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Roland H. Bainton writes in his biography of Luther, "Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther", that Luther once stated that he would give his doctor's beret to anyone who could reconcile the letters of Paul with the book of James. Well, there it is.
If you click on the picture of Luther it will take you to Wittenberg, Germany, the town Luther made famous.
In 1960 there were 20 different kinds of Lutherans in America. That number has been whittled down considerably.
Ecumenism, while a good thing in and of itself, has developed a "popularity contest" mentality. Altar and pulpit fellowship are supposed to mean that we believe the same things, not that we agree to disagree. Ecumenism that is pleasing to God is not characterized by getting by on the least amount of faithfulness to Scripture, an embracing of the lowest common denominator.
We should not settle for less than what God has given us.
Here, Doctor Barry can say it better than I.
My name is Allen Keen (please feel free to write if you can think of any way this site can be improved or just to visit) and I was confirmed in 1967 at St. Pauls Lutheran Church in Falls Church, Virginia. I now live in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I attend Christ Lutheran Church. Aside from spiritual matters, I also enjoy the study of geopolitics.
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That's a picture of me that was taken by Plato Chan down at a coffee house here in Lincoln where I and my friends sometimes like to hang out and talk about the meaning of meaning and Pre-antepostmodernism and stuff like that. |
My religion is to be found in James 1: 27 and my faith in Mark 13. I really like verse 4 of the song Jesus Loves Me (or to give the song its right name; The Love of Jesus, by Anna Bartlett Warner, 1858);
Jesus loves me when I'm good
When I do the things I should
Jesus loves me when I'm bad
Though it makes Him very sad
My mom's church,
Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, in McLean, Virginia
has an excellent website.
Here she is sorting patches for quilting.
If you're interested in us Lutherans, check out some of the twenty-three sites below.
1. Visit
The Project Wittenberg Page.
This site contains works by and about Martin Luther and other Lutherans, mostly from the sixteenth century, but this site is growing all the time..
2. Visit
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod Page.
This bunch came into being in 1847 with C.F.W. Walther as their first president.
The synod was formed of three groups of immigrants who had come to America when the various princes in Germany subsumed the Lutheran and Calvinist congregations into what is today the Evangelische Kirche Deutschland, beginning in 1817. This shotgun marriage was made amid charges and counter-charges of crypto-Calvinism and repristinationism. Right. No wonder they left.
The first group came from Saxony in 1839 under the leadership of Martin Stephan (they landed in New Orleans and traveled up the Mississippi river to Missouri; hence the name).
After they got here, they got together with some Hanoverians who had settled in Indiana and some Franconians who had fled to Michigan.
The Concordia Historical Institute keeps a site called A Brief History of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
There is an independant remnant of the Old Lutherans in Germany today, the Selbständige Evangalische-Lutherische Kirche, as well as a Canadian sister church, the Lutheran Church-Canada.
3. Visit
The Lutheran Women's Missionary League Page.
If you want to see what it looks like when the blessings overflow, watch this bunch in action; just don't get in their way.
4. Visit
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada Page.
This site contains links to Lutheran churches of all synods on all continents.
5. Visit
The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Church Page.
The Wisconsin Synod is a lttle more "conservative" than the Missouri Synod. Their site is large and informative; one of the better ones.
6. Visit
The Lutheran Confessional Synod Page.
The Confessional Synod is a lttle more "conservative" than the Wisconsin Synod.
7. Visit
The Association of Free Lutheran Congregations Page.
This bunch believes in the autonomy of the congregation and stresses personal Christian experience.
8. Visit
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Page.
This is the big one, formed in 1988.
9. Visit
The Lutheran Women Today Page.
By, for, and about the women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
10. Visit
The Logia- A Journal of Lutheran Theology Page.
Logia has a free sample issue you can download from their site.
11. Visit
The Renewal in Missouri Page.
This site contains resources for Lutherans experiencing or thirsting for Spiritual renewal. Jesus said that He is the true vine and we are the branches. If some of us feel that more than others, well, that's to be expected.
12. Visit
The Semper Reformanda Page.
These writers have a healthy distrust of the ecclesiastical status quo. One may submit articles for publication here.
13. Visit
The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Page.
The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to call the church, amidst our dying culture, to repent of its worldliness, to recover and confess the five Solas of the Reformation, and to see them embodied in our doctrine, worship, and life. Many of these people are Lutherans, naturally.
14. Visit
The Xrysostom Page.
Xrysostom means "Golden Mouth": I guess nowadays we'ed say "silver-tongued". Whichever, this Lutheran pastor from Texas really knows his hypertext.
15. Visit
The Issues, Etcetera Page.
This site provides ministry support and an independent forum from a reformation and Lutheran perspective.
16. Visit
The Wired with the Word Page.
This is the online presence of the Lutheran Hour Ministries.
17. Visit
The Lutheran Braille Workers Page.
During World War II Hitler's legions rampaged through Germany destroying Bibles and other books by the truckload, including much of God's Word in German braille. In 1943 in Fresno, California, a blind ministerial student, Fred Graepp decided to help bring the Bible back to the German blind. Through an article in the "Lutheran Witness", he requested volunteers to assist in manufacturing the Bibles.
18. Visit
The History of the Walther League Page.
Everyone who remembers the Walther League, check this one out.
19. Visit
The Luther 95 Homepage.
This webhosting outfit offers free or cheap space to Lutheran congregations and ministries.
20. Visit
The Lutherans dot Net Page.
This frames site offers many catagories of Lutheran links.
21. Visit
The Lutheran Resource Homepage.
This site contains links to online information provided by Lutheran denominations and affiliated groups in the United States and Canada.
22. Visit
The Free Lutheran Resources Homepage.
This site contains links to online information about Lutheranism.
23. Visit
The Life of the World Page.
This is the online presence of the magazine of the
Concordia Theological Seminary. It has back issues
and lots of other great stuff.
During the time Luther spent as a monk, he spent a lot of time in prayer. He had read all about the 1st century saints, and he wanted what they had. Luther reckoned that if he prayed long and hard enough, he would experience an epiphany and "see the light". After hours of prayer, he would open his eyes, get to his feet, and realize he was the same person he was when he got down on his knees and shut his eyes.
Then one day, as he was reading his Bible, his eye fell on the passage from Romans 1: 16,17 quoted at the top of this page. He realized that when you're saved, you're saved, and you can't get any more saved by more prayer, or any other effort you might think you need to make. What he had so earnestly desired was already his.
This doctrine of salvation by faith is stated also in Romans 3: 24, Galatians 3: 11, Ephesians 2: 8, Philippians 3: 9, Hebrews 10: 38, many of the Psalms, and most especially in Habakkuk 2: 4.
If you're not familiar with Habakkuk, you should read it. Habakkuk the prophet is praying to God, wondering aloud about how long He's going to let Israel go to hell in a handbasket (perhaps that's why he's usually pictured with a basket); there was a lot of violence, wrongdoing, misery, plundering, crime, quarreling, fighting, lawlessness, wickedness and perversion around (sound familiar?).
God told Habakkuk not to worry because He was raising up the Babylonians to come over and destroy Israel and enslave the people
(If you click on that statue of Habakkuk by Bernini, you will go to the site of the Vatican City, where you can view many works of art).
Habakkuk replied to the effect of "Wait a minute Lord, let's don't go overboard here! Isn't that too drastic?!".
God answered Habakkuk back, "Get out your tablet and write this down: The righteous man will live by his faith".
After Habakkuk gets the Word, he responds with praises and ends with; "I will delight in the LORD and be happy in God who saves me".
Through Habakkuk, God is telling us that He's not about saving countries, rather, He wants to save you.
In all these verses, the word "live" means the opposite of "die". A lot of the "higher criticism" of the Bible would have us believe that to live by one's faith means to act like a good Christian.
While I say Amen! to the sentiment, I think a more faithful rendition would be that one lives forever when he possesses saving faith.
Amen!
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