Gottesblog

The Rev. Zach Zehnder has recently posted this video in which he makes an argument for changing the way we train and form pastors based on his experience as a businessman.

Here is why I think he is wrong.

There are many reasons: historically, liturgically, and also as a general cry for help.

Our Lutheran identity is not merely some kind of tribal identification. Rather, the hymnody from our own tradition confesses our own theology - which is often missing when we borrow hymnody (or even worse, “songs”) from outside of our tradition…

In response to Dr. Eckardt’s advice to seminarians to “Show yourself a man,” a younger pastor disagreed. He said that it would be better to tell them to “Be humble.” I found this perception of incompatibility between manliness and humility illustrative, both of generational disagreement about masculinity, as well as differences as to how we see the office of the holy ministry.

We do not live in the Age of Reason, nor the Age of Aquarius, nor the Information Age. We live in the Age of Bubulum Stercus.

The Paschal Greeting is one of the most ancient Christian traditions by which disciples of the risen Lord Jesus Christ around the world confess and celebrate His glorious resurrection and victory over death.

One of the official publications of one of our LCMS Districts reports that a retired pastor has just been given an honorary doctorate from one of the Concordia universities owing to the fact that under his leadership, his congregation's music "transitioned from the emphasis on traditional music and added a more Gospel oriented genre."

Advocates of church-growth, multiculturalism, and anti-liturgicalism in our midst often resort to the canard that the liturgy is “too European” and our hymns are “too German.“

In wartime, there are always casualties and losses. So it is in the church militant. The Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer offers sobering comments on the sinking of the Australia. Lord, have mercy.