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I have lived in Poplar Bluff, Cape Girardeau, and (briefly) Altenburg, Missouri

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Emptying out my Kindle Clippings, cont'd.

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Heather, Peter)
- Your Highlight on Location 100-101 | Added on Sunday, July 20, 2014 2:29:51 PM



THE ROMAN EMPIRE was the largest state western Eurasia has ever known.

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Master and Commander (Vol. Book 1)  (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) (O'Brian, Patrick)
- Your Highlight on page 108 | Location 1589-1598 | Added on Sunday, July 20, 2014 3:57:26 PM



‘And do you hate Papists, so?’ asked Stephen. ‘Oh, yes: and I hate paper-work. But the Papists are a very wicked crew, too, you know, with confession and all that,’ said Jack. ‘And they tried to blow up Parliament. Lord, how we used to keep up the Fifth of November. One of my very best friends – you would not believe how kind – was so upset when her mother married one that she took to mathematics and Hebrew directly – aleph, beth – though she was the prettiest girl for miles around – taught me navigation – splendid headpiece, bless her. She told me quantities of things about the Papists: I forget it all now, but they are certainly a very wicked crew. There is no trusting them. Look at the rebellion they have just had.’ ‘But my dear sir, the United Irishmen were primarily Protestants – their leaders were Protestants. Wolfe Tone and Napper Tandy were Protestants. The Emmets, the O’Connors, Simon Butler, Hamilton Rowan, Lord Edward Fitzgerald were Protestants. And the whole idea of the club was to unite Protestant and Catholic and Presbyterian Irishmen. The Protestants it was who took the initiative.’ ‘Oh? Well, I don’t know much about it, as you see – I thought it was the Papists.


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Broad-Sword and Single-Stick With Chapters on Quarter-Staff, Bayonet, Cudgel, Shillalah, Walking-Stick, Umbrella and Other Weapons of Self-Defence (Allanson-Winn, Rowland George)
- Your Highlight on page 55 | Location 602-607 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 3:05:00 AM



The old trial for teachers of fencing was not a bad test of real excellence in the mastery of their weapon—a fight with three skilled masters of fence (one at a time, of course), then three bouts with valiant unskilled men, and then three bouts against three half-drunken men. A man who could pass this test was a man whose sword could be relied upon to keep his head, and this is what is wanted. All rules, then, which provide artificial protection, as it were—protection other than that[Pg 56] afforded by the swordsman’s guard—to any part of the body are wrong, and to be avoided.

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Broad-Sword and Single-Stick With Chapters on Quarter-Staff, Bayonet, Cudgel, Shillalah, Walking-Stick, Umbrella and Other Weapons of Self-Defence (Allanson-Winn, Rowland George)
- Your Highlight on page 81 | Location 849-851 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 3:11:17 AM



Don’t make any remarks either in a competition (this, of course, is worst of all) or in an ordinary bout. Don’t argue, except with the sticks. Remember that the beau-ideal swordsman is one who fights hard, with “silent lips and striking hand.”

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Broad-Sword and Single-Stick With Chapters on Quarter-Staff, Bayonet, Cudgel, Shillalah, Walking-Stick, Umbrella and Other Weapons of Self-Defence (Allanson-Winn, Rowland George)
- Your Highlight on page 84 | Location 891-891 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 1:16:01 PM



The really expert swordsman is surely he who inflicts injuries without receiving any,

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Broad-Sword and Single-Stick With Chapters on Quarter-Staff, Bayonet, Cudgel, Shillalah, Walking-Stick, Umbrella and Other Weapons of Self-Defence (Allanson-Winn, Rowland George)
- Your Highlight on page 107 | Location 1107-1110 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 1:24:12 PM



The weight of the stick is an important matter to consider. Some blackthorns are so enormously heavy that it is next to impossible to do any quick effective work with them, and one is reminded, on seeing a man “over sticked,”—if I may be allowed such an expression—of Lord Dundreary’s riddle,[Pg 108] “Why does a dog wag his tail? Because the dog is stronger than the tail,” or of David in Saul’s armour.

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The Art of Fencing The Use of the Small Sword (L'Abbat, Monsieur)
- Your Highlight on Location 75-77 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 1:35:28 PM



There is no Guard but has it's Thrust, and no Thrust without it's Parade, no Parade without it's Feint, no Feint without it's opposite Time or Motion, no opposite Time or Motion but has it's Counter, and there is even a Counter to that Counter.

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The Art of Fencing The Use of the Small Sword (L'Abbat, Monsieur)
- Your Highlight on page 78 | Location 1130-1134 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 2:04:10 PM



I think it proper to finish this Chapter by confuting an Error as common, and more ridiculous, than the others; which is, of an infallible Thrust, which a great many People think that Masters reserve for dangerous Occasions, or to sell it at a dear Rate. This wonderful Thing, is called the secret Thrust. I don't know whether this Error proceeded from those who have not learned, or from the Chimera of some self-conceited Masters, who have sold to ignorant Scholars, some Thrusts as infallible, of their own Contrivance, as ridiculous and dangerous as the Simplicity of the Scholar and the Knavery of the Master are great.

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With the Battle Fleet Cruise of the Sixteen Battleships of the United States Atlantic Fleet from Hampton Roads to the Golden Gate, December, 1907-May, 1908 (Matthews, Franklin)
- Your Highlight on Location 91-92 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 2:10:39 PM



On every ship the band was playing the usual good-by medley composed of "Home, Sweet Home," "The Girl I Left Behind Me" and "Auld Lang Syne."

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With the Battle Fleet Cruise of the Sixteen Battleships of the United States Atlantic Fleet from Hampton Roads to the Golden Gate, December, 1907-May, 1908 (Matthews, Franklin)
- Your Highlight on Location 588-590 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 2:43:35 PM



some of the English bluejackets once had difficulty in pronouncing the word Ohio. They said the name of the Ohio was "Ho and a Haich and a blooming 10," and they didn't know what to call a ship named O H and 10.

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With the Battle Fleet Cruise of the Sixteen Battleships of the United States Atlantic Fleet from Hampton Roads to the Golden Gate, December, 1907-May, 1908 (Matthews, Franklin)
- Your Highlight on Location 638-638 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 2:49:41 PM



It wasn't long before the "Coast of the High Barbaree," "Avast! Belay! We're Off for Baffin's Bay,"

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With the Battle Fleet Cruise of the Sixteen Battleships of the United States Atlantic Fleet from Hampton Roads to the Golden Gate, December, 1907-May, 1908 (Matthews, Franklin)
- Your Highlight on Location 641-641 | Added on Friday, July 25, 2014 2:49:59 PM



"Coast of the High Barbaree," with "Blow High, Blow Low,"
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Master and Commander (Vol. Book 1)  (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) (O'Brian, Patrick)
- Your Highlight on page 392 | Location 5941-5943 | Added on Sunday, July 27, 2014 3:12:03 AM



The officers of the Hannibal and the Sophie were on parole: that is to say, until they were exchanged for French prisoners of equal rank they were bound in honour to do nothing against France or Spain – they were merely prisoners in more agreeable surroundings.

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The Book of Five Rings      (with linked TOC) (Musashi, Miyamoto)
- Your Highlight on Location 39-39 | Added on Sunday, July 27, 2014 6:29:48 AM



Recently there have been people getting on in the world as strategists, but they are usually just sword-fencers.

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The Book of Five Rings      (with linked TOC) (Musashi, Miyamoto)
- Your Highlight on Location 42-43 | Added on Sunday, July 27, 2014 6:30:07 AM



The true value of sword-fencing cannot be seen within the confines of sword-fencing technique.

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The Book of Five Rings      (with linked TOC) (Musashi, Miyamoto)
- Your Highlight on Location 82-82 | Added on Sunday, July 27, 2014 6:31:23 AM



It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing.

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The Book of Five Rings      (with linked TOC) (Musashi, Miyamoto)
- Your Highlight on Location 132-133 | Added on Sunday, July 27, 2014 6:35:35 AM



The Way of the warrior does not include other Ways, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, certain traditions, artistic accomplishments and dancing.

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The Book of Five Rings      (with linked TOC) (Musashi, Miyamoto)
- Your Highlight on Location 130-131 | Added on Sunday, July 27, 2014 6:35:49 AM



If he attains the virtue of the long sword, one man can beat ten men. Just as one man can beat ten, so a hundred men can beat a thousand, and a thousand can beat ten thousand. In my strategy, one man is the same as ten thousand, so this strategy is the complete warrior's craft.

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The Book of Five Rings      (with linked TOC) (Musashi, Miyamoto)
- Your Highlight on Location 143-144 | Added on Sunday, July 27, 2014 6:36:51 AM



From inside fortifications, the gun has no equal among weapons. It is the supreme weapon on the field before the ranks clash, but once swords are crossed the gun becomes useless.

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The Book of Five Rings      (with linked TOC) (Musashi, Miyamoto)
- Your Highlight on Location 148-148 | Added on Sunday, July 27, 2014 6:37:23 AM



You should not have a favorite weapon.

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New American Standard Bible-NASB 1995 (Includes Translators' Notes) (The Lockman Foundation)
- Your Highlight on Location 61734-61736 | Added on Tuesday, July 29, 2014 10:53:43 PM



8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and gthat not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

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The Far Side of the World (Vol. Book 10)  (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) (O'Brian, Patrick)
- Your Highlight on page 103 | Location 1468-1469 | Added on Thursday, July 31, 2014 10:59:55 AM



the ceremony of the mixing of the grog by the master’s mate – three of water, one of rum, and the due proportions of lemon-juice and sugar

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reflections-trinity5-10-2014-linear (buetowmt@gmail.com)
- Your Highlight on Location 407-409 | Added on Sunday, August 3, 2014 8:37:22 AM



How many times in your life will you receive the Lord's Supper? As much as you want, really. For there it is, given in Christ's Church as often as we need it. Whenever our sins trouble us, there is the Body and Blood of Jesus, under that bread and wine, to forgive our sins and give us life and salvation.

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The World of Yesterday (Zweig, Stefan)
- Your Highlight on page 1 | Location 345-358 | Added on Thursday, August 7, 2014 7:55:25 PM



When I attempt to find a simple formula for the period in which I grew up, prior to the First World War, I hope that I convey its fullness by calling it the Golden Age of Security. Everything in our almost thousand-year-old Austrian monarchy seemed based on permanency, and the State itself was the chief guarantor of this stability. The rights which it granted to its citizens were duly confirmed by parliament, the freely elected representative of the people, and every duty was exactly prescribed. Our currency, the Austrian crown, circulated in bright gold pieces, an assurance of its immutability. Everyone knew how much he possessed or what he was entitled to, what was permitted and what forbidden. Everything had its norm, its definite measure and weight. He who had a fortune could accurately compute his annual interest. An official or an officer, for example, could confidently look up in the calendar the year when he would be advanced in grade, or when he would be pensioned. Each family had its fixed budget, and knew how much could be spent for rent and food, for vacations and entertainment; and what is more, invariably a small sum was carefully laid aside for sickness and the doctor’s bills, for the unexpected. Whoever owned a house looked upon it as a secure domicile for his children and grandchildren; estates and businesses were handed down from generation to generation. When the babe was still in its cradle, its first mite was put in its little bank, or deposited in the savings bank, as a “reserve” for the future. In this vast empire everything stood firmly and immovably in its appointed place, and at its head was the aged emperor; and were he to die, one knew (or believed) another would come to take his place, and nothing would change in the well-regulated order. No one thought of wars, of revolutions, or revolts. All that was radical, all violence, seemed impossible in an age of reason.

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The World of Yesterday (Zweig, Stefan)
- Your Highlight on page 2 | Location 361-369 | Added on Thursday, August 7, 2014 7:58:27 PM



The century of security became the golden age of insurance. One’s house was insured against fire and theft, one’s field against hail and storm, one’s person against accident and sickness. Annuities were purchased for one’s old age, and a policy was laid in a girl’s cradle for her future dowry. Finally even the workers organized, and won standard wages and workmen’s compensation. Servants saved up for old-age insurance and paid in advance into a burial fund for their own interment. Only the man who could look into the future without worry could thoroughly enjoy the present. Despite the propriety and the modesty of this view of life, there was a grave and dangerous arrogance in this touching confidence that we had barricaded ourselves to the last loophole against any possible invasion of fate. In its liberal idealism, the nineteenth century was honestly convinced that it was on the straight and unfailing path toward being the best of all worlds. Earlier eras, with their wars, famines, and

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The World of Yesterday (Zweig, Stefan)
- Your Highlight on page 3 | Location 369-372 | Added on Thursday, August 7, 2014 7:59:05 PM



revolts, were deprecated as times when mankind was still immature and unenlightened. But now it was merely a matter of decades until the last vestige of evil and violence would finally be conquered, and this faith in an uninterrupted and irresistible “progress” truly had the force of a religion for that generation. One began to believe more in this “progress” than in the Bible, and its gospel appeared ultimate because of the daily new wonders of science and technology.

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 51 | Location 808-811 | Added on Friday, August 15, 2014 2:59:30 AM



It was like that with a lot of things: the first time I drank I thought, “This isn’t bad—it’s awesome!” Then a couple of months later I tried pot and I was like, “This is awesome, too!” Then I did some cocaine and I thought, “Okay, this feels kinda funny—but I’m not dead, and I’m not in jail, so it can’t be that bad.” They teach you in high school that every drug is a gateway to the next drug, and they’re right, because the next thing I knew, there I was on heroin.

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 52 | Location 822-823 | Added on Friday, August 15, 2014 3:00:35 AM



I was becoming a bona fide addict after only a single year in Los Angeles. By mid-1984 I was drinking, smoking pot, using cocaine, and taking heroin. Those became my Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 144 | Location 2039-2042 | Added on Saturday, August 16, 2014 1:44:07 AM



At this time there was a wave of modern heavy metal where all the bands tuned down, which was a different sound from that of traditional metal bands like Megadeth who tuned to the standard concert pitch of A440. It was funny writing with the Dry Kill Logic guys, who were all ten years younger than me, tuned down to A# and all these other whacked-out tunings.

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 173 | Location 2435-2437 | Added on Saturday, August 16, 2014 2:09:15 AM



These days, I find that modern church culture is fantastic. It is much different from what it was when I was growing up. Nowadays it is tied in with social media and with cool, uplifting rock music. For people of my age it needed to make that shift to remain relevant.

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 178 | Location 2497-2499 | Added on Saturday, August 16, 2014 2:12:51 AM



My feelings about church were that it was culturally irrelevant, that it was dated, and that it was for my parents’ generation, not mine. Then, like I said, the church reinvented itself, and that was something that I wanted to continue with MEGA Life!

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 206 | Location 2854-2856 | Added on Saturday, August 16, 2014 2:36:20 AM



And yet here we were only a few years later, with kids in tow for preschool. At the urging of our children, we started attending church there, so they could be with their friends. I presented my Lutheran Confirmation credentials and we officially joined as a family.

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 217 | Location 2993-2996 | Added on Saturday, August 16, 2014 2:46:21 AM



Music started as a passion for me, and to this day it still is. Some musical settings can really rob you of that passion and leave you empty, even to the point of disliking music altogether. I try to avoid those people and those settings. After all, if music is your gift, anyone who tries to quench that gift is like a thief robbing you of what is rightfully yours to enjoy.

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 233 | Location 3472-3473 | Added on Saturday, August 16, 2014 2:50:35 AM



Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod seminary, St. Louis, Mississippi, 201

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My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll (Ellefson, David;McIver, Joel)
- Your Highlight on page 201 | Location 2797-2798 | Added on Saturday, August 16, 2014 2:51:01 AM



My faith walk continues and progresses. I now study in a Senior Mentoring Program, or SMP, for members of a congregation who wish to become ordained. It is run by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, which offers online studies.

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New American Standard Bible-NASB 1995 (Includes Translators' Notes) (The Lockman Foundation)
- Your Highlight on Location 33751-33754 | Added on Saturday, August 16, 2014 3:49:47 AM



22“How long, O anaive ones, will you love bbeing simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge? [aLit simple ones bOr naivete]

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The World of Yesterday (Zweig, Stefan)
- Your Highlight on page 85 | Location 1497-1500 | Added on Thursday, August 21, 2014 7:28:54 AM



Nothing seems to me to confirm the greater honesty and naturalness of our present-day life and love forms than the fact that it is possible and almost normal for the youth of today to do without this once indispensable institution. It is not the police nor the laws that have restricted prostitution in our world. This tragic product of a pseudo-morality, except for a small remnant, has liquidated itself because of a decreased demand.

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The World of Yesterday (Zweig, Stefan)
- Your Highlight on page 94 | Location 1620-1626 | Added on Thursday, August 21, 2014 7:38:21 AM

M
ost of our universities were founded in the Middle Ages, that is, at a time when being occupied with the learned sciences was considered unusual, and in order to attract young people to study, certain class privileges were conferred upon them. The medieval scholars were not subject to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts; officers of the law could not seek them out or molest them in their colleges. They wore special dress, and had the right to fight duels with impunity. They were recognized as a closed guild with certain rules of conduct, or misconduct, of their own. In time, with the increasing democratization of public life, when all of the other medieval guilds and corporations were being dissolved, these academic prerogatives were done away with throughout Europe.

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Heretics (Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith))
- Your Highlight on page 5 | Location 120-122 | Added on Saturday, August 23, 2014 5:51:11 AM



Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.

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Heretics (Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith))
- Your Highlight on page 6 | Location 143-152 | Added on Saturday, August 23, 2014 6:37:41 AM



Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good—" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

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Heretics (Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith))
- Your Highlight on page 8 | Location 169-174 | Added on Monday, August 25, 2014 12:48:42 AM



I remember a pamphlet by that able and sincere secularist, Mr. G. W. Foote, which contained a phrase sharply symbolizing and dividing these two methods. The pamphlet was called BEER AND BIBLE, those two very noble things, all the nobler for a conjunction which Mr. Foote, in his stern old Puritan way, seemed to think sardonic, but which I confess to thinking appropriate and charming. I have not the work by me, but I remember that Mr. Foote dismissed very contemptuously any attempts to deal with the problem of strong drink by religious offices or intercessions, and said that a picture of a drunkard's liver would be more efficacious in the matter of temperance than any prayer or praise. In that picturesque expression, it seems to me, is perfectly embodied the incurable morbidity of modern ethics.

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Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, Second Edition (Pocket Edition) (McCain, Paul Timothy)
- Your Highlight on Location 4534-4537 | Added on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 2:42:03 AM



[7] First, Genesis 1:28 teaches that people were created to be fruitful, and that one sex should desire the other in a proper way. We are not speaking about lustful desire, which is sin, but about that appetite that was in nature in its perfection. They call this physical love. This love of one sex for the other is truly a divine ordinance.

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Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, Second Edition (Pocket Edition) (McCain, Paul Timothy)
- Your Highlight on Location 4545-4546 | Added on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 2:43:03 AM


[9] Second, because this creation, or divine ordinance, in humanity is a natural right, jurists have said wisely and correctly that the union of male and female belongs to natural right. Natural right is unchangeable.

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Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, Second Edition (Pocket Edition) (McCain, Paul Timothy)
- Your Highlight on Location 4589-4590 | Added on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 2:45:59 AM


For Daniel 11:37 attributes this mark to the kingdom of Antichrist: hatred for women.

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Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, Second Edition (Pocket Edition) (McCain, Paul Timothy)
- Your Highlight on Location 4636-4636 | Added on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 2:51:21 AM


The Gospel frees us from these Levitical impurities.

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Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, Second Edition (Pocket Edition) (McCain, Paul Timothy)
- Your Highlight on Location 4671-4673 | Added on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 2:53:33 AM


So now, marriage should be strongly defended by the strictest laws and warning examples. People should be encouraged to marry. This duty belongs to public officials, who should maintain public discipline. Meanwhile, the teachers of the Gospel should do both of these things: encourage unchaste people to marry; encourage others not to hate the gift of chastity.

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The Book of Concord - Concordia Triglotta Edition ( )
- Your Highlight on Location 4258-4261 | Added on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 2:57:54 AM


7] First, Gen. 1:28 teaches that men were created to be fruitful, and that one sex in a proper way should desire the other. For we are speaking not of concupiscence, which is sin, but of that appetite which was to have been in nature in its integrity [which would have existed in nature even if it had remained uncorrupted], which they call physical love. And this love of one sex for the other is truly a divine ordinance.

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on Location 142-144 | Added on Thursday, August 28, 2014 6:21:26 PM


It was the victorious Allies who were judging the crimes of the Nazi leaders at Nuremberg, but it would be a pastor of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod who would try and convince those criminals that it was really God’s judgment that they should fear.

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on Location 465-466 | Added on Thursday, August 28, 2014 11:05:10 PM


The students were given Reformation Day off.

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on Location 475-477 | Added on Thursday, August 28, 2014 11:06:40 PM


The one-dollar-per-week tuition expense didn’t apply to students in the ministerial course. Their tuition was paid by the synod with the understanding that “students who abandon the course are liable for full amount of back tuition.”

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on Location 667-668 | Added on Friday, August 29, 2014 1:53:00 PM


Gerecke was a serious evangelical, but his little chapel was called Good Shepherd. He was not a sheep stealer.

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on Location 671-673 | Added on Friday, August 29, 2014 1:53:16 PM


“Every new patient, if not Catholic, receives a booklet by the missioner upon his arrival,” Gerecke wrote. “That’s the opening wedge for spiritual healing. If he is a bona fide member of a protestant church, he is urged to call his pastor. Our missioner backs out of the picture.”

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on Location 842-844 | Added on Friday, August 29, 2014 4:22:31 PM


Two hundred and twenty army and navy chaplains served during the Revolutionary War, but they received no military training and had no uniforms. At regimental inspections, when other soldiers raised their muskets at “present arms,” chaplains often raised their Bibles.

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on Location 1015-1018 | Added on Friday, August 29, 2014 4:37:37 PM


During the war, a company in the United States sold “GZY” rings for Americans at home to send to their loved ones fighting abroad. In Hebrew the letters were an abbreviation for “Gamzu ya’avor,” or “This too shall pass.” The rings referred to a story attributed to King Solomon.

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on Location 1018-1020 | Added on Friday, August 29, 2014 4:38:11 PM


In one version, the king, in search of a cure for sadness, assembled his wise men together. They discussed the issue for a long time, then advised him to engrave a ring with the letters GZY. King Solomon did so and wore the ring constantly. “Every time he felt sad and depressed, he looked at the ring, whereon his mood would change and he would feel cheerful.”

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on page 265 | Location 4252-4257 | Added on Tuesday, September 2, 2014 1:16:32 AM


“I cannot with a clear conscience commune you because you deny the very Christ who instituted the sacrament,” Gerecke said. “You may be on the church roll, but you do not have faith in Christ and have not accepted him as your savior. Therefore, you are not a Christian, and as a Christian pastor I cannot commune you.” Then Gerecke revealed his last card. “Herr Goering, your little girl said she wants to meet you in heaven.” “Yes,” Goering said slowly. “She believes in your savior. But I don’t. I’ll just take my chances, my own way.”

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on page 267 | Location 4299-4300 | Added on Tuesday, September 2, 2014 1:32:45 AM


Indeed, other Lutheran pastors later criticized Gerecke for withholding Holy Communion from Goering.

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Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis (Townsend, Tim)
- Your Highlight on page 300 | Location 4827-4832 | Added on Tuesday, September 2, 2014 2:11:08 AM


In 1953, the chaplain tapped into television broadcasting and began showing inmates 16 mm film episodes of a half-hour drama called This Is the Life, created for network television by the Lutheran Church. The warden gave Gerecke permission to show the episodes in the prison’s auditorium on a large screen. The show was often casually referred to as The Fisher Family after the fictional midwestern family it portrayed. Each episode dealt with a problem such as racism, infidelity, or alcoholism, which was eventually tackled using a Christian solution.

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The World of Yesterday (Zweig, Stefan)
- Your Highlight on page 251 | Location 3824-3832 | Added on Saturday, September 6, 2014 6:36:22 AM


Now the War Archives wished to secure for its files all the original Russian proclamations and placards in the occupied Austrian area before they had been torn down or otherwise destroyed. The colonel, who happened to be aware of my collector’s technique, asked me if I wished to undertake the task. Of course I accepted at once and I was given a passport which permitted me to travel on any military train and to move about freely wherever I chose without being assigned to any definite division and without having to report to any particular office or superior. This caused a number of the strangest occurrences, for I was not an officer but merely a titular sergeant-major, and wore a uniform without any special insignia. Whenever I produced my enigmatic document it elicited particular respect for the officers at the front and the officials thought that I must be some officer of the General Staff in disguise, or that I had been entrusted with some mysterious task. Since I avoided the officers’ mess and stopped at hotels, I achieved the additional advantage of being outside of the great machine, and seeing whatever I wished to see without official “guiding.”

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The Book of Concord - Concordia Triglotta Edition ( )
- Your Highlight on Location 6736-6736 | Added on Sunday, September 7, 2014 10:50:37 AM


honor

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The Book of Concord - Concordia Triglotta Edition ( )
- Your Note on Location 6710 | Added on Sunday, September 7, 2014 10:52:42 AM


akadia
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The Book of Concord - Concordia Triglotta Edition ( )
- Your Highlight on Location 6710-6710 | Added on Sunday, September 7, 2014 10:52:43 AM


ajkhdia,

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The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (Edsel, Robert M.)
- Your Highlight on page 16 | Location 342-348 | Added on Saturday, September 13, 2014 1:18:19 AM


Much had changed since Hitler’s annexation of Austria in 1938. By the end of that year, Czechoslovakia had capitulated. On August 24, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a nonaggression pact. A week later, on September 1, the Germans invaded Poland. In May 1940, the Nazi blitzkrieg (lightning war) turned west, routed a combined British-French force, and overran Belgium and Holland. By June, the Germans had taken Paris, catching the shocked French in the midst of evacuation. The Battle of Britain began in July, followed in September by a fifty-seven-day aerial bombardment of London that became known as the “Blitz.” By the end of May 1941, the bombs had killed tens of thousands of British civilians and damaged or destroyed more than a million buildings.

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The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (Edsel, Robert M.)
- Your Highlight on page 169 | Location 2563-2566 | Added on Sunday, September 14, 2014 3:15:54 AM


General Patton, upon seeing the Roman ruins at Agrigento, remarked to a local expert, “Seventh Army didn’t cause that destruction, did it, sir?” The man replied, “No sir, that happened in the last war.” “What war was that?” “The Second Punic War.”

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Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri 1839-1841 (Forster, Walter O.)
- Your Highlight on Location 7529-7530 | Added on Monday, September 15, 2014 6:14:22 AM


Here was to be found that stratum of “self-righteous, non-churchgoing” Germans which was composed largely of Rationalists, social reformers of anticlerical bent, and those among the other elements who, for one reason or another, followed them.

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Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri 1839-1841 (Forster, Walter O.)
- Your Highlight on Location 7521-7534 | Added on Monday, September 15, 2014 6:15:37 AM


Religious life among the German immigrants was at a low ebb in the forties.45 One reason for this condition was indicated by Münch, who, in 1859, could still say that “educated” Germans did not take part in church life.46 This remark was Münch’s highly inaccurate way of making a fundamentally accurate observation. Many of the immigrants of the thirties (the decade in which Münch entered the country) and of the forties, who enjoyed an educational training above that of the average immigrant, were militantly or passively opposed to the established church organizations. This attitude has been described in part above in connection with the Anzeiger des Westens, and Bek comments on the many “freethinkers” in the large German settlement at Hermann, Missouri.47 The colonies of Germans in Missouri, established by the time the Saxons arrived, had largely been founded by this class of immigrants. Here was to be found that stratum of “self-righteous, non-churchgoing” Germans which was composed largely of Rationalists, social reformers of anticlerical bent, and those among the other elements who, for one reason or another, followed them. These were the places where coarse ridicule was encouraged; where “sacred rites were rudely satirized”; where a dog could be baptized, or a beer keg dragged into the pulpit; where self-styled “liberals” deliberately planned the destruction of churches in order to force out the pastors currently serving them, so that these pastors could be replaced with men (e. g., F. Münch) less objectionable to those engineering the change; and where violence against the reverent was not unknown.

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Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri 1839-1841 (Forster, Walter O.)
- Your Highlight on Location 7538-7539 | Added on Monday, September 15, 2014 6:16:06 AM


Nevertheless, there were large numbers of German immigrants who would have continued their church affiliations in the United States had the opportunity been given them.

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Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri 1839-1841 (Forster, Walter O.)
- Your Highlight on Location 7499-7502 | Added on Monday, September 15, 2014 6:16:36 AM


The observation of Arends in 1838, concurred in by Münch two decades later, was that generally preachers in the Western States were poorly educated.39 In the case of Münch, of course, the generalization was partly the result of his simply ignoring denominations that did not suit his fancy. As late as 1859 he wrote as though he did not know of the existence of Concordia Seminary. However, the condition he described

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The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (Edsel, Robert M.)
- Your Highlight on page 228 | Location 3368-3369 | Added on Tuesday, September 16, 2014 12:03:42 PM


He quoted Hitler: “The crowd will succeed in remembering only the simplest concepts repeated a thousand times.”6

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The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (Edsel, Robert M.)
- Your Highlight on page 235 | Location 3468-3469 | Added on Thursday, September 18, 2014 4:54:11 PM


The Germans were wonderfully disciplined and “correct” while they had the upper hand—and went berserk when it was obvious their visit was at an end.

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The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (Edsel, Robert M.)
- Your Highlight on page 424 | Location 6138-6140 | Added on Sunday, September 21, 2014 4:28:35 AM


that Harry learned about the work of Raoul Wallenberg, the wealthy Swedish diplomat of Lutheran faith. In 1944, Wallenberg inspired others to help him save the lives of 100,000 Hungarian Jews. In January 1945, he and his chauffeur were taken by the Soviets and were never seen again.

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Rupert Red Two: A Fighter Pilot's Life From Thunderbolts to Thunderchiefs (Broughton, Jack;Hallion, Richard P.)
- Your Highlight on page 192 | Location 2660-2663 | Added on Sunday, October 5, 2014 6:32:45 AM


a T-33 out to the flight-test center at Edwards Air Force Base to see if we could pick up any hot tips from the acceptance flight-test records on the F or from the guys who had done the test work. The day we got there was the day the Edwards pilots found out that they would have a team in the race, so obviously they had no hot tips for us. In fact, their attitude was one of, “Why are you peons from the field bothering us super-smart test people?” That was OK, because it made us realize that we needed to be imaginative and different if we were to win.

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Rupert Red Two: A Fighter Pilot's Life From Thunderbolts to Thunderchiefs (Broughton, Jack;Hallion, Richard P.)
- Your Highlight on page 274 | Location 3912-3913 | Added on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 6:15:35 AM


identified the unit and included the Latin phrase Isti Non Penetrabunt (The Bastards Shall Not Pass).
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The Abolition of Man (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis) (Lewis, C. S.)
- Your Highlight on page 13 | Location 127-129 | Added on Thursday, October 9, 2014 1:50:10 PM


My own experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.
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New American Standard Bible-NASB 1995 (Includes Translators' Notes) (The Lockman Foundation)
- Your Highlight on Location 64309-64312 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 2:40:07 AM


5 Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that athe Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, bsubsequently destroyed those who did not believe.
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New American Standard Bible-NASB 1995 (Includes Translators' Notes) (The Lockman Foundation)
- Your Highlight on Location 64315-64316 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 2:40:24 AM


aTwo early mss read Jesus
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New American Standard Bible-NASB 1995 (Includes Translators' Notes) (The Lockman Foundation)
- Your Highlight on Location 60680-60681 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 2:41:14 AM


and the rock was aChrist.
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New American Standard Bible-NASB 1995 (Includes Translators' Notes) (The Lockman Foundation)
- Your Highlight on Location 60682-60682 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 2:41:18 AM


aI.e. the Messiah]
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New American Standard Bible-NASB 1995 (Includes Translators' Notes) (The Lockman Foundation)
- Your Highlight on Location 57296-57296 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 2:42:25 AM


41These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.
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New American Standard Bible-NASB 1995 (Includes Translators' Notes) (The Lockman Foundation)
- Your Highlight on Location 57065-57069 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 2:43:16 AM


56Your father Abraham rejoiced ato see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” 57So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” 58Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham bwas born, I am.” 59Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus chid Himself and went out of the temple.
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American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile (Neuhaus, Richard John)
- Your Highlight on page 24 | Location 303-306 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 2:49:32 AM


The author goes on to point out that Christians reject certain practices of the Roman world. For instance, they refuse to abort their children or to practice infanticide by exposing their children to the elements, as was common among the Romans. Christians recognize, says the letter writer, that they are viewed as alien, and are not intimidated by that. On the contrary, they rejoice in it.
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American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile (Neuhaus, Richard John)
- Your Highlight on page 23 | Location 299-301 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 2:51:25 AM


The Letter to Diognetus. The letter was written by a Christian, possibly toward the end of the first century, to Diognetus, a pagan who was curious about the way Christians thought of their place in the world.
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American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile (Neuhaus, Richard John)
- Your Highlight on page 200 | Location 2381-2384 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 4:50:05 AM


Although ostensibly removing it from politics, the Court’s abortion decisions forced into the political arena an issue that was thought to have been settled in the centuries of civilizational tradition of which our polity is part: namely, that it is morally wrong and rightly made unlawful to deliberately kill innocent human beings.
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American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile (Neuhaus, Richard John)
- Your Highlight on page 200 | Location 2384-2387 | Added on Friday, October 10, 2014 4:51:12 AM


If a principle is established by which some indisputably human lives do not warrant the protections traditionally associated with the dignity of the human person—because of their size, location, dependency, level of development, or burdensomeness to others—it would seem that there are numerous candidates for the application of the principle, beginning with the radically handicapped, both physically and mentally, not to mention millions of the aged and severely debilitated in our nation’s nursing homes.
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Gods and Generals: A Novel of the Civil War (The Civil War: 1861-1865) (Shaara, Jeff)
- Your Highlight on page 361 | Location 7019-7021 | Added on Thursday, October 23, 2014 5:35:34 AM


He knew he was angry, and an officer cannot be angry, does not have the luxury of the good old-fashioned cleansing temper, of walking up to headquarters with a pint of whiskey and two hard fists, kicking down the door and launching a bolt of lightning through the face of the man who did this. He felt himself shake. Yes, that would be very damned nice.

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Justification and Rome (Robert D. Preus)
- Your Highlight on Location 1547-1547 | Added on Wednesday, October 29, 2014 2:51:32 PM


Helsinki debacle
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The Theology of Post-Reformation Lutheranism Volume II (Preus, Robert D.)
- Your Highlight on Location 3384-3385 | Added on Wednesday, October 29, 2014 3:05:40 PM


Creation is often attributed specifically to Him in Scripture (John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Eph.3:9; 1 Cor.8:6). It
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reflections-trinity17-endofchurchyear-2014-linear (buetowmt@gmail.com)
- Your Note on Location 726 | Added on Sunday, November 9, 2014 5:20:24 AM


efficacy
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reflections-trinity17-endofchurchyear-2014-linear (buetowmt@gmail.com)
- Your Highlight on Location 726-726 | Added on Sunday, November 9, 2014 5:20:24 AM


These words deliver what they say. They give what they promise.
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reflections-trinity17-endofchurchyear-2014-linear (buetowmt@gmail.com)
- Your Highlight on Location 724-728 | Added on Sunday, November 9, 2014 5:21:56 AM


“I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..” “I forgive you all your sins...” “Take, eat; this is My body. Take, drink; This is My blood.” These words deliver what they say. They give what they promise. They make new and do and act and create and forgive and save. Because they are Jesus' Words. And since He is the Word, His Words do what only the Word of God can do: forgive sins and bestow upon us forgiveness, life, and salvation.
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reflections-trinity17-endofchurchyear-2014-linear (buetowmt@gmail.com)
- Your Highlight on Location 728-731 | Added on Sunday, November 9, 2014 5:22:37 AM


Jesus scolded the crowd that it would take signs and wonders and miracles for them to believe. Yet what really brings faith is His Word. His Word creates faith in us and that faith trusts in Him and receives the gifts His Word delivers. He speaks. It happens. That's the sort of Word the Savior is and has and speaks. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1501-1501 | Added on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 7:31:41 AM


He expressed his gratification at the services the howitzer in the church steeple was doing,
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1506-1508 | Added on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 7:38:37 AM


Belen. The troops that I was with were in the houses north of the road leading into the city, and were engaged during the night in cutting passage-ways from one house to another towards the town. During the night Santa Anna, with his army—except the deserters—left the city. He
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1508-1512 | Added on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 7:38:51 AM


liberated all the convicts confined in the town, hoping, no doubt, that they would inflict upon us some injury before daylight; but several hours after Santa Anna was out of the way, the city authorities sent a delegation to General Scott to ask—if not demand—an armistice, respecting church property, the rights of citizens and the supremacy of the city government in the management of municipal affairs. General Scott declined to trammel himself with conditions, but gave assurances that those who chose to remain within our lines would be protected so long as they behaved themselves properly.
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1679-1680 | Added on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 8:59:57 AM


Another amusement of the people of Mexico of that day, and one which nearly all indulged in, male and female, old and young, priest and layman, was Monte playing. Regular feast weeks were held every year at
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1680-1685 | Added on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 9:00:24 AM


what was then known as St. Augustin Tlalpam, eleven miles out of town. There were dealers to suit every class and condition of people. In many of the booths tlackos—the copper coin of the country, four of them making six and a quarter cents of our money—were piled up in great quantities, with some silver, to accommodate the people who could not bet more than a few pennies at a time. In other booths silver formed the bulk of the capital of the bank, with a few doubloons to be changed if there should be a run of luck against the bank. In some there was no coin except gold. Here the rich were said to bet away their entire estates in a single day. All this is stopped now.
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 630-632 | Added on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 3:22:18 PM


Almost every Mexican above the age of ten years, and many much younger, smoked the cigarette. Nearly every Mexican carried a pouch of leaf tobacco, powdered by rolling in the hands, and a roll of corn husks to make wrappers. The cigarettes were made by the smokers as they used them.
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1771-1775 | Added on Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:05:10 PM


It must have been a Saturday night; the peons had been paid off, and spent part of the night in gambling away their scanty week’s earnings. Their coin was principally copper, and I do not believe there was a man among them who had received as much as twenty-five cents in money. They were as much excited, however, as if they had been staking thousands. I recollect one poor fellow, who had lost his last tlacko, pulled off his shirt and, in the most excited manner, put that up on the turn of a card. Monte was the game played, the place out of doors, near the window of the room occupied by the officers of our party.
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 2041-2053 | Added on Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:47:47 PM


Doubtless the founders of our government, the majority of them at least, regarded the confederation of the colonies as an experiment. Each colony considered itself a separate government; that the confederation was for mutual protection against a foreign foe, and the prevention of strife and war among themselves. If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted. The problem changed on the ratification of the Constitution by all the colonies; it changed still more when amendments were added; and if the right of any one State to withdraw continued to exist at all after the ratification of the Constitution, it certainly ceased on the formation of new States, at least so far as the new States themselves were concerned. It was never possessed at all by Florida or the States west of the Mississippi, all of which were purchased by the treasury of the entire nation. Texas and the territory brought into the Union in consequence of annexation, were purchased with both blood and treasure; and Texas, with a domain greater than that of any European state except Russia, was permitted to retain as state property all the public lands within its borders. It would have been ingratitude and injustice of the most flagrant sort for this State to withdraw from the Union after all that had been spent and done to introduce her; yet, if separation had actually occurred, Texas must necessarily have gone with the South, both on account of her institutions and her geographical position. Secession was illogical as well as impracticable; it was revolution.
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 2053-2057 | Added on Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:48:11 PM


Now, the right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable. But any people or part of a people who resort to this remedy, stake their lives, their property, and every claim for protection given by citizenship—on the issue. Victory, or the conditions imposed by the conqueror—must be the result.
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 2095-2097 | Added on Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:51:54 PM


Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to direction.
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 2105-2109 | Added on Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:53:43 PM


There was a time when slavery was not profitable, and the discussion of the merits of the institution was confined almost exclusively to the territory where it existed. The States of Virginia and Kentucky came near abolishing slavery by their own acts, one State defeating the measure by a tie vote and the other only lacking one. But when the institution became profitable, all talk of its abolition ceased where it existed; and naturally, as human nature is constituted, arguments were adduced in its support. The cotton-gin probably had much to do with the justification of slavery.
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 2120-2124 | Added on Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:57:00 PM


Meanwhile the Administration of President Buchanan looked helplessly on and proclaimed that the general government had no power to interfere; that the Nation had no power to save its own life. Mr. Buchanan had in his cabinet two members at least, who were as earnest—to use a mild term—in the cause of secession as Mr. Davis or any Southern statesman. One of them, Floyd, the Secretary of War, scattered the army so that much of it could be captured when hostilities should commence, and distributed the cannon and small arms from Northern arsenals throughout the South so as to be on hand when treason wanted them. The navy was scattered in like manner
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Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes (Grant, Ulysses S.)
- Your Highlight on Location 2144-2146 | Added on Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:58:35 PM


The Confederates proclaimed themselves aliens, and thereby debarred themselves of all right to claim protection under the Constitution of the United States. We did not admit the fact that they were aliens, but all the same, they debarred themselves of the right to expect better treatment than people of any other foreign state who make war upon an independent nation.
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History, Law and Christianity: A Vigorous, Convincing Presentation of the Evidence for a Historical Jesus (Montgomery, John Warwick)
- Your Highlight on Location 226-226 | Added on Saturday, November 29, 2014 5:38:38 AM


Christian theology cannot be divorced from logic and history.
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The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Heather, Peter)
- Your Highlight on page 111 | Location 2053-2055 | Added on Saturday, November 29, 2014 12:35:56 PM


In addition, transport was hugely expensive; Diocletian’s Prices Edict (see p. 65) records that a wagon of wheat doubled in price for every fifty miles it travelled.
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The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Heather, Peter)
- Your Highlight on page 111 | Location 2055-2057 | Added on Saturday, November 29, 2014 12:36:34 PM


In these fundamental ways, the Roman economy was at every era trapped at not much above subsistence levels. Until very recently, scholars have been confident that the higher tax-take of the late Roman state aggravated these conditions to the extent that it became impossible for the Empire’s peasant population to maintain itself even at existing low levels.
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The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Heather, Peter)
- Your Highlight on page 110 | Location 2051-2053 | Added on Saturday, November 29, 2014 12:36:51 PM


sophisticated techniques for maintaining fertility, were unable greatly to increase their output of foodstuffs in anything like the way that the use of chemical fertilizers has made possible in the modern era. This in turn acted as a brake on population levels, since human numbers tend to increase up to a limit imposed by the availability of food.

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At Home in the House of My Fathers: Presidential Sermons, Essays, Letters, and Addresses from the Missouri Synod's Great Era of Unity and Growth (Harrison, Matthew C.)
- Your Highlight on Location 14354-14355 | Added on Friday, December 12, 2014 3:10:42 AM


The world rejoices when it sees a Christian fall, and telegraphs the news over the entire continent, because it sees therein a welcome excuse for its own unbelief.
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2010_Handbook-rev032013 (tcschenks@yahoo.com)
- Your Highlight on Location 961-962 | Added on Friday, December 12, 2014 3:17:39 AM


(1) Every congregation is encouraged to include in its organizational structure an elected or appointed board or committee for stewardship. (2) This board or committee shall be responsible for carrying on an adequate stewardship program in the manner prescribed by the congregation.

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Seized: A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters (Hardberger, Max)
- Your Highlight on Location 2679-2682 | Added on Tuesday, December 23, 2014 10:59:28 AM


The policeman was an unregenerate Stalinist, and he was very unhappy about the criminal element taking over Vladivostok. He said that four of his men had been shot in the past year and that the police in the city felt like they were under siege. He said darkly—as translated by the trader—that under the old regime such elements would have been eradicated. The gray man nodded agreement and we all raised a toast to the old regime.
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Stewardship (Clements, C. Justin )
- Your Highlight on Location 340-341 | Added on Sunday, December 28, 2014 5:48:15 AM


No longer is the priest one of very few highly educated members of the community; no longer can pastors rule parishes as fiefdoms or benevolent dictatorships.
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The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien, J.R.R.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1314-1321 | Added on Tuesday, December 30, 2014 4:36:08 PM


The last Christian marriage I attended was held under your system: the bridal pair were ‘married’ twice. They married one another before the Church’s witness (a priest), using one set of formulas, and making a vow of lifelong fidelity (and the woman of obedience); they then married again before the State’s witness (a registrar, and in this case – adding in my view to the impropriety – a woman) using another set of formulas and making no vow of fidelity or obedience. I felt it was an abominable proceeding – and also ridiculous, since the first set of formulas and vows included the latter as the lesser. In fact it was only not ridiculous on the assumption that the State was in fact saying by implication: I do not recognize the existence of your church; you may have taken certain vows in your meeting-place but they are just foolishness, private taboos, a burden you take on yourself: a limited and impermanent contract is all that is really necessary for citizens. In other words this ‘sharp division’ is a piece of propaganda, a counter-homily delivered to young Christians fresh from the solemn words of the Christian minister.
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The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien, J.R.R.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1400-1407 | Added on Friday, January 2, 2015 1:14:03 AM


If you don’t do so already, make a habit of the ‘praises’. I use them much (in Latin): the Gloria Patri, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Laudate Dominum; the Laudate Pueri Dominum (of which I am specially fond), one of the Sunday psalms; and the Magnificat; also the Litany of Loretto (with the prayer Sub tuum praesidium). If you have these by heart you never need for words of joy. It is also a good and admirable thing to know by heart the Canon of the Mass, for you can say this in your heart if ever hard circumstance keeps you from hearing Mass. So endeth Fæder lar his suna.1 With very much love. Longaoð þonne þy lǽs þe him con léoþa worn, oþþe mid hondum con hearpan grétan; hafaþ him his glíwes giefe, þe him God sealde.
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The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien, J.R.R.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1590-1605 | Added on Friday, January 2, 2015 3:04:33 PM


I was pleased that you managed to get some church at the end of Holy Week, though not too pleased with your Even-christians (as they called ‘em in O. & M.E.).4 However that cannot be helped. The only salve is the sudden reflection that one of them is prob. making an adverse judgement on oneself, not unreasonable as founded on one’s looks and deportment, but as wide of the mark of the inner self as our own are! God ána wát.5 But as for sermons! They are bad, aren’t they! Most of them from any point of view. The answer to the mystery is prob. not simple; but part of it is that ‘rhetoric’ (of which preaching is a dept.) is an art, which requires (a) some native talent and (b) learning and practice. The instrument used is v. much more complex than a piano, yet most performers are in the position of a man who sits down to a piano and expects to move his audience without any knowledge of the notes at all. The art can be learned (granted some modicum of aptitude) and can then be effective, in a way, when wholly unconnected with sincerity, sanctity etc. But preaching is complicated by the fact that we expect in it not only a performance, but truth and sincerity, and also at least no word, tone, or note that suggests the possession of vices (such as hypocrisy, vanity) or defects (such as folly, ignorance) in the preacher. Good sermons require some art, some virtue, some knowledge. Real sermons require some special grace which does not transcend art but arrives at it by instinct or ‘inspiration’; indeed the Holy Spirit seems sometimes to speak through a human mouth providing art, virtue and insight he does not himself possess: but the occasions are rare. In other times I don’t think an educated person is required to suppress the critical faculty, but it should be kept in order by a constant endeavour to apply the truth (if any), even in cliché form, to oneself exclusively! A difficult exercise. . . . .
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The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien, J.R.R.)
- Your Highlight on Location 1922-1923 | Added on Saturday, January 3, 2015 2:54:08 AM


I’m afraid I have made a great mistake in making my sequel too long and complicated and too slow in coming out. It is a curse having the epic temperament in an overcrowded age devoted to snappy bits!
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The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien, J.R.R.)
- Your Highlight on Location 2289-2294 | Added on Sunday, January 4, 2015 2:41:46 PM


Mr Eden in the house2 the other day expressed pain at the occurrences in Greece ‘the home of democracy’. Is he ignorant, or insincere? δημοχρατìα was not in Greek a word of approval but was nearly equivalent to ‘mob-rule’; and he neglected to note that Greek Philosophers – and far more is Greece the home of philosophy – did not approve of it. And the great Greek states, esp. Athens at the time of its high art and power, were rather Dictatorships, if they were not military monarchies like Sparta! And modern Greece has as little connexion with ancient Hellas as we have with Britain before Julius Agricola. .

2015 Missouri District LCMS Convention


Looking through the Convention Workbook for the first time, as I've recently gone from Alternate to Voting Delegate:

I remember a few years ago, someone submitted an overture to give the District President more control over the pastor's conferences because no one was consulting with Pres. Mirly and he apparently wanted a say about it. So, the District voted to add the DP as a consultant or advisor (whatever that meant). At least that's how I recall it.

Now the MO District BOD is proposing outright control by the District Praesidium (and a couple of other people elected at convention) over the planning of the pastor's conferences.

See Resolution 3-07 (TChange Official Conference Committees) in the Convention Workbook at http://mo.lcms.org/

This resolution is also being associated with President Harrison by name-dropping the ubiquitous Koinonia Project and that the resolution is “to conserve and promote the unity of the faith"???? What????

Side Note: Why are there so many resolutions submitted by the Board of Directors? If they would stop recommending all these ridiculous changes we wouldn't even need to have a convention this year, and I'm not even talking about time-wasters such as changing the by-laws to read Visitor instead of Counselor. It's like they're having to make up stuff to vote on.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Bad Communion Hymns

A few years ago I was flipping channels in a hotel room and stopped on a Roman Catholic channel broadcasting a recording of a Mass. A woman was singing "You satisfy the hungry heart." I'd never heard it before and I thought it was some kind of contemporary worship thing. Didn't pay much attention to it. After that, I've noticed my pastor using this as a communion hymn. I'm not sure why a 1970s Roman Catholic hymn ended up in the Lutheran Service Book.



From a Roman Catholic education website:

A fifty-year ban is in order here. As it is for "Gift of Finest Wheat." The late Omer Westendorf did a lot for liturgical renewal, but he was no poet (as his attempt to improve on Luther in his rewrite of "A Mighty Fortress" "the guns and nuclear might/stand withered in his sight" should have demonstrated). Why Mr. Westendorf was commissioned to write the official hymn for the 1976 International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia is one of the minor mysteries of recent years. "You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat/Come give to us, O saving Lord, the bread of life to eat" isn't heresy. But it's awful poetry, and it can be read in ways that intensify today's confusions over the Real Presence. It, too, goes under the fifty-year ban.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Dave Ellefson "My Life With Deth"

A letter from an LCMS pastor three years ago (Jan. 2012):


For those who have not read the newspaper article that I referenced yesterday, you now have it in this forward.  Please take the time to read it.
 
    After reading it, I would join all those who say: "Thank God for reclaiming to the Christian faith someone who had been led astray by bad music and human associations.  The angels in heaven rejoice.  So do we.  Thank the Lord."
 
    But now that Ellefson has returned to the faith and is studying for the ministry, I still have not had answered a couple of questions that pop into my mind.  No lay person or pastor or seminary person has answered these questions as of today.
 
1)  If you were one of the individuals who helped to start Megadeth as a hard rock musical group and your association with that group led you to deny your faith, if you returned to the faith and started MEGA Life which sends the opposite message of Megadeth, how can you continue to tour with Megadeth and still be connected with MEGA Life?
 
2)  Ellefson says in the second last paragraph of the article that "he has learned to keep his faith and his onstage persona separate..."  My question is this:  "Does the Bible tell us that we are supposed to separate our faith from our life?"  I thought we were supposed to let our light shine forth wherever we are, whether on stage or off stage, whether in private or in public?"  Tim Tebow of the Denver Broncos would be a good example of that.  So also are we!
 
    I would appreciate any of your comments.
 And a follow-up to that letter a few days later from the same pastor:

    I had tried talking with Pastor Bjorgard earlier but no luck.  I tried once at church.  All I got were the recordings.  I tried again and actually got to talk to someone.  I got his cell phone number and called him.  Left a voice mail message.  He returned my phone call about an hour ago.  Our talk was most helpful.
 
    He said he himself had the read article.   When I told him my two fold concerns, he said:  "I don't blame you.  I had the same concerns you just expressed after I read the article.  He said my concerns were very valid on the basis of the article." 
 
    He told me that he was sure that most people who read the article would blow right past these valid concerns because they were seeing it only from their perspective of someone coming back to the faith after falling away from the faith and now serving the Lord in his new position.
 
    He thanked me for being theologically astute enough to pick up on these two following concerns since he was sure that most people would pick up on them:
 
1)  Concern # 1 - How can someone who had fallen away from the Christian faith because of his involvement in Megadeth now serve in MEGA Life and still go back on tour with the same group that was responsible for his departure from the faith? 
 
2)  Concern # 2 - How can someone separate their Christian faith from their Christian life?  When I read to him the quotations from Dr. Martin Luther in his Commentary on Galatians from Galatians 2,20 he said:  "I am in total agreement with what you have just said.  There is no way that we Christians can separate our faith life from our daily life.  They go together.
 
    Briefly stated, Pastor B said that this newspaper article did a great injustice to David Ellefson.  He said it totally misrepresented the real David Ellefson.  I told him I made allowance for this misrepresentation since I have often been misquoted and misrepresented in newspaper articles.
 
    In short, Pastor B said that David shares his Christian faith wherever he goes on tour.  David is very concerned about reaching out to those who have become addicted to many anti-Christian things since he himself had at one time become addicted to some of them.    Pastor B said that David and one of the other band member are both Christian men.  They have Bible study every day wherever they perform.  Before and after their performances, they invite people backstage so they have an opportunity to talk to people about the Christian faith.  He said David lives out his Christian faith.  Thanks be to God.
 
    Pastor B said that the "old Megadeth" lyrics are now different than the "new Megadeth" lyrics.  He said that their songs are not Christian songs but were mostly intended to send a political message. 
 
    When I asked him whether or not the lyrics agreed with the Bible, he said that it might be possible that some of the political messages may not always be Scriptural.  But at least it is not the dark kind of stuff that used to be associated and probably still is associated with heavy metal and hard rock.
 
    Pastor B also indicated that David is not now the leader of MEGA Life but does make appearances there once in awhile when he is off tour.  But his ministry is an outreach ministry to those who have become addicted to various sinful behaviors.
 
    Pastor B thanked me again for giving him a telephone call.  He said he was in full agreement with my concerns and that I was not off base in asking about them.  He said that maybe when David is on campus the next time for residential work that both he and  David can meet with me.  I said that the door is wide open as far as I am concerned for such a meeting.
Here are some clippings from Dave Ellefsen's Autobiography "My Life With Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock and Roll (Ellefson, David; McIver, Joel)".
 
"It was like that with a lot of things: the first time I drank I thought, “This isn’t bad—it’s awesome!” Then a couple of months later I tried pot and I was like, “This is awesome, too!” Then I did some cocaine and I thought, “Okay, this feels kinda funny—but I’m not dead, and I’m not in jail, so it can’t be that bad.” They teach you in high school that every drug is a gateway to the next drug, and they’re right, because the next thing I knew, there I was on heroin."
 
  • I commend Vicar (?) Ellefsen's acknowledgement of marijuana being a gateway drug.
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"I was becoming a bona fide addict after only a single year in Los Angeles. By mid-1984 I was drinking, smoking pot, using cocaine, and taking heroin. Those became my Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."


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"These days, I find that modern church culture is fantastic. It is much different from what it was when I was growing up. Nowadays it is tied in with social media and with cool, uplifting rock music. For people of my age it needed to make that shift to remain relevant."
  • The labels cool, uplifting, and relevant are troublesome to me. Word and Sacrament are efficacious, but do they have to be relevant?


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"My feelings about church were that it was culturally irrelevant, that it was dated, and that it was for my parents’ generation, not mine. Then, like I said, the church reinvented itself, and that was something that I wanted to continue with MEGA Life!"
 
  • More comments about relevancy...dated..."not mine..."
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"And yet here we were only a few years later, with kids in tow for preschool. At the urging of our children, we started attending church there, so they could be with their friends. I presented my Lutheran Confirmation credentials and we officially joined as a family."
 
  • I'd never heard of a years-inactive/delinquent members showing up at a sister congregation and "presenting Lutheran Confirmation credentials" to join then. No catechesis? This sounds extremely weird.
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"Music started as a passion for me, and to this day it still is. Some musical settings can really rob you of that passion and leave you empty, even to the point of disliking music altogether. I try to avoid those people and those settings. After all, if music is your gift, anyone who tries to quench that gift is like a thief robbing you of what is rightfully yours to enjoy."
 
  • Does that mean he's going to avoid everyone else in the church body? He's attempting to become a member of Synod, not merely a pastor of one satellite congregation.
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(Index/Back of Book)
 
"Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod seminary, St. Louis, Mississippi, 201"
 
  • An editorial mistake, but one that the author should have noticed. Concordia Seminary in St. Louis is in the state of Missouri, not Mississippi.
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"My faith walk continues and progresses. I now study in a Senior Mentoring Program, or SMP, for members of a congregation who wish to become ordained. It is run by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, which offers online studies."
  • I'm curious if this was a typo or is the author aware of the name of his seminary program (Ellefson stated elsewhere that he served for a time as a member of his congregation's board of elders). SMP is the LCMS seminary Specific Ministry Pastoral Program, not a Senior Mentoring Program.
 

Thursday, October 9, 2014

LCMS Doctrinal Resolution About (Lay) Elders

1850 LCMS Doctrinal Resolution regarding "Lay Elders." (Boards of Elders, etc.)


Ruling elders may not pray publicly, though they may read a pastor’s written prayer in his place.


Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Moral Therapeutic Deism

http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2014/07/moralistic-therapeutic-deism-say-that.html



Why Be Lutheran?

Reply posted by Pr. William Weedon on the ALPB Online Forum on the question of why be a Lutheran:




George,



Been rather occupied of late, but I didn't want the question to go unanswered from my LCMS perspective. First, the reason I'd want anyone and everyone to be Lutheran is because I believe that we hold the pure and true confession of the Christian faith. Second, the way I'd share that with anyone is rather simple. I'd use the old Patristic method that St. John Chrysostom espoused:

There comes a heathen and says, "I wish to become a Christian, but I know not whom to join: there is much fighting and faction among you, much confusion: which doctrine am I to choose?" How shall we answer him? "Each of you" (says he) "asserts, 'I speak the truth.'"  No  doubt: this is in our favor. For if we told you to be persuaded by arguments, you might well be perplexed: but if we bid you believe the Scriptures, and these are simple and true, the decision is easy for you. If any agree with the Scriptures, he is the Christian; if any fight against them, he is far from this rule.  -- St. John Chrysostom, (Homily 33 in Acts of the Apostles [NPNF1,11:210-11; PG 60.243-44])

So I'd say: here's the Scripture. Here's our Confessions. If you find they say the same thing, you're a Lutheran! And when it comes to our Confessions, I'd really just stick to the Creeds, the AC, and the SC. That's the sum of the Confessions and everything else in them can be extrapolated from those documents. So it's not too hard, but it IS worthy of hard study, prayer, and thought.

If the person had any questions about why we taught X or Y, I'd certainly be more than ready to demonstrate why we do so from the Scriptures.

But that's how I'd approach it. I don't think the Scriptures are the least bit unclear (despite OUR cloudiness!) and I don't think there's a clearer exposition of the Scriptures to be found anywhere in the world than the Lutheran Symbols.


P.S.S. Let me also add (because I can hear the objection arising already), but EVERY Protestant sect claims that (as also, of course, do Rome and the East). But the great joy of the Lutheran Church is that it simply knows no other way to persuade a person and absolutely renounces every coercion of conscience. We say:

Here are the Scriptures.

and

Here is what our Church believes, teaches and confesses on the basis of those Scriptures.

You check it out and see.

There was a time when Orthodox polemics had almost persuaded me that private judgment was an evil, but then Krauth showed ever so clearly (and also St. Augustine!) that one arrives at any conviction (even the renunciation of private judgement!) only by its exercise!!! We cannot do better than what we saw the Christians do at Berea: to check what is taught against what is written.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

I Do Not want My Grandfather’s Church Nor Captain Kirk, by Pastor Klemet Preus

Reposted from Aug. 12, 2008 article at http://steadfastlutherans.org

August 12th, 2008 by Pastor Klemet Preus
 
While theology does not change, management style and theory do. And these days we are experiencing a leadership style which is painfully similar to that of my Grandfather’s church but without effectiveness.
 
The Baby Boom took place from 1946-1964. Those born before the baby boom tend to have a top down leadership theory and style. Those at the top make decisions which those under them carry out. In this system, leaders, if they are to function at maximum efficiency must have the authority to appoint subordinates, instruct them, direct them, replace them if necessary and basically lead through giving directions. The quintessential leader of this generation is Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. He made decisions without really consulting too many people. He rarely sought the council of his detractors and he was always flying by the seat of his pants. He delegated as little as possible insisting that he was really the one to carry out most of the crucial tasks. When McCoy is complaining “Darnn it Jim. I’m a doctor, not a miracle worker,” you know that too few people are doing the work.  
 
This is president Kieschnick’s style – kind of. He is top down in his approach. He was the president who, in encouraging us to give our money to the synod wrote, “You’ve got it. We need it. Let’s have it.” Is that top down? You bet. When the Board of Communications Services called someone to be the assistant editor of the Lutheran Witness, President Kieschnick nixed the choice because he did not like the board’s appointee. In his fundraising visits President Kieschnick has to make the direct appeals himself. This cannot be entrusted to others. And, while President Kieschnick apparently does have his advisors, most seem to be cut from his cloth. He even beseeched the convention in 2001 to elect men of his ilk to other positions of leadership. Those vice presidents who served during his first term were used sparingly if at all. In fact the 2004 convention was the first convention in recent memory in which no vice president chaired the assembly. His first vice president was consulted neither on the Benke matter nor on other matters of crucial importance to the synod such as CCM appointments. President Kieschnick would no more listen to guys like Daniel Preus or Todd Wilken than James Kirk would heed the council of a Klingon.          
 
The difference between Kirk and Kieschnick is that Captain Kirk was actually willing to endanger himself for the sake of his goals and his comrades. He fought the Klingons hand to hand. He would never have hung a colleague out to dry. Are you listening David Strand? He never intimidated by innuendo or through his minions. He did it face to face by the force of his own person. Would it have taken Kirk five years to sit down and talk to NICL? No way. He would have initiated dialog immediately and would have had the confidence to be the chief spokesmen in dialog. Top down leadership must be courageous and competent.
 
Baby Boomers tend to be drawn to a more synergistic style of leadership. They want a leader who will invite the advice of detractors, who will surround himself with people who are experts in many diverse subjects. Baby Boomers want a leader who will say, “You’ve got it. We need it. How can you teach us to get it?” Baby Boomers don’t necessarily need a leader who has all the answers when it comes to administrative decisions. They want one who will listen to a multitude of answers and sift through them. The quintessential leader for the Baby Boom generation is Jean Luc Piccard of the Starship Enterprise. He was captian in “Star-Trek: The Next Generation”. His style was to call a meeting of all his senior staff. Here he would pose the problem, analyze it with his staff and listen to possible solutions. And his staff was a thoroughly diverse group made up of aliens, Klingons, Robots and – even some detractors. Piccard knew that you can never solve problems without making room for all within the decision making mechanism.
 
Of course this style actually requires a bit of trust and respect. You can’t call your detractors “speed-bumps.”   You can’t ignore them for years on end. You can’t refuse to consult anyone you think will disagree. You can’t hoard power or grasp it. You don’t push, you – well – you lead.
 
I’m a Boomer and I enjoyed both Kirk and Piccard. Kirk was much more exciting than Piccard. But Kirk got fat, raised horses and lived off the past. And while he had power he endangered the ship recklessly. Piccard. Ah, Piccard. I wish we could find a Piccard for the church. I sure am getting tired of my grandfather’s church.