Pastor Corey Widmer writes:

Reminder #1: Politics is not a Pass for Christian Discipleship

“Brian Roberts notes that political discourse is like the Vegas of Christianity – it’s that place where sin and indiscretion is winked at and excused. Hate speech, vitriolic language, childish names, caricaturing opposing viewpoints — just go on, Christian, your sin is excused here.

“Jesus doesn’t live in Vegas. Please friends, this is inexcusable.”

Personal note: I told you a while back that the Viking Age Club and Society of the Sons of Norway, my reenactment group, was being considered as the subject of a reality TV show. We got the final word today that the production company has not been able to find a buyer for the project. So that’s that.

I told another member a while back that my feelings on the whole thing were mixed. For my own sake, I’d like it to happen so I’d get exposure for my novels. But for the sake of the young people in our group (and we have a fair number now), I hoped it wouldn’t happen. Because fame in your youth is one of the worst disasters that can happen to you.

All for the best, then.

Today is Reformation Day, so as the Lutheran caucus of this blog, I think I ought to say something about it.

I direct you to this post at Anthony Sacramone’s Strange Herring blog, if you have a taste for tall grass theology. Anthony is underappreciated as a theologian, and I think he nails the point of the discussion.

In overview:

It starts with a link to a post from Russell Saltzman, a Lutheran pastor, over at First Things. He considers a recent article by Carl Braaten, a noted theologian of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Braaten sees no reason why Lutherans should not be allowed to commune in Roman Catholic churches, giving a long list of things that Lutherans and Catholics now agree on. Saltzman, taking exception, points out that women’s ordination is a serious and sufficient disagreement.

Then, in the comments, a Catholic priest points out further, more fundamental differences in how Lutherans and Catholics understand the very nature of the church.

Finally, Anthony himself notes that all this still misses the point. He expounds a number of differences from the Lutheran point of view. Especially in terms of the doctrine of justification.

I agree with him entirely.

But what amazes me is that, as a conservative Lutheran, I even agree with the Catholic priest far more than with the ELCA theologian. I far prefer an honorable opponent to a shifty ally.

I think Luther would have agreed.

And it snowed today. The first real snow day of the winter. It didn’t accumulate; not quite cold enough for that. But it snowed seriously, with deliberation. Notice has been served.

I spoke with a persecuted pastor in the library today. Pastor Tom Brock, my former pastor, victim of the Gay Inquisition, whom I’ve written about here before. He’s got a TV and radio ministry now, and he told me he was featured in this article at the Christian Post. You can read more about his story there.

Gene Veith talks about Thomas Kidd’s analysis of a new class of American evangelicals who don’t hold the water for the GOP because of their evangelical worldview. Kidd writes:

These paleo evangelicals keep the Republican party at arm’s length for three main reasons:

1. A deep suspicion of American civil religion
2. [Diminished] hope in any political party doing that much good in this world
3. Problems with certain Republican positions

But on some of the most compelling issues, the Republican Party still seems like the best option for many paleos.

I think Kidd has hit the dead head on the money nail. I might even call myself a paleo evangelical, but I’ve never keep the GOP at arm’s length, because I believe they are the current best option for reforming our government.

Here’s what I’m doing. I’m thinking “on paper” here. Trying to work out a moral equation. If my conclusion satisfies me, and if your comments don’t demolish it, I’ll probably cross-post it over at Mere Comments.

How many times have you gotten into the Body Count argument? You know what I mean. Somebody brings up the tired canard that “most wars are caused by religion,” or “religion has killed more people than any other cause.”

It’s good to note that, at least according to one study, that’s simply not true.

And when they bring up the Spanish Inquisition (you know they will), the most efficient answer is to point out that it took the Inquisition nearly a century and a half to kill 3-5,000 people while the atheistic Reign of Terror under the French Revolution murdered about 40,000 in less than a year.

Still, at least for me, that’s not entirely satisfactory. Saying, “We’re not as bad as you guys,” isn’t quite enough when you’re talking about killing people in the name of Christ, whether in the Inquisition, or during the Crusades, or under a pogrom. The deeper problem, in my view, is how to think about Christians who act like the worst kind of atheists (for of course most atheists are perfectly decent people), and how to judge their acts.

It seems to me that, from a moral point of view, there are two kinds of atrocity. One is the utilitarian atrocity, which is hideously evil. The other is the “spiritual” atrocity, which is infinitely worse—but only in one sense. Continue reading Two kinds of atrocity: an ethical thought experiment →

A very bad old picture of Leif Eriksson, posted here for your derision.



Today, as you’ve doubtless gathered from all the parades and celebrations in your neighborhood, is Leif Eriksson Day in the United States. Its date was chosen, not to commemorate the actual calendar date of Leif’s landing in Newfoundland (a friend tells me it seems to have happened in September on the basis of internal evidence in the saga), but in order to sneak in a couple days before Columbus Day and steal some of the Genoan’s thunder. Which the international Italian Conspiracy managed to thwart this year by arranging to have Columbus Day officially celebrated yesterday.

One aspect of Leif’s story which you used to hear about a lot, but much less nowadays, is his efforts as a missionary. According to Eirik’s Saga, one of the two classic saga accounts of the Vinland (America) voyages, Leif spent time at the court of King Olaf Trygvesson in Norway, where the king “bestowed great honor on him” (note what I said about such Icelandic visits to the court in yesterday’s post), and asked him “Are you intending to sail to Greenland this summer?”

“I think it would be a good idea,” said the king. “You are to go there with a mission from me, to preach Christianity in Greenland.” (The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America, trans. by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson, 1965, Penguin Books.)

This Leif did, to the great annoyance of his father Erik the Red, because Thjodhild, Erik’s wife and Leif’s mother, refused to cohabit with her husband after her conversion (this is questionable behavior under canon law, I believe, as it directly contradicts the teaching of St. Paul. I’m sure Father Ailill would have advised her otherwise). In the 19th and 20th centuries, when Christianity was more popular than it is now, many Leif enthusiasts looked on his voyage to Vinland as an extension of this mission, making him the first missionary to America. However, the sagas say nothing of that, nor of any attempt on his part to preach the gospel to the Skraelings (Indians).

In any case, scholars today are pretty sure the Olaf Trygvesson mission never happened. The story seems to have been introduced into the saga manuscripts fairly late. Early sources say that Olaf converted “five lands” to Christianity, but later writings credit him with “six lands.” The sixth land is Greenland, which the earlier writers hadn’t heard about, probably because it never happened.

I don’t think many historians seriously doubt that Leif was a Christian himself. The family gossip about religious conflict in his family has the ring of truth to it, and archaeologists have excavated a small church at his farm that matches the saga description of one Thjodhild built. But he wasn’t a government employee.

If you’ve read my Viking novels, you know that that was the Viking way.