadn’t had in quite a few years. I called to make sure she had eaten, she borrowed my money, and she continued to steal what she could. This time of my life was up and down and I really didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know what to do with my mom and I didn’t know how to be a friend and a daughter,  but the beginning of the next year was my big JOURNEY. I got married to the boy I knew since 2nd grade, my friend, John. I was 19. We dated for 3 months, were engage for 2 weeks, and got married with two witnesses in my small baptist church and that began my trip to the big city. I didn’t know why it all happened so fast. I knew that God intended for me to marry John and we both knew that we wanted to have our relationship be right with the Lord and get married before living together and starting off this way was right. We thank God that we began our lives together this way and the next year I know that the Lord had me with John for a definite reason. Months into our marriage my mom really just began to be lost in herself. She abandoned my 14 year old sister and she never looked back. She just left one day with a meth dealer and no one in my family has seen her since. This wilderness period of my life is still very much evident in everything I do. I had a lot of resentment and anger for my mom. To leave my sister, our whole family the way that she did really devastated me. Over the past 3 years I have really found myself questioning God’s intentions on why he would allow this to happen to us.  My mother was very good at manipulation and playing a big role in the trust issues I have struggled with on a daily basis, especially in my marriage. I had trouble trusting what anyone ever said and I thought I had to be in control of EVERYTHING and that way it would be less possible for me to get hurt or be left again. I tried doing a lot on my own and that led me to even more heartache. Why would God let our last parent just leave us this way? It left me feeling very abandoned, as well as lied to, and most of all very alone. I felt that God allowed me to be cut and left to bleed by both of my parents and there was nothing I could have done to prevent either one from leaving the way that they did. I have had a major struggle forgiving my mom and being able to let go of her and really being able to turn her to the Lord because He’s the only one who knows where she is and is actually going to be able to save her.  Through this process I’ve not only been able to free myself of the bondage, but also learn how to trust other people again and not control everything, because it all is entirely OUT of my control. It’s still an up and down process, but it is only through the Lord that I have been able to let things go and not be so critical and bitter toward others. There are many times that I have bitter inside and I really began to become hard. It’s that this point that I tried and still do try to be around other believers and ask for their prayers and encouragement because sometimes they’re the only ones that can pray me through the day. The hardship of my mom isn’t over yet, and there are days I need more help than others, but if I just do my Bible study and really ask God for His presence, it’s like He goes above and beyond just to show me that He still thinks I’m special and He’s a pretty great Dad to have to show me that. I know that God really has blessed me in my life with many people to keep me sane over this period. Even when I felt alone, even when I lay in bed wondering what happened to my life, I knew that God gave me so many people to keep me safe, to be lift me up and encourage and I know that Jesus wanted me to know, “Kendra I know that you hurt and that you don’t understand, but I have great plans for you, and I gave you people in your journey to give you hope. But most of all, remember that I WON’T LEAVE YOU.” That sense of abandonment has been my worst fear. The Lord has been so faithful in all of His ways an He truly has shown me that no matter what happens in my today, no matter where I go in my tomorrow, that HE is here with me. That HE is my best friend. He catches all of my tears, He lays awake with me in the middle of night. And unlike so many people in my life, HE WILL NEVER LET ME DOWN. I’ve been so encouraged throughout my life with so many people to help me through. My aunt has really stepped up and played an important part of my life and has been more than a mother figure to me and I couldn’t ask for more. My grandmother has opened her home to me and my little sister and she lives there even today. My sister has exceeded above and beyond even after my mom has left. She is 17 now and will be graduating from highschool with her A.A. and a 4.0 gpa and she has so much ahead of her to look forward and regardless of any of the hurt she has felt I know that God has sheltered and kept her through the years of hurt we have faced. My husband and I started going to Grace Church shortly after we got married and the Lord has shown us in so many ways that He is with us and helping us. The people at Grace have really guided us both and I am so grateful for the strong and courageous women that He has brought into my life through Grace. I may not have a mother of my own, but He has just poured godly women into my life to show me what a Mother is and how she can love. I couldn’t feel more blessed in my life at this point in time. I look back and see that I could have gone so many other places and been such a different person, but I know that it is my Christ alone I am saved and I am here today and this is my joy. I don’t regret anything that I’ve gone through and I can honestly stand here and say that I know I didn’t face this alone.

 

 

In what does man’s essence lie? A meditation.

Men, there is a message you should know about – for without it you are nothing…

Aristotle said that man is a rational animal.  Our uniquely constituted minds with their abilities of reason and language are what make man human.

Descartes, perhaps attempting to somewhat salvage Aristotle from Francis Bacon’s relentless focus on technique and the external realities that surround and confront us, put forth this: “I think, therefore I am”.

Recently, I read this question from technology and culture watcher, Nicholas Carr:

“As we transform ourselves into creatures of the screen, we face an existential question: Does our essence still lie in what we know, or are we now content to be defined by what we want? If we don’t grapple with that question ourselves, our gadgets will be happy to answer it for us.”

What is man’s essence?  It is not that man has true knowledge of something*, but that man knows a Who.  Without this critical component, it does not really make sense to speak of man’s essence.

Not so fast son.

Some persons know this God in a partial sense – a sense that will do them no good eternally – and some have begun to know Him fully, in a “now but not yet” fashion.

Those who know Him fully know that “this is eternal life”.

He is known through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whose words are “spirit and life”.

And along with this it is good to be a creature of the book, the book that carries forth and preserves those words into the future.

The Calvinist author Rosaria Butterfield had some wonderful thoughts about being this kind of creature on the Gospel Coalition blog this past week:

Yes, the Holy Spirit gives you a heart of flesh and the mind to understand and love the Lord and his Word. But without good reading practices even this redeemed heart grows flabby, weak, shaky, and ill. You cannot lose your salvation, but you can lose everything else [Nathan’s note: Lutherans do believe that you can lose your salvation]

Enter…The Puritans. They didn’t live in a world more pure than ours, but they helped create one that valued biblical literacy. [John] Owen’s work on indwelling sin is the most liberating balm to someone who feels owned by sexual sin. You are what (and how) you read. J. C. Ryle said it takes the whole Bible to make a whole Christian. Why does sin lurk in the minds of believers as a law, demanding to be obeyed? How do we have victory if sin’s tentacles go so deep, if Satan knows our names and addresses? We stand on the ordinary means of grace: Scripture reading, prayer, worship, and the sacraments. We embrace the covenant of church membership for real accountability and community, knowing that left to our own devices we’ll either be led astray or become a danger to those we love most. We read our Bibles daily and in great chunks. We surround ourselves with a great cloud of witnesses who don’t fall prey to the same worldview snares we and our post-19th century cohorts do.

In short, we honor God with our reading diligence. We honor God with our reading sacrifice. If you watch two hours of TV and surf the internet for three, what would happen if you abandoned these habits for reading the Bible and the Puritans? For real. Could the best solution to the sin that enslaves us be just that simple and difficult all at the same time? We create Christian communities that are safe places to struggle because we know sin is also “lurking at [our] door.” God tells us that sin’s “desire is for you, but you shall have mastery over it” (Gen. 4:7). Sin isn’t a matter of knowing better, it isn’t (only) a series of bad choices—and if it were, we wouldn’t need a Savior, just need a new app on our iPhone.

I would even go so far to say that it is even better to surround ourselves with those who should know and really do know this God and His book better than we do.  In this way we might not only hear the words read to us by another, but hear them explained to us in the clearest way possible and put to us in the idioms of our time and to see how they convincingly confront the falsehoods of our age… We Lutherans especially point to great individuals like Martin Luther, Martin Chemnitz, John Gerhardt, C.S.W. Walther, and Herman Sasse.

….and so we look to the good book…. and also look books by the departed saints and the living examples – the “living letters” – of those who carry forth His word, His purpose, His story, history in the world.

For it is in Him that our essence truly lies.

FIN

*Aquinas believed that being human requires the faculties of will and reason

 

 

When considering the impact public demonic displays would have, it would be counter-productive to keeping our minds off of religion

Pious and salutary speculation about the enemy’s strategy

….this from one of my students, ably making concise something I struggled to explain in lots of words….

Yes, did you hear about the very public public demonic displays in Indiana a few weeks back?  My guess is that some lesser demons are getting a very bad whooping right now for their lack of self-control…

In case you missed it:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-devil-latoya-ammons/

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-boy-who-was-possessed-remembers/

Of course, now the priest who performed the exorcism has signed a big movie deal with the producer of hit movie The Conjuring: http://www.christianpost.com/news/rev-michael-maginot-who-performed-exorcism-of-latoya-ammons-lands-movie-deal-114326/

The priest, Michael Maginot, “said he signed the deal with DeRosa-Grund because he trusts that he will not sensationalize the experience.”

Hmm.  May the Lord be in this for the glory of His Son.

FIN

 

“Imagine! Of all places, God chooses eastern Germany, one of the world’s most godless regions, as the stage for a spiritual awakening among Persians.”

“As a confessional Lutheran, I am not given to Schwarmerei [ie, religious enthusiasm],” explains Dr. Martens in the article. “But these reports of visions sound very convincing.” Quote from here.

So says conservative Lutheran Pastor Gottfried Martens – whose church I got to attend back in 1998 – named the “Pastor of the Year” in 2012 by the German Christian magazine IdeaSpekturm.

Why the quote and why the award?  As the Canadian Lutheran tells us, it is because of his work with Iranian converts to Christianity over the past five years.

More from the Canadian Lutheran:

The growing number of Iranian converts to Christianity in Germany was highlighted in a 2012 article for Christianity Today entitled “The other Iranian Revolution.” That article, which featured Dr. Martens and his work, noted that Germany is now home to the largest Iranian community in Western Europe with approximately 150,000 Iranian immigrants. The January 2013 issue of SELKinfo further notes that dozens of Iranian Muslims in Germany are estimated to be converting to Christianity every month.

“These refugees are taking unimaginable risks to live their Christian faith,” says Dr. Martens in the article for Christianity Today. “Imagine! Of all places, God chooses eastern Germany, one of the world’s most godless regions, as the stage for a spiritual awakening among Persians.”

The article goes on to explain how numerous Iranian Muslims are reportedly receiving visions of Christ as a precursor to their conversions. “He always makes it clear that he is Jesus of the Bible, not Isa of the Qu’ran,” the authors write, “and He directs them to specific pastors, priests, congregations, or house churches, where they later hear the gospel.”

And now the latest news, reported last week by the International Lutheran Council:

The Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church (SELK) continues to see remarkable numbers of Iranian Muslims converting to Christianity. According to a recent SELKinfo story, Rev. Dr. Gottfried Martens of St. Mary’s Lutheran Church (Steglitz, Berlin) reports that the number of congregational members and applicants for baptism of Persian background at his church has recently grown by 75%. The same report notes three groups of Iranians were preparing for baptism at the time, with the first group scheduled to have been baptized December 15, 2013.

“It is a kind of miracle which we experience in Berlin right now,” explained Rev. Dr. Jobst H.M. Schöne (Bishop Emeritus of SELK) during a 2013 visit to Canada. It all began when a few Iranians showed up for service at the church one Sunday, he said. As time went on, they expressed an interest in being baptized. “We thought at the beginning,” Dr. Schöne reflects, “that’s it: two people, maybe three people, maybe four people. I tell you, it’s now more than 300.”

Great stuff.  Check out the whole article.

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