Jeff Bridges is a Lutheran! Woo Hoo! He’s one of my favorite actors. He also has one of the coolest personal websites ever! Click on the painting above and then click on the link to Jackson Pollack.
Cast your vote now at Lutheran Survivor!
Be sure to stop by and wish Scottius Maximus a very happy birthday! Be sure to participate in his random thoughts questionnaire! They are always funny!
Sorry if I’ve missed other birthdays - I need LOTS of clues…like announcing it on your own blog on a day I just happened to stop by to read and have time to post a birthday greeting to you.
Theology Geek asks:
“Now this may seem like a silly question to some, but I want an honest answer. Please don’t tell me… it’s in the bible. I know good and well what it says there. I want to hear opinions. What makes a man and what makes a woman. By society’s standards and also your own. Believe it or not, there is a method to my madness… more to come soon.”
My response to him: Sticks versus feelings
A man’s thinking revolves around sticks and a woman’s around feelings (not exclusively her own, but also those around her). I’ve added two photos as a basic illustration. The first photo shows a female soldier accepting flowers from an Iraqi man. She points her weapon down and smiles at him. She is very aware that her actions might offend the man; she is aware of feelings all around her, even though she is a capable soldier. The second photo show a male soldier receiving flowers from a boy. He never adjusts his weapon and does not appear to be concerned about what the boy might think of his weapon pointing at him. Why is he not concerned? Because the boy is a boy and the male soldier assumes that even Iraqi boys are not overly concerned about offending others’ feelings by actions. Both these soldiers, male and female, accept the gift graciously despite their different methods. Is mine an expert analysis? Nope. Just my own.
Do you have a good answer for Jason? Leave it at his blog. I’ll report on his findings as he posts.
Peter 2: 1-3 (NIV)
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
My temporary American Idol insanity too often keeps me from reading blogs of substance, like Dr. Veith’s Cranach blog. On Monday of this week, Dr. Veith wrote:
“I hope you had a happy Quasimodogeniti yesterday. I couldn’t find any Quasimodogeniti cards at the Hallmark store, nor did I do any Quasimodogeniti shopping. Sorry–I just love that word, which refers to the first Sunday after Easter. It’s not named after the Hunchback of Notre Dame; rather, that unfortunate fellow was named after the day. Nor is it a holiday, as such. The word comes from the first words in the Introit that begins the service in the classic liturgy for that day. In Latin, they are “Quasi modo geniti,” which in English comes to “Like new born.” The entire sentence is “Like newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word.” Like much of the liturgy, it’s words from the Bible, in this case 1 Peter 2:2. That’s good advice for the whole year. We need to turn this into a bona fide holiday. I suppose we could observe Quasimodogeniti by drinking milk. We could get the Wisconsin Dairy Council to help promote it. But for the true meaning of the day, we should also do some serious Bible reading.” ~Dr. Gene Edward Veith, Jr.
Consider this an appropriate introduction to the most recent edition of the Lutheran Carnival, which I have also neglected during the American Idol season. There are some new faces in this 22nd edition of the carnival and a nice tie-in to Quasimodogeniti. Pastor Snyder at Ask the Pastor is the host and he opens the carnival with this:
Quasimodogeniti, the Second Sunday of Easter’s “week of weeks” brings the twenty-second installment of the Lutheran Carnival to light. Pastor David Petersen provides a quick summary of “Hunchback Sunday” at CyberStones (and don’t forget to read the comment cum literary critique).
The antiphon of today’s introit comes from 1 Peter 2:2-3. “Like newborn babes,” saith the King James Version, upon which many of us were nourished in our youth — that certainly provides a carnival theme with promise. Yet what if some readers aren’t thrilled with babies? Or, if they’ve been drinking the “pure spiritual milk,” perhaps they’re ready for some meat (see Hebrews 5:12-14) — or not (see 1 Corinthians 3:1-3).
Well, I then thought, since this is Carnival-22, how about a Joseph Heller theme, reminiscent of his classic novel Catch-22? I gave it some thought, but decided to pass. Certainly Heller understood paradox and irony, two major literary types used in Holy Scripture. However, Catch-22 never comes to a resolution. Certainly our ongoing celebration of Easter provides ample reminder that Christ provided complete resolution of our alienation from God in His suffering, death, and glorious resurrection.
Finally, I decided to fall back on the Lutheran Carnival’s regular feature, the introduction to relatively unknown Lutherans. Therefore, I’d like to take a moment to tell you about a child born upon the Ides of March in the Year of Our Lord 1992. Read on…
I’ve discovered the most wonderful blog, Our Little House on the Praire. It seems that Charles, Caroline, Mary and Laura have been resurrected, given modern personas and keep a blog of their life on the farm. Actually, it is the blog of a pastor’s wife, but the whole family takes turns writing posts. It’s funny, warm and very real.
The funniest person on the net throws this one up for us: Scottius Maximus: Random Thoughts On A Gray Winter Day Read the post and then read my attempt at humor in the comments.
Katie’s Beer wishes a big hello to a new blogger, Lutheran Lucy
I missed the post, How Appealing Should the Church Be?, posted back in January 2006 by John at Confessing Evangelical . It ties in nicely with my later post, You can’t underestimate the value of a caffeine buzz and a good cupholder, critiquing a local megachurch’s efforts to be more appealing to potential worshippers. John writes:
Good stuff from Dietrich Bonhoeffer (via Conrad Gempf), on the subject of “the future of the church”:
The future of the church does not depend on youth but only on Jesus Christ. The task of young people is not reorganisation of the church but listening to God’s word; the church’s task is not the conquest of young people, but the teaching of the gospel.
A good reminder that the task of the church, and the purpose of mission and evangelism, is not to make the church, or Christianity, “appealing” - but to declare the gospel message of forgiveness, life and salvation in and through Jesus Christ.
It is then the Holy Spirit, not our appealing music, carpeted floors, Powerpoint projectors, spacious car parks and professionally-printed materials, who (in the words of the Augsburg Confession) “effects faith where and when it pleases God in those who hear the gospel”.
That said, it’s possible to go to the other extreme and operate on a false syllogism that says, “We are to be faithful to the gospel rather than attractive to outsiders; we are deeply unattractive to outsiders; therefore we are being faithful to the gospel”. Read on…
|
