Saturday, January 29, 2011

Ignored Again

On Monday, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country , including many from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod , gathered in Washington, D.C., to stand up for unborn children and the sanctity of life during the 38th annual March For Life.


Sadly, many people are unaware that this event even occurred. The march, despite the impressive crowd it drew, largely was ignored by many in the mainstream media. In the years since the U.S. Supreme Court tragically legalized abortion through its Roe v. Wade decision, the message that human life is sacred and valued has become almost background noise for many. How can that be? How can we ignore the fact that an estimated 52 million babies have been aborted since 1973?

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, with its 6,200 congregations across the country, has a vast array of Lutheran agencies and partners that care for the neediest, providing adoption and foster care, senior care, care for the developmentally disabled, etc., both domestically and internationally. We shall continue this ministry of mercy, along with Christians the world over, even as we weep and pray by the tomb of the American conscience, until it rises again.
Letter to the Editor, St. Louis Post, January 28, 2011
The Rev. Matthew C. Harrison • Kirkwood
President, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Monday, January 17, 2011

Ideas Have Consequences

On Sunday in Bible Class we discussed the relationship between Creed and Actions, Faith and Love, Church and State, Trinitarian love and Monistic inhumanity.

While Christians do not need or want the power of the government in order to fulfill or realize the life of faith and hope and love, that does not mean that the life of faith and hope and love has nothing to say to the governmental powers. Precisely since you have been restored to true humanity in Christ's flesh and blood, you have something urgent to say to every power--foreign and domestic--which would consign certain people to inhumanity.

Today our nation observes Martin Luther King Jr. day. President Harrison has posted an excerpt from his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" which contributes solidly to this discussion. Please take the time to read it here.

Monday, January 10, 2011

The Letter of Marque

As we enter the season of Epiphany, these words on the source of Light, are well-spoken.
The prophetic scriptures, given by the Spirit's inspiration, are the inerrant judge and norm for all that is said and done within the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church does not stand over the Scriptures but under them in order to receive all that the Lord would give her for her life and blessing. No one within Christendom should seek God's will apart from the Scriptures, or behind them in supposed oral traditions or pre-canonical documents or along side them via so-called direct revelation, dreams or personal experiences.