Do we need the White House in our faith journey?

"Trump said on Thursday he would create a White House faith office and direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead a task force on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government." (Glenn Beck website)

 
I'm not a fan of this idea. There was a fairly prominent faith office in the Bush Administration which as I recall Obama continued, but with much watering down. "President Bush created the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives and Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in eleven Federal agencies to lead a determined attack on need by strengthening and expanding the role of FBCOs in providing social services." (old White House document). In my opinion, this led to many truly service centered ministries accepting government money. I don't know if it was continued.

 
Let the First Amendment handle it--try enforcing it. When government interferes in religion in the name of help or protecting, especially Christianity, bad things happen. I don't mean wars or jail time, but general all around bad feelings. We have over 35,000 Protestant and non-denominational church organizations and most can't agree on the basic points of theology, they don't like each others worship services or social services, and most of them don't like Catholics, and probably haven't heard of all the varieties of Orthodox, or the African and Middle-eastern groups. They all "stand on the Bible," but not which translation of which canon. And the politics! Oh my.

The UMC split began a long time ago

“ In 1968 the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church finalized the plan of union to form the UMC. But by the time they completed their 1972 Book of Discipline, the die for the UMC’s dissolution had already been cast. The doctrinal section of the Book of Discipline reframed Wesleyan doctrine around the newly-coined Wesleyan quadrilateral in a way that privileged theological pluralism at the expense of doctrinal fidelity. Whereas Wesley emphasized spirituality in Scripture through his Explanatory Notes and tradition through his Christian Library, the theological commission behind the Book of Discipline turned theological pluralism into a principle emphasizing human experience as the core of theological method.”

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/01/a-failed-experiment-in-methodist-unity

I wonder what will happen at Lakeside?

Celebrating the Reformation

Upper Arlington Lutheran Church (UALC) is observing the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. We (at Lytham Road campus) had a great sermon and concert yesterday. Yes, Martin Luther did change things, but not necessarily for the better and not alone. There were huge movements afoot.

Luther is also credited with creating the modern nation state. Warring nationalistic states protecting their own borders speaking languages not known by their neighbor states replaced Christendom ruled from Rome, which was sort of an overarching umbrella organization with a common language —Latin— and a common religion, with common values.

The ruling nobility of about 1400 little states and cities lusted for the money and wealth that went to Rome. What resulted was less a reform and more a resurgence of the barbarian tribe mentality that had taken over the Roman Empire a thousand years earlier. The result was the modern nation states of Europe that went to war with each other for the next 400 years, resulting in the bloodiest century of all—the 20th. Instead of the Holy Roman Empire the world was gifted many church entities, all called Christian—Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, etc.--all controlled by the state. (Which is why the writers of the U.S. Constitution wrote into the document that the state could not control the church.)

Today we have something like 40,000 different Protestant, Bible only, non-denominational, and Restoration churches with thousands of little popes and scandals that would make Luther’s hair stand on end. Christianity has become a “Me and Jesus” movement in the U.S. and in Europe Christianity is being replaced with millions believing instead in astrology, lucky charms and pagan practices.
Some of the chapters of Rodney Stark’s excellent book on "Reformation Myths" are available at Google books. https://books.google.com/books/about/Reformation_Myths.html…

http://www.aei.org/publication/why-liberals-may-be-out-of-step-with-everyday-americans-when-it-comes-to-religion/

Happy Birthday, Heidelberg Catechism

"One of the best known catechisms of all time is the Heidelberg Catechism. It is named for a German city, where it was prepared by theologians of the University of Heidelberg at the request of Elector Frederick III, a friend of the Protestant Reformation. Frederick hoped the new catechism would secure harmony among Protestants in his territories and strengthen the hold of the Reformed faith on his provinces. He wrote the preface of the Catechism himself, which is dated this day, January 19, 1563. The Heidelberg Catechism is used by the Reformed Church. Hundreds of thousands of people have memorized it and lived by its teachings over the years since then."

Of course, his plan to unite Protestants didn't go well--today there are about 35,000 different denominations and non-denominations or "just the Bible" churches, which if it weren't for the pro-life movement probably would have little to agree on.

 http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/questions-and-answers-the-heidelberg-cat

Religious tolerance? Think again.

Back when Hillary Clinton was still blaming the internet for the Benghazi terrorist attack, she made this odd statement, "Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation." There was no religious tolerance at the beginning of our nation when we were English, French and Spanish colonies, nor is it a Biblical value or ethic. True, Catholics and Protestants weren't slaughtering each other like they did in Europe, but those who came here for religious freedom really didn't want other groups, or the STATE, telling them how to worship or act.

One of the geniuses of our Bill of Rights is that our Founders were able to get all these disparate groups to actually agree that religious freedom was primary to all other freedoms. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) preceded the Bill of Rights, and also enshrined the idea the state couldn't decide your religious beliefs and behavior.

And now with 70% of the world without religious freedom, and even outright religious oppression and terrorism, our current President wants to diminish what centuries of Christians and Jews died for--not tolerance, not non-judgementalism, not political correctness--but religious freedom. The HHS Mandate is the camel's nose in the tent.

Report on Health care, 1993 edition

The apple cake tasted a bit dry, so I decided to go through my files to see if I could find the source sent to me in 1993 (3 different relatives). Didn't find it. But I did find a letter I'd written in 1993, when I was still a Democrat (but obviously catching on) to "The Lutheran" magazine about health care. It had a special report on Universal Coverage in the December 1993 issue which included 15 ethical values and principles. It reminds me of something I heard this summer from the Catholic priest who lectured at Lakeside on religion and the civil war. He said the churches had split up long before the regions went to war. In my letter I addressed the draft on sexuality (homosexual marriage and gay pastors), so you can see how long that's been dragging on. The ELCA hierarchy split from the people in the pew years ago.

First, I don't have the entire report--I apparently photocopied just enough to attach to my copy of the letter. But here's the gist--the classic leftist, cop-out. . . "Others are dying because we have too much." The specific phrase on p. 32 was, "When we see our brothers and sisters dying on Chicago's South Side due to the lack of prenatal care there's something wrong--because too many of us have too much."

Many Americans, including some minorities, immigrants and native Americans, have cradle to the grave government health care, food stamps, housing allowances and/or public housing and still, nothing is healthier for a baby or assures a climb out of poverty like having a married mother and father. (And first they have to make it through the birth canal, something the liberals don't necessarily support if it's an inconvenient truth.) Married parents--you would think that would be a natural for a church magazine to point out--it's a big deal in both the Old and New Testaments. Its imagery is the foundation of God's relationship with Israel, and Christ's relationship with the church. But no. More government reassignment of wealth is their plan. "The resources are available here--they just have to be redistributed. And we have to distribute them justly. . . Justice in the deepest most fundamental biblical sense refers to balanced relationships. Relationships between individuals, between individuals and community, between individuals an communities and their God. That's what I see in health-care reform. It's an attempt to do justice, to balance the relationships."

Now, I have no idea who Laurence O'Connell is (or was), but he was obviously reading Saul Alinsky, not the Bible, because there's nothing in the Bible about the government taking from one and giving to another and renaming it justice. Here's my letter, November 28, 1993.

With the coverage given the disastrous sexuality draft in the December 1993 issue, it would be easy to overlook an equally suspect document--the Health Care 15 values and principles published on p. 31-34. Instead of placing personal responsibility for good health as the first principle, the task force put it as number 13. We would not have a need for such a document or billions spent on health care if it were not for abuse of alcohol, cigarettes, food and sexual behavior. Once those health problems, all of which are personally manageable, are set aside, we can afford the rest with pocket change.

How can Laurence O'Connell decide it is ethical for me to pay the social and economic costs of someone else's abortion, drunk driving, obesity, STDs, or even failure to floss? Where are the Judeo-Christian values and traditions to back up rights with no responsibilities? He needs to study American religious history and see that it was the strength of the moral values of the Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals and Presbyterians that pulled people out of poverty and degradation and cleaned them up, educated and sanitized them and pushed them into the middle-class (where they have forgotten that it wasn't government programs that got them there).

Where is the justice in "redistributing" our resources? Hasn't socialism, which is what "redistribution" and "communal sharing of risks" means, shown itself to be a complete failure in Eastern Europe and the USSR in the past 80 years? Would O'Connell ever want to have a blood transfusion in a Russian hospital? O'Connell claims the 15 principles "resonate" with the Christian message (p. 32) I didn't hear a single jingle, clink or tone that sounded like the Gospel."

Note, the reason I didn't include Lutherans in my list of which religious groups pushed people into the middle class is that I was referring to the various "great awakenings" or revivals that swept the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. For the most part, Lutherans stayed within their ethnic communities and just helped each other. I'm not a cradle Lutheran, but I don't recall them being a part of those revivals.

The distorted Gospel of liberal Christians

A member of a UCC congregation thought I was singling out her branch of Christianity in a previous post. I wish it were only UCC-ans who had the problem of following another Jesus (the community organizer Jesus), but it's mainline Protestants in general. I simply observed that you can tell Obama is a Christian because he follows the path of the UCC by imposing change and repentance from the top down instead of allowing God to work in the sinner. I won't go into all eleven pages of a sermon given at a WordAlone convention in 2007 by Rev. Prof. Karl P. Donfried, Dr. of Theology, but here's a brief summary in that presentation of what's happening in my denomination/synod, ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, with headquarters in Chicago.

“. . . the ELCA has, for all intents and purposes, jettisoned Scripture as the anchor of our faith by removing it from its creedal and confessional context and because the ELCA has allowed those who reject this Lutheran context to be among its most prominent interpreters. Instead of proclaiming a Gospel of grace and redemption that calls sinful humanity to repentance and new life, the ELCA adamantly promulgates a message based on secular humanism that is fixated on issues of racism and sexism, and that is more concerned with establishing new rostered racial justice monitors than it is with feeding and nurturing the ordained pastors of this church. This alien and distorted Gospel, no longer drawing on the deep wells of Scripture as classically interpreted, is now actualized through a political agenda of good works that is hell bent on rectifying the injustices of a selfish and violent world with superficial language about “social justice” that seems to aspire to the highest levels of naiveté. At every corner exuberant banality appears to be the order of the day."

As a way of explanation, UCC is way out in front in "good works" and revising Biblical texts to change the world (since Jesus didn't or couldn't), the latest being marriage of homosexuals, adding homosexuals to clergy rosters, and falling head first in the cesspool of modern environmentalism that will eventually destroy any hope for an improved life for third world citizens. But that's only because they are the oldest in the United States being descendants of the Puritans. The Lutherans didn't even have a hymnal in English until about 130 years ago, having come here not from England, but Germany, Scandinavia, the Baltics, etc. and eschewing "diversity" and the English for about 100 years.

The other day I took something into the church to be photocopied--a list of the beautiful paintings by Jeri Platt of mission work in Haiti (second floor, Mill Run campus). I glanced down at the staff member's desk and my eye fell on a printout that included the words, "diversity" and "social justice." Groan. Probably sponsored by a government grant like our summer lunch program, but I just didn't ask. It's too upsetting to see the church and the gospel co-opted by the "exuberant banality" of government-speak.

4093

Please disobey our laws

It's not only our administration that is suggesting this to illegal immigrants. Our church governments, usually made up of people who don't reflect those of us in the pew, are saying it too:

You’re driving into a major city taking in all the sights and sounds. It looks like any other major metropolitan area when suddenly you see a large sign suspended above the highway. It monstrous letters it say, "Please make every effort to ignore our laws!" You're taken back for a moment as you continue your drive into the city. Certainly they can’t mean that – but soon you find they do. Everyone you encounter is doing whatever they desire and totally ignoring all laws. Stop signs mean nothing, speed limits are ignored and people take whatever they want from local merchants without paying. You have found yourself in the city of Evangelical Lutherans. Cue theme music and closing credits.

The above scenario is no more bizarre than what happened at the recently concluded annual General Conference of the Evangelical Lutherans Church of America. On the closing day of the Conference a resolution was passed by 538-431 vote pleading with the leadership of the denomination to ignore their own church law. Oh, and this was immediately following passing another resolution upholding their church law. Confused? Welcome to the Lutheran Twilight Zone!" Bob Burney

We only need to look at history to see how this will end. Either the liberals will take over, inch by inch, vote by vote,* or the conservatives will pull out (taking most of the money**) and form another synod with other disaffected congregations or synods. ELCA is losing members and money with this fight that's been going on for eight years.

Then among those who believe marriage is God's plan for one man and one woman and that pastors should not be openly living-in-sin whether straight or gay, there are ordained women pastors in ELCA. Well, the guy-group (mostly straight, but also some gays) is still smarting over losing that battle years ago (women have been ordained in some Lutheran churches for over 50 years), so it's raising its ugly head again and that will split the conservatives. How many protestant "fellowships/ congregations/ denominations" are there? 30,000? I'm not sure this is what Martin Luther or John Calvin or Menno Simons had in mind, but there it is--testimony to the whole world that where two or three are gathered in His Name, there will be a fight over the dress code or baptism or music and a new denomination will be born.

*This was a back door, political maneuver brought up at the last minute at the Chicago Assembly, with the press alerted and waiting in the halls to report the outcome and spin it.

**ELCA national office still shows our congregation (UALC) supporting them. However, our "benevolence payments" of $662,618 goes directly to the Southern Ohio Synod, and not to the national office. It's been that way for four years. These funds, and an additional $400,000 for other mission work, do not pass through national's office. This is another way to "spin" support for non-biblical viewpoints.