Outer Rim Territories

Three Hierarchies: Allan Carlson Challenges the Republican Mainstream

Certainly at the level of net incomes, the one-earner family today is worse off than it was thirty years ago, when the GOP began to claim the pro-family banner. Specifically, the median income of married-couple families, with the wife not in the paid labor force, was $40,100 in 2002, less than it had been in 1970 ($40,785) when inflation is taken into account. In contrast, the real earnings of two-income married couple families rose by 35 percent over the same years (to nearly $73,000). Put another way, families have been able to get ahead only by becoming “nontraditional” and sending mother to work or forgoing children altogether.

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One Lutheran…Ablog!™: Guitars in Church?

But this brings up a more fundamental question: Are guitars/drum sets completely irreconcilable with reverent, historic worship?

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We had a convocation today from CPH (Concordia Publishing House) on their new Sunday School material , starting in the fall. I was sufficiently impressed, so much so I would advocate speaking to your pastor, SS superintendent about using it.

Key points from memory:

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I’ve done two sermons for Baptism class… The first needs a lot of revision and so I won’t post it (average grade tells me so) The second is was well received by the professor, so I will post it here for your edification.

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Rolling Stone : Inside Scientology

The most important, and highly anticipated, of the eight "OT levels" is OT III, also known as the Wall of Fire. It is here that Scientologists are told the secrets of the universe, and, some believe, the creation story behind the entire religion. It is knowledge so dangerous, they are told, any Scientologist learning this material before he is ready could die. When I ask Mike Rinder about this, he casts the warning in less-dire terms, explaining that, before he reached OT III — he is now OT V — he was told that looking at the material early was "spiritually not good for you." But Hubbard, who told followers that he discovered these secrets while on a trip to North Africa in 1967, was more dramatic. "Somehow or other I brought it off, and obtained the material and was able to live through it," he wrote. "I am very sure that I was the first one that ever did live through any attempt to attain that material." Scientologists must be "invited" to do OT III. Beforehand, they are put through an intensive auditing process to verify that they are ready. They sign a waiver promising never to reveal the secrets of OT III, nor to hold Scientology responsible for any trauma or damage one might endure at this stage of auditing. Finally, they are given a manila folder, which they must read in a private, locked room.
These materials, which the Church of Scientology has long struggled to keep secret, were published online by a former member in 1995 and have been widely circulated in the mainstream media, ranging from The New York Times to last year's South Park episode. They assert that 75 million years ago, an evil galactic warlord named Xenu controlled seventy-six planets in this corner of the galaxy, each of which was severely overpopulated. To solve this problem, Xenu rounded up 13.5 trillion beings and then flew them to Earth, where they were dumped into volcanoes around the globe and vaporized with bombs. This scattered their radioactive souls, or thetans, until they were caught in electronic traps set up around the atmosphere and "implanted" with a number of false ideas — including the concepts of God, Christ and organized religion. Scientologists later learn that many of these entities attached themselves to human beings, where they remain to this day, creating not just the root of all of our emotional and physical problems but the root of all problems of the modern world.

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Denying my better judgment, I am compelled to respond to the The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod - Theology and Church Relations presentation given today to the 1st year seminarians.

First off, for the non-LCMS church folks, the CTCR (Commission on Theology and Church Relations) was formed in convention in 1962 to respond publicly to rising issues of the doctrine of the Bible. Since then it has expressed its opinions on a whole range of doctrinal issues such as human sexuality, homosexuality, woman’s suffrage (in the church), marriage, and the like. In the fall I composed two posts in response to their Embryonic Stem Cell document In Vitro Fertilization and Benefit of the Doubt.

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The Beast’s Lair: The full circle of The Gospel

My sarcasm aside, what most people are getting these days is one half of the Gospel message. They receive the meek, gentle, welcoming, healing, providing, sustaining Jesus who is ready to serve their needs whenever the time is right for the believer. What they aren’t receiving is the other half of the Gospel, that needs to come before what I have just mentioned. The problem causing, sin convicting, revolutionary Jesus who is willing to forgive your sin, but not willing to let you get a free pass from recognizing your sin. Matthew 10:34 has Jesus speaking and telling those listening that “I did not come to bring peace, but I have brought a sword.”

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It’s the end of week three of the Spring semester. Only seven more weeks to go and one school year will be behind me. It amazes me how quickly it has gone. Yet I am struck by how much I have learned (and how much more I have left to learn.)

Last week just about did me in. I had two sermons, a 200 pg. book with 5 page review and the regular reading to do. I spent nearly every night on campus. This week will be about the same. I’m still tired (and should be taking a nap to compensate.) Regardless, I see the light at the end of the tunnel so-to-speak and am pushing forward.

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Touchstone Archives: The Well-Connected Mother

Men are often tempted to think that their bodies were made for their own
use. To a great extent this is true for everyone: Your hands, sir, are yours,
they are for your use, and mine are for my use. A man can indulge this illusion
of autonomy even further by supposing that even his genitals are there for himself. They’re
a source of at times almost compelling drives and intriguing sensations. Even
his testes are useful for him, in that the hormones they produce
provide certain secondary sexual characteristics he has an interest in maintaining.

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Hot Lutheran on Lutheran Action: Church Stuff

As a Kantor, it’s my unique duty to plan, select, and facilitate all music at my parish. When one comes to me (or talks behind my back) with a criticism of the music selections I have made, it is very dissapointing for myself. I especially take much care in that particular area of my job. With only a few exceptions, I select all the hymns for all the services with the Pastor. When one comes to me (or talks behind my back) with a criticism of the music selections I have made, it is very dissapointing. We begin by reading the lection for the day, analyzing the themes and considering the preaching for the day. We also consider the season of the liturgical year. Beyond these primary considerations (see above), we always think about 1. what the congregation is familiar with and 2. what the congregation likes. After taking a gander through the hymnal, of course one would see that Beautiful Savior would NEVER be the most qualified hymn for a given day… but you know what, it still fits well for Transfiguration and lots of other days.

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