Kindred Spirits: Blog Alert

I stumbled across a great blog yesterday called Kirchenlieder (Church Songs). If you enjoy the content of Kirchenmusik (Church Music), you'll want to take a look. It's not as philosophical as Religious Affections, but the author (Lance Peeler) definitely shares my aesthetics. Speaking of Religious Affections, the latest post on the site really held my interest. Scott Aniol discusses two types of art distinguished by aethetists: Dionysian vs. Apollonarian art. To quote Mr. Aniol:

Both Dionysus and Apollo were mythological Greek gods associated with art. Apollo was the god of reason and logic, and was considered the god of music since the Greeks thought of good music as a great expression of order and patterns (a la Pythagorus and Plato). Dionysus, on the other hand, was the god of wine and revelry, and was worshiped with loud, raucous music accompanied by pipes and drums.

So Dionysian art/music communicates to the raw passions, while Apollonarian art communicates (ultimately) to the emotions through the intellect. He quotes from Daniel Reuning of Concordia, who points specifically to the music of Lutheran tradition as Apollonarian.

His intention in writing is to help the Christian distinguish between mere emotional experience and true worship, which addresses the whole person and not merely the emotions.

While I do not share or endorse Mr. Aniol's entire theology, I have learned a great deal from his writing and I do not hesitate to share this valuable resource.

Resurrection of Our Lord

This is the feast of victory for our God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, whose blood set us free to be people of God. This is the feast of victory for our God.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Power, riches, wisdom, strength, and honor, blessing, and glory are his. This is the feast of victory for our God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Sing with all the people of God, and join in the hymn of all creation: Blessing, honor glory and might be to God and the Lamb forever. Amen.
This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
For the Lamb who was slain has begun his reign. Alleluia.
This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

O memoriale mortis Domini

The hymn below is used for Vespers for Holy Thursday, which is not said by those who participate in the evening Mass of the Last Supper. The hymn is an extract of St. Thomas Aquinas' (1225-1274) Adoro Te devote, which he composed in honor of the Blessed Sacrament.

O MEMORIALE mortis Domini! panis vivus, vitam praestans homini! praesta meae menti de te vivereet te illi semper dulce sapere.

O MEMORIAL of my Savior dying, Living Bread, that gives life to man; make my soul, its life from Thee supplying, taste Thy sweetness, as on earth it can.

Pie pellicane, Iesu Domine, me immundum munda tuo sanguine; cuius una stilla salvum faceretotum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

Deign, O Jesus, Pelican of heaven,me, a sinner, in Thy Blood to lave, to a single drop of which is given all the world from all its sin to save.

Te cum revelata cernam facie,visu tandem laetus tuae gloriae; Patri, tibi laudes et Spiritui, dicam beatorum iunctus coetui. Amen.

Rushdoony on Writing Well

I Corinthians 10:31 "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

"I detest the cute style of writing so popular today, New Yorkese I call it, because I believe words are tools to be used intelligently, respectfully, carefully, and lovingly. A good writer does not call attention to himself (as William Buckley endlessly does), but to his subject, and his writing opens up avenues of thought and insight...

Good writing gives me a sensuous sense of wealth and luxury; good writing is like combining the ultimate in nutritional value with a strictly gourmet dinner in a perfect and happy marriage."

~ R.J. Rushdoony, Letter to Otto Scott, April 28, 1977

What Does It Mean to Be Lutheran? Part II

Lutherans stand in contrast to the rest of Christianity in that their adherence to the Word of God, without regard to human or ecclesiastical (church) tradition, prevents them from interpreting the Word of God to accommodate errant thinking / beliefs which might be part of a current cultural trend. This means that regardless of what popular beliefs might be, the Word of God is to stand without change or adaptation to the culture or society of the day. In a way, this adherence to the Word of God makes true Lutherans unpopular with most of society at any given time in history.

For example, today, when many churches are putting their stamp of approval on fornication (a couple living together without benfit of marriage), Lutherans continue to believe and teach that God intended for man and woman to live together only in the context of holy marriage. Any other arrangement which society today allows and even encourages is, and will always remain, damnable (I Corinthians 6:9-11). Such fornication is forgivable by faith in Jesus and Spirit-inspired repentance, but it cannot be approved by the true church. To approve of such arrangements calls God a liar at worst or in the least makes Him out to be incompetent because He has declared an activity wrong than man has determined is right and beneficial. Such attitudes break the First Commandment.

To be a Lutheran also means to focus worship upon God, not upon self as is often the case with today’s praise services which serve to lift the human spirit through a "worship" experience, otherwise known as entertainment. In today’s world where so much "worship" seems to focus upon the entertainment of the individual, Lutherans still believe that it is absolutely critical to worship God.

The old German word, Gottesdienst, (Service by God) explains true worship. Worship is a time when we gather to let God work on us through the hearing of His Word as read in the lessons and spoken in the sermon, even declared through the words of hymns as well as through the reception of Holy Communion. Worship is a time to let God work on us and to give Him glory for the work He does in us and through us. To gather simply for praise is OK but such “worship” misses the point: God is not given the opportunity to work on us.

—Dr. Paul Hunsicker, Abbotsford, Wisconsin

Wanted: Traditional Worship

This hard-hitting post blasting contemporary evangelical worship from Ingrid Schlueter on Slice of Laodicea makes me smile, but I have to nod in agreement with many of the points she makes. I find myself growing very tired of the collective irreverence for the Divine and the sacred in modern American culture, and long for a return to serious worship. The element that so attracts me to traditional, high-church-style liturgy is its treatment of God as holy, righteous and powerful. It inspires a fear of God and puts everything in a Scriptural perspective. May we as a people repent of going our own way and turn back to the God Who loves us and sent His Son to die in our stead.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est

Why do churchgoers rush out the door after church? (Duties discharged—I'm on my way.) Why don't we stay and talk to one another? Are we so caught up in our personal universes that we can only spare a meager hour for God and His people? What makes us so uncomfortable in the House of the Lord?

In the culture today, finding a sense of community and belonging can be very difficult, and the majority of Americans somehow don't expect to find it in church. I find the widespread lack of sympathy disturbing. Does anyone else?

Make no mistake: the primary purpose of a church is to worship and serve the Living God. However, an indispensible component of serving God is treating our fellow human beings well. In the words of Christ: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." As believers, we are the body of Christ, made of disparate parts, but designed to function harmoniously. God has no patience with elitism and what James calls the "respect of persons." The value of a person cannot be based on his financial or social standing. The local church ought to be a place where anyone can find sympathy, compassion, and life-giving counsel based on the Word of God.

Sometimes Christians are shy and afraid to reach out, and then they blame other Christians for "being cold" toward them. Proverbs offers some excellent advice. "He that hath friends must show himself friendly." Selfishly, we often seek not so much to understand as to be understood. As humans, we feel our own need for sympathy so deeply, but others' rather slightly. Loving others means being aware of the needs of people around us, and attempting to serve those needs whether we feel like it or not. It means being a giver and not a taker—characteristics of a mature individual. Are we up to the challenge?

Do you think strangers likely feel welcomed at your church? Within the circle of believers, there should be time set aside to consider how to offer hospitality and fellowship not only to one another, but to strangers in our midst. Hebrews 4 reminds us, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for some have entertained angels unaware." In the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the Bible says that "God added daily to the church such as should be saved." God brings people to church through various means, and we become part of God's work when we reach out in love to those who seek Him.

On a slightly deviant, yet related point, I think church leaders should be aware that age segregation has succeeded in depriving us of some of the richest expressions of human culture. We miss so much when we avoid the cross-pollination of age groups: the seasoned perspective and unique wisdom of seniors, the brightness and enthusiasm of youth. Successfully integrating people of all ages greatly enhances the socialization experience for everyone.

Certainly, the future of the Christian church depends on our ability to reach out in love, both to fellow Christians (our brothers and sisters) and to strangers and seekers. We not only represent Christ to the world, we are called to be Christ's Body and function as His hands, His arms, His feet. We, therefore, must love as He loved.

UBI caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.
Exultemus, et in ipso iucundemur.
Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.
Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

What Does It Mean to Be a Lutheran? Part I

This is part of an article written by my former pastor, Dr. Hunsicker of Christ Lutheran Church in Abbotsford, Wisconsin. I'll be posting more later.

To make the answer as simple as possible, a Lutheran is someone who believes that Jesus is the only source of salvation for sinful mankind. Faith in Jesus saves. When you believe in Jesus you acknowledge that your faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9) and that you are the recipient of God’s grace, His forgiveness, and His guarantee of heaven through trust in His Son Jesus. Lutherans believe that God is the One Who receives all credit for the ability to believe, all credit for forgiveness, and is to receive all credit and glory for eternal life. Man is the recipient of God’s gifts and is to respond in thankfulness for God’s salvation by a life lived according to God’s Word just as the Israelites were to live in response to God’s salvation from Egypt (Exodus 20, the context of the Commandments).

Lutherans also believe that the Bible is God’s Word cover to cover. This means that we believe in a six-day, twenty-four-hour-day creation and we reject evolution. It means that Noah was real, the flood was real, and that the fossils we find around today were alive at the time of Noah. We believe the miracles of Jesus are real. We believe that Jesus died and physically rose from the dead and bodily ascended into heaven where He remains until He returns to judge the living and the dead. We believe that every word of the Bible was inspired by God the Holy Spirit in their original autographs, that is, as they were originally written by the prophets and apostles.

We believe that our human thinking, human wisdom, is to be subservient to the Word of God and it is not to interpret the Word of God. The Word stands by itself as truth whether we understand it or not. Those who interpret Scripture based upon tradition or upon human reason do damage to the Word of God and to faith in Jesus. Scripture is to be read and understood in the context of a sentence within a paragraph within a book of the Bible within the historical and cultural context in which the Holy Spirit inspired any particular sentence to be written or communicated. The Bible interprets itself based on what the Holy Spirit inspired at other times and places.

Good News/Bad News for the Pastor

Good News: You baptised seven people today in the river.
Bad News: You lost two of them in the swift current.

Good News: The women's group voted to send you a get-well card.
Bad News: The vote passed by 31-30.

Good News: The pastor-parish relations committee accepted your job description the way you wrote it.
Bad News: They were so inspired by it that they asked the bishop to send a new minister capable of filling the position.

Good News: The trustees finally voted to add more church parking.
Bad News: They are going to blacktop the front lawn of the parsonage.

Good News: Church attendance rose dramatically the last three weeks.
Bad News: You were on vacation.

Good News: Your biggest critic just left your community.
Bad News: He has been appointed as your conference bishop.

Good News: The youth of the church came to your house for a visit.
Bad News: It was in the middle of the night and they were armed with toilet paper and shaving cream.

Good News: The Church Council has agreed to send you to the Holy Land for study.
Bad News: They are waiting for war to break out before sending you.

A Debtor to Mercy Alone

The author, Augustus Toplady, at­tend­ed West­min­ster School, Lon­don, and Trin­i­ty Coll­ege, Dub­lin. He was or­dained an Ang­li­can priest in 1762, and served as Cur­ate at Blag­don and Far­leigh. In 1766, he be­came Vi­car of Broad­hem­bu­ry, De­von­shire. He left the Ang­li­can church in 1775, moved to Lon­don, and be­gan preach­ing at the French Cal­vin­ist church in Lei­ces­ter Fields. His works in­clude:

The Doctrine of Ab­so­lute Pre­des­tin­a­tion Stat­ed and As­sert­ed, 1769
Historic Proof of the Doc­trin­al Cal­vin­ism of the Church of Eng­land, 1774
The Church of Eng­land Vin­di­cat­ed from the Charge of Armin­i­an­ism, 1774
Po­ems on Sac­red Sub­jects, 1775
Psalms and Hymns, 1776

A debtor to mercy alone,
Of covenant mercy I sing;
Nor fear, with Thy righteousness on,
My person and off'ring to bring.
The terrors of law and of God
With me can have nothing to do;
My Saviour's obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view.

The work which His goodness began
The arm of His strength will complete;
His promise is yea and amen,
And never was forfeited yet.
Things future, nor things that are now,
Not all things below or above,
Can make Him His purpose forgo,
Or sever my soul from His love.

My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impressed on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace;
Yes, I to the end shall endure,
As sure as the earnest is giv'n;
More happy, but not more secure,
The glorified spirits in heav'n.

Augustus M. Toplady, 1740-1778