Friday, July 10, 2009

Two unfortunate quotes to introduce the Methodist-Lutheran "Full Communion"

"We're all trying to get to heaven, so I see no problem with Lutherans helping us out,"
"Members said their biggest adjustment is Strommen's "Lutheran style" of prayer. She often turns her back to worshippers to face a large cross.

So Methodists are under the impression they can earn their way into heaven with a little help from their friends. Lutherans act as stale pre-vatican two priests... doesn't sound like putting our best feet forward.
That said "To have a Lutheran congregation of six and a Methodist congregation of four in a town of 200 is plumb stupid."
Indeed.
Last week TEY worshiped at a methodist church here in Susquehanna. It was a contemporary service, the pastor preached about freedom, mentioning--knowing a cadre of Lutherans had joined him-- "As we know Christian Freedom is pretty important to Lutherans too." It was a really good sermon--if it had been given at Tabernacle he would have got a lot of Amens. The main complaint of the scholars was that the pastor dressed "like a magician." In other words he was wearing a very snappy vest instead of vestments. I didn't really like the music--felt a little too much like "Jesus is my boyfriend" music, but I'm sure a contemporary Lutheran service would look much the same.
And that's about all I know about Methodists right at this moment. I have to go and lead morning worship.
Peace,
Chris

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

What if the whole Neo-con thing is working?

Hitchens supposes that the current fight for democracy happening in Iran could be based on Iran having Iraq as its democratic neighbor. The despotic dominoes that would start falling in the name of democracy once a representative government was established in Iraq are now falling. In a sense America wasn't wrong for invading Iraq for this reason (of course if you remember that wasn't the reason we invaded Iraq) only impatient.
Key Quote:
"They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran's regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a "let's pretend" election and even then tries to fix the outcome."