Tag Archives: The Association of Free Lutheran Congregations

Religion

Very like a straight line

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Photo credit: Wolfgang Hasselmann wolfgang_hasselmann. Unsplash license.

Had a nice day today, but it stretched long, which is why I’m posting late. The board of the Georg Sverdrup Society, whose journal I edit, met in Mankato, Minnesota. And then we were treated to a tour of the archives and museum of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, on the campus of Bethany Lutheran College in that same town.

There’s probably a lesson in the fact that our different church bodies are the offspring of two opposing sides in 19th Century controversies among Norwegian Lutherans in the U.S., and yet we find ourselves today, if not allies, at least amiable rivals. The ELS is a legacy group out of the old Norwegian Synod, the most conservative and rigidly orthodox of the Norwegian immigrant church bodies. My group, the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, comes from what was then the liberal, free-wheeling, revivalist Lutheran Free Church. Our spiritual forefathers were bitter enemies who anathematized one another in fiery sermons and editorials. Now we find much to unite us.

That observation is, I suppose, the wrong way to introduce my topic tonight. Because I want to talk about objective truth. Eternal verities that must not be compromised.

Yesterday I described my delight at the new, sharp sight I’m enjoying in my left eye since my cataract surgery, less than a week ago as I write. My drive to Mankato today was along one of my favorite scenic routes in my state, Highway 169 along the Minnesota River valley, through Le Sueur, St. Peter, and Mankato. The skies were clear and colors were bright, and I felt ten years younger than I had a week ago.

But, as I mentioned, I do now have minor retina damage that slightly warps everything I see through that eye. Straight lines no longer look straight to me.

The lesson modern thought would have me learn from this experience is that I should abandon the whole idea of straight lines. Since I can’t see them anymore, obviously they don’t exist for me. We all live in our own reality, and my reality no longer includes straight lines.

I say phooey. I can remember straight lines. I can listen to the testimony of reliable people who talk to me about them. I can study geometry if I care to, and learn all about parallels and right angles and so on.

It’s like that bloody elephant in the famous secular parable. One blind man touches its flank and thinks an elephant is very like a wall. Another touches the trunk, and decides an elephant is very like a snake. And so on. Moderns take all this to mean that elephants don’t exist as such, but are something different for each person.

But the actual point of the parable is that they’re all wrong. What those blind men need to do is to get together and pool their information. After some frank consultation, they’ll probably be able to construct a pretty reasonable description of a whole elephant. If not, they can ask somebody who can see.

Religion, Uncategorized

Speaking of Vikings…

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Sorry about not posting yesterday. It was a day like no other, remarkable in its occurrences. There was no time, or energy, for blogging.

I don’t think I mentioned it before, because the event was a closed one, but I was invited to speak – twice – at a retreat for the pastors of my church body. They wanted me to first do an afternoon presentation on the Vikings, and then give a sermon to the pastors at the evening banquet.

Even I thought this rash, and probably ill-advised.

But I prepared my talks, and I was on the spot at the appointed hour. First I spoke about the conversion of Norway in the Viking Age, rehashing Fridtjof Birkeli’s revisionist arguments that the whole business was more peaceful than the saga writers suggest, and that Haakon the Good has been unjustly underrated by historians. I wondered whether any of the pastors would care about this, but in fact it turned out to be the first standing room only crowd I’ve ever addressed. The question and answer session afterwards was thoughtful and fun, and it ran overtime.

In the evening I gave a sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:12-20, where St. Paul describes the church as being like a body, in which every member has a function to carry out. I related this to our church body’s history, and to its emphasis on lay participation back in the days when it was still a debatable question whether a layman would be allowed to lead a prayer in the pastor’s absence. I stressed the risks involved in this way of doing church, and urged them to become risk-takers. (Easy for me to say; I’m not a pastor.) It went over very well, and the response was positive.

Oh yes, the food was delicious, too. We bachelors don’t get that many really good meals that we can afford to overlook them.

Then I drove home (depending on my GPS to get me around a bridge under repair), a shell of my former self, because that was about all the human contact I could handle in one day.

Bookselling

Momentous day

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Twice a year, I experience a major moment of accomplishment at work. That is the day I finally get all the assigned textbooks onto the shelves of the campus bookstore. Today was that day. Since this was also the first regular class day, it was none too soon.

Openly, and without fear or favor, I shall identify my biggest problem. It was Harper Collins Publishers, which owns, among its posse of subordinate religious houses, Zondervan and Thomas Nelson. I sent a lot of orders their way this fall, and I can’t fault HC for promptitude in delivery. The books came with dispatch (though they could improve their carton sealing procedures. One box was split open, though no books were lost).

The problem was their billing. Usually in this life we complain that bills come too soon. “The bill’s here already?” we say. “I just took delivery!”

But it’s different in my wild and crazy world. If I were like those bloated capitalists who run the average bookstore, I’d pause from lighting my cigars with $500 dollar bills to slap the suggested retail price on every book, then sit back and rake in the obscene profits. But at the schools of the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, we just add a small percentage markup to the wholesale cost, and pass the savings onto the customer. If we get a good deal, the buyer gets the benefit. That’s how we Free Lutherans roll.

But I can’t do perform that process if I don’t have the full cost of each book order. Many publishers include an invoice in the carton, or state the total cost (including shipping and handling) in the packing list. Harper Collins, however, does not do that. Their invoices finally arrived in the mail today, and I was able at last to price all our new books.

Then I performed some librarian magic to get the seminary dean a copy of an old journal article he wanted. Before I checked it out, I didn’t even know I could do that.

I need a medal. Some kind of an achievement award.

I’ll take a donut. Anybody got a donut?