clair090

All couples in England and Wales will now be able to choose to have a civil partnership rather than marriage, according to PM Theresa May.  This was designed to give mixed-sex (dontcha just love that avoidance of heterosexual) couples and their families the same option already open to same sex couples.  It provides more security to the couple without imposing the restrictions of marriage.  The status of civil partnership was created there in 2004 to give same-sex couples some legal status when marriage was not available to them.  It does offer similar legal and financial protections as marriage does but without the cultural, religious, and historical baggage of marriage.  When the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 legalized same-sex marriage in England and Wales and following year in Scotland, same sex couples had two options for defining a legal status for their relationship but this was not available to mixed-sex couples. Statistics count some 3.3 mil...

If just one  person finds something objectionable, then for the sake of that one, should we not listen and adapt ourselves to that person out of love.  For surely, this is what Christ did and what He calls, even compels, us to do in His name. . .  I am not sure that there is a pastor whose practice is the Divine Service and ceremonies incumbent upon him as flowing from that Divine Service, who has not heard people object.  It is easy to object to those who plead preference.  That is just not me or I don't like it or I don't get anything out of it.  But when the person objecting pleads the cause of the one person who may be lost to Christ because of the liturgy or vestments or chanting or any one of a thousand other things, what then do we say? It might seem at first that Jesus would side with those who insist that for the sake of the one, the practice must be altered.  After all, this is the same Lord who said to leave the 99 for the one, who said to ...

Here are two parts of a video to encourage vocations to the monastic life, and, in accompanying this, to the priesthood.  Look at the video from the perspective of history and how it speaks from and to a different age, one now gone, that shall not be replicated again. Of course it is dated -- it was meant to be current when it was produced.  And I am not suggesting that you consider this a call to you for a new vocation.  What I find interesting is the comparison to the present day and a consideration of how things have changed.

So perhaps Genesis may not be so far fetched after all. . . at least from a scientific point of view.  It seems that a group of experts at the Rockefeller University along with from the University of Basel published the extraordinary findings in Human Evolution.  The study was led by Senior Research Associate Mark Stoeckle and Research Associate David Thaler of the University of Basel, Switzerland. All modern humans descended from a solitary pair who lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, scientists say.  Scientists surveyed the genetic 'bar codes' of five million animals - including humans - from 100,000 different species and deduced that we sprang from a single pair of adults after a catastrophic event almost wiped out the human race.  These bar codes, or snippets of DNA that reside outside the nuclei of living cells, suggest that it's not just people who came from a single pair of beings, but nine out of every 10 animal species, too.  S...

Leo X will be forever remembered for his handling of Luther and the call to reform.   Alexander VI will be forever remembered for his lifestyle.  Pius XII will be forever remembered for how he dealt with the Nazi threat.  Benedixt XVI will be forever remembered for his resignation.  Some popes have risen to the challenge but the memory of those who failed seems to be more firmly entrenched in history than those who were competent or better. Pope Francis has proven to be somewhat a theological lightweight, certainly not up to the standards of Papa Ratzinger.  He also seems to be somewhat of an enigma -- running right up to the edge of controversy and then failing to follow through, confounding critics and supporters alike.  So what is the actual outcome of Amoris Laetitia ? Those were battles of his choosing.  The issue of clergy sexual abuse, homosexuality, and the failure of episcopal supervision was not his choice but it will certainly be one of...

Sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, the Last Sunday of the Church Year, Proper 29B, preached on Sunday, November 25, 2018.     This day is called on some calendars “Christ the King.”  But King of what?  Instead of earthly victories, we Christians seems to racking up defeat after defeat.  Instead of becoming an ever stronger force for morality and virtue, we seem to be impotent against sin that reigns without challenge and immorality that has become normal, even within some churches.  We find ourselves under attack and instead of advancing the line of Christ’s reign, we appear to be in retreat against evil.  Our numbers shrink if you include those who have decided to abandon the gathering together on Sunday morning and make membership just a name on paper.     We thought that we were fighting for more than a toehold of this world.  We thought God had put us here to make a difference against evil and to make a difference...

The Middle Ages are often described as “the Age of Faith.” But surely, if any age deserves that epithet, it is ours.  True, the Middle Ages were the age of Christianity , but hardly the age of faith. If we take faith in the common, though oversimplified sense of blind belief in that which is not seen or understood, then the Middle Ages, with their worshipful admiration of Aristotle, fine definitions, and extremely precise use of language, and monasteries full of busy monks copying and commenting on scholarly texts, are the reverse of the age of faith. So begins a good article from The Federalist .  You can read it all here.   David Breitenbeck has done a very effective job in making his case that ours is the age of faith -- not of Christianity but of faith.  Therein lies the problem.  It is not just that what under girds our secular age is a skepticism of religion and an antagonism against it but that the secular worldview is itself accepted by faith and ...

By now you heard and have probably already forgotten the story of Fr. Kalchick, a victim in his youth of abuse by a priest, who found a rainbow flag with a cross in his parish.  He intended to burn this relic of a previous priest and another time in which this was by intention a gay friendly parish.  When Cardinal Cupich got wind of it, he insisted that nothing of the kind be done.  In the end, lay folks from the parish burned the flag but Ft. Kalchick has come under the bishop's thumb.  We all know what happens when a priest stands up to his bishop’s agenda -- the fellow is finished in Chicago, and probably as a priest anywhere. The Cardinal's tactic is to claim psychological problems, to order the priest to a psych hospital for an evaluation, and then to decide what to do with the now wounded priest, marked as mentally or emotionally scarred and broken. This was once the method for those abusing priests but it is also a convenient practice for priests who get under...

Oh King of grief! (a title strange, yet true, To thee of all kings only due) Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee, Who in all grief preventest me? Shall I weep blood? why thou has wept such store That all thy body was one door. Shall I be scourged, flouted, boxed, sold? ‘Tis but to tell the tale is told. ‘My God, my God, why dost thou part from me? ‘ Was such a grief as cannot be. Shall I then sing, skipping, thy doleful story, And side with thy triumphant glory? Shall thy strokes be my stroking? thorns, my flower? Thy rod, my posy? cross, my bower? But how then shall I imitate thee, and Copy thy fair, though bloody hand? Surely I will revenge me on thy love, And try who shall victorious prove. If thou dost give me wealth, I will restore All back unto thee by the poor. If thou dost give me honour, men shall see, The honour doth belong to thee. I will not marry; or, if she be mi...

Having lately led my Bible study group through Hebrews, I again testify with wonder to the power of God's Word, to its timeliness for this moment, and to its profound wisdom even unto salvation.  But my journey through Hebrews was itself led by one of the per-eminent teachers of our day, the Rev. Dr. John Kleinig.  His mastery of the text and teaching skill is available to all through the commentary published not long ago by Concordia Publishing House and available here .  It is certainly not outside the appreciation of anyone in the pews even as it offers a more skilled reader deeper insights than you had ever imagined from the text.  I especially love the way he connected each section to a hymn from our hymnal, Lutheran Service Book.  My friend is one of the most trusted voices in a sea of people shouting for our attention; he is one worth your time and a great treasure of the faith for us all and not only for Australia, which is his home.  All of us woul...

The sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church is sometimes compared with the Reformation as a crisis of greatest magnitude.  Some even say this scandal will have worse consequences for Rome than the Reformation did.  Whom I am to know or predict such a thing!  But these are distinct differences. The Reformation was a theological challenge and not a moral one.  Yes, Luther railed against Popes and their excesses, bishops and their lavish lives, monks whose vow of poverty did not prevent them from living better lives than the people outside the monastery, and priests who were ignorant and immoral.  But the Reformation was not primarily a call to moral reform but to theological reform, to the renewed voice of the Scriptures in defining what is believed and how it is practiced in the worship life of the people.  It was a theological debate over the core and center of why we are able to stand before God and what commends us to Him.  It was a questio...

According to reports, while Black Friday sales' start times have continued to creep earlier as retailers look to max out on one of the biggest shopping days of the year, some retailers are bucking the trend. While the past has seen many stores open their doors the day before, on Thanksgiving, (Sears did so in 2010, Walmart in 2011, then Target in 2012), several retailers and mall owners have refused to open early.  According to data gathered by BestBlackFriday.com , at least 60 retailers plan to keep their stores closed on Thanksgiving this year. Whether this is because they wanted to give employees time to spend with family or because they have decided another marketing strategy will work better for them, I do not know. But I hope that we will take time to give thanks for more than a day reprieved from the holiday stresses that we know are soon to come. When the Church acknowledges a day of national thanksgiving, we do so not to baptize the old holiday traditions and some...

On Sunday June 4, 2017, Pentecost, the parishioners at The Church of St. Francis Xavier in New York City were asked to let loose and “celebrate” in honor of Pentecost. Father Bob VerEecke blasted Kool & The Gang’s 1980’s hit “Celebration” and asked his congregation to “abandon care to the wind” and join him in THE WAVE!  A parish served by Jesuits, the heart and soul of Pope Francis, and clearly a rather vain and obvious attempt at being culturally relevant.

I remember when one heard complaints that it was hard to be single in a culture (and church) designed for those married (and with children).  There were books written to remind the culture (and church) to be sensitive to the singles among the privileged class of married men and women with children.  It seems like just yesterday. Whatever privilege was once associated with married (and with children), that is not the case today.  It is true that government and other institutions did foster a special place for the family but that was because it was understood that marriage and children were good for America.  It was less attached to objective values than the desire to see people to take care of their spouses and families to produce children needed for the ever expanding economic need for workers.  In any case, families were once considered better for society as a whole than singles.  It was not a religious judgment but it was once a common conclusion and not ...

You have read it here before.  Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.   G. K. Chesterton, in “The Ethics of Elfland,” Orthodoxy (1908), p. 85 So lets hear from the dead: Antinomian Aversion to Sanctification? By Doctor Kurt Marquart An emerited brother writes that he is disturbed by a kind of preaching that avoids sanctification and “seemingly questions the Formula of Concord . . . about the Third Use of the Law.” The odd thing is that this attitude, he writes, is found among would-be confessional pastors, even though it is really akin to the antinomianism of “Seminex”! He asks, “How can one read the Scriptures over and over and not see how much and how often our Lord (in the Gospels) and the Apostles (in the Epistles) call for Christian sanctification, crucifying the flesh, putting down the ...

Sermon for Pentecost 26, Proper 28B, preached on Sunday, November 18, 2018.     A year ago almost to the day, the Georgia Dome was imploded. Where the Olympics were held, where two Superbowls were played, where three Final Fours finished, what was then the biggest covered stadium in the world, was demolished after 25 years.  Imagine that.  But then again, we are used to it.  Life way is gone; Amazon is coming. We live in a world in which buildings come and go.  Some outlive their usefulness and are taken down.  Others fall to terrorists.  Others are destroyed by natural or manmade disaster.  We build them up, we tear them down, and we build them up again.  We are in love with this power to remake the landscape to our image.     In the days of Jesus, buildings took a long time to build.  The temple was 46 years in construction.  Timbers were hauled from far away and stones cut in quarries and then placed one on an...

Having seen a few standard operating procedure manuals that range in size from 1000 to 1500 pages, I know how easy it is to answer every issue with words and more words.  It is equally difficult to wade through so many words in pursuit of real answers.  This is no less true in the Church when we attempt to button down every issue and every possibility.  Some have complained that we give the Spirit no wiggle room.  I am not sure that the Spirit is all that concerned with the mountains of paper generated in institutional venues and shaped as much by legal concerns as spiritual.  No, the Spirit is not required to follow our SOPs.  That said, it seems the Roman Catholic Church has it topped. By the time you read this, the Bishops will have gathered for the XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome on the theme “Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment.” The “working document” for this gathering of bishops was a 30,000+ brick of w...

One Colorado businesswoman is taking a symbol of her faith to those on the go. Theresa Lay came up with God’s Pill after going through a personal tragedy.  “I had gone through loss in my life and I was taking daily communion. And I thought about a portable way, a quick and easy way to do it,” she told CBS4’s Dominic Garcia. One pill is made of matzo bread powder, the other red wine extract. She says it could be used by the military or people who are traveling. One person who reviewed the product said it has allowed them to worship in the jungles of Gambia. “Large groups or just people on the go who want to worship and give thanks to God. That’s pretty much how I invented the communion pill.” (photo credits: CBS) Theresa says the pill isn’t associated with any denomination, it doesn’t matter if you’re Protestant or Catholic. She says 2,000 years ago communion was with fresh bread and wine. These days it’s wine or juice and processed wafers. The next step can now be pr...

Sermon for Trinity 25, preached by the Rev. Larry A. Peters In the old cartoon, an aged man with a beard holds up a sign that says “Repent!  The end is near!” Well, I am an aged man with a beard and I am here to tell you, it is no joke.  The end IS near.  Near is a relative term.  Last week ended with the shocking unexpected death of a healthy 68 year old man in our parish.  We have many in our parish who are, as it were, waiting for God, that is, nearer than others to their death.  But instead it came to one no one was expecting.  Such a death reminds us that near is a relative term.  The young are to take no comfort in the prospect of a future and the old are to take no comfort from a presumption that they won’t be around to deal with the messes in the news.  We are all waiting upon God. Near may be a relative term but the end is not.  It is clear and blunt.  The end.  The end of all our eyes survey and our minds know and ou...

Long ago it was said that the GLBTQ community was looking simply for a place in the churches.  Now it seems that this is no longer the aim of those so self-identified and their supporters.  In effect, they want to own the place and to be able to prevent those who disagree with them from having any place in the churches -- churches who only a generation or so ago uniformly stood together in opposing the normalization of GLBTQ relationships among those in pews or in pulpits.  This is the pace of change which has come with dizzying effect upon the faithful.  Even more than owning the place, the GLBTQ community is intent upon repudiating the Christian past which disagreed with their agenda. But there is one Episcopal bishop who refuses to go with the flow.  The Rev. William Love, Bishop of Albany, NY, is the lone U.S. bishop refusing to comply with the new resolution of the Episcopal Church which insists that other bishops and priests will have jurisdiction to act ...