Wheat and Weeds

I suppose if I am going to keep "Leftist Lutheran" as the title of my blog, I should post some stuff that is kinda Lutheran now and then.  I suppose my rants at Christian Life Resources count, since the group was originally called WELS Lutherans for Life, but my gripe with them is that they are too political.

I am always amazed at the weak Christian theology that the Religious Right spews out.  I would be embarrassed to allow these people to speak for me.  I am referring to people like Phil Robertson, James Dobson, Sarah Palin, Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, etc., etc.  My issue with them is that there never seems to be any gospel in what they say.  And if there is any gospel at all, they are misusing it as Law.

For example, in all of Duck Dynasty Phil's homophobic rants, his implication is that gays are going to hell because they sin.  By implication, I guess he must be saying that they just have to stop sinning like he did or something like that.  This is a preposterous belief for a Christian.  Even when he makes a feeble attempt at the gospel, it's wrong:  he says that St. Paul was a sinner, too, but that the gospel "changed" him.  Well yeah, but Paul is saved (and Phil, too) because he's forgiven, not because he stopped sinning.  Paul was changed because he was saved, he wasn't saved because he changed. If it is necessary to stop sinning to be saved then we are all in deep doo-doo.  Turning the gospel into Law is as bad as no gospel at all.

I attended a WELS church service while traveling last year.  One of the scripture readings for that day was the parable of the wheat and weeds in Matthew chapter 13. In his brief explanation of the parable, the pastor wrote this (a pretty good summary how Lutherans should view this parable): 

"God intended to have a weed-free field of wheat.  From the beginning, however, the enemy thwarted his intentions with temptation and sin.  How many Christians have seen the evil all around them and pondered the servants’ question, “Didn’t you sow good seed?”

"How many churchmen have tried to separate the wheat and weeds in the kingdom with rules or monasteries, with inquisitions or Pharasaical laws?  Anyone who tries only succeeds in ruining the wheat along with the weeds.  They uproot the faith of the weak who fall into sin; they trample faith of the strong by feeding their pride.

"The Lord most certainly has a plan to separate the wheat and weeds—just not yet.  He has servants standing by to do the work—just not us.  Instead, God urges his people to live with their eye on the coming harvest.  God does not want us to separate wheat from weeds before then."

Today's Religious Right appears to be intent on separating the wheat from the weeds while here on earth.  It's not their job.  Like the Pharisees of old, they are intent on "feeding their pride".  Make no mistake...the gospel's purpose is to give comfort that we sinners are saved and forgiven.  When the Religious Right uses it as a club of the Law it is "preaching a different gospel" that we are warned about in Galatians.

Sooo....Hollywood types and country western singers are sparring on social media over American Sniper.  Ummmmm...who cares?

Contrasts II

This is my second blog post (first one was "Contrasts" on 11/25/14) illustrating the different racial lenses though which the American legal system views the motive and behavior of people.

In the first case, a black woman was arrested for abandoning her child (not sure what the exact charge was).  The child was in the park owing to an unusual sequence of events in the family's life, but the mother was working at McDonald's.  The child was hardly abandoned, and placing the kid in an already over-burdened foster care system served no one's best interest.  The mother was subsequently fired from her job.

In the second tragic case, which occurred yesterday, a toddler shot and killed himself with his father's gun which he found in the glove compartment of the car.  While I have no desire to see anyone punished for the tragedy, it does seem to me that having an unattended child in a car with a gun in the glove compartment is almost the definition of child endangerment.

As I said, no purpose would be served to punish anyone in the latter case, but I also fail so see what purpose was served by the woman's treatment in the first case. The contrast is instructive.

How I Spent My Day

Wednesday (Mild) Rants

• Jamie Dimon is whining again.  Take that as a clue that whatever he is whining about is a good thing.  I'll start feeling a little sorry for these bankers when a couple of them are in prison.
• I have a mental list of words and phrases that--if they appear in an article or opinion piece--will cause me to stop reading immediately.  The reason is that they indicate the writer's lack of an actual argument, so he/she reverts to cliches that trigger emotion but no real fact.  Among these are things like "politically correct" or "Al Gore invented the internet".  They are an indication of intellectual laziness.  Well, after the State of the Union last night, here's a new one to add to the list.  It was brought to my mind by Diana Furchtgott-Roth's (entirely predictable and tiresome) article today in which she invoked the phrase "class warfare".  Sorry, but your article is disqualified.  I can't read every article, so I will spend my time reading those that might contain actual worthwhile arguments.  And "class warfare" is officially added to my list of disqualifying phrases.
• I am amazed at how the MSM has dismissed the Occupy movement.  We can quibble around the edges, but does anyone think that the State of the Union would have dwelt so heavily on income inequality issues if the Occupy movement never existed?  The Zuccotti Park encampment closed down over two years ago but the issue is still reverberating.
• This means absolutely nothing that is statistically significant but I will say it anyway...Among my circle of friends and acquaintances, most of the veterans I know are liberal.
• A reminder:  the Dow has increased by about 110% since Obama took office.  The Dow decreased by more than 20% during the George W. Bush tenure.  Hmmm.
• I am happy about the last point because it's good for my finances, too.  But don't you think the 1% could afford a few more bucks in taxes without the world collapsing?
• I could never run for public office because I will never wear a flag lapel pin.

Some Stuff

Some stuff I have opinions about....

• Mike Huckabee's rant about the-Obamas-as-role-models gives us an opportunity to remind ourselves of the Religious Right's true stripes: nothing more than modern-day Pharisees.  Basically, they are saying that the world would be so much better if only everyone were like them.
• I observed--with some amusement--a recent exchange on Facebook (I am not on Facebook myself) where some right wingers were attempting to establish an equivalence between Steve Emerson's recent fabrications on Fox News about Birmingham and London; and Christiane Amanpour's use of the term "activist" instead of "terrorist" in her CNN report about the Paris bombing.  Ummm, let's see...In one case we have a supposed terrorism expert making statements that are utterly false (and it's hard to conceive that he didn't know they were false).  In the other case, we have a reporter filing a factual report whose only fault seems to be that one of her words offended the sensibilities of the right-wing PC police.  Apparently the equivalence is obvious to some, but I guess I am not so bright.
• I am astounded at the lengths to which people will go to find things to justify their racism.  And then I am even more astounded that they are so willing broadcast their racism publicly without a shred of embarrassment.
• Quote from Franklin Graham: “Christianity is constantly under siege from the halls of government and education, which seek to suppress any public expressions of faith.”  I am 66 years old and I have never been suppressed by the government or anyone else from publicly expressing my faith.  Maybe I'm just lucky.
• In 2012 James Dobson essentially said that the Sandy Hook tragedy was God's judgment on us, pretty much the fault of gays and abortion.  This is only the tip of the iceberg of the preposterous and hateful things he has said (especially since Obama was elected).  I have two questions about this.  First, why haven't religious leaders (including my own church body, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) called him on this blatantly false teaching?  How can you let such a theological lightweight speak for you (along with the aforementioned Franklin Graham and Dobson's partner in hate, Tony Perkins)?  And second, why would any parent have even an iota of interest in what he says about raising their kids?  No thanks.

Amazon

I recently purchased a new Dell power cord for my wife's laptop.  The UPS journey it took to get here was quite a trip:

Dec. 16--Order placed
Dec. 17--Sumner, WA
Dec. 17--Seattle, WA
Dec. 18--Redmond, WA
Dec. 21--Hodgkins, IL
Dec. 23--St. Joseph, MI [note:  this is about 20 miles from my home]
Dec. 24--Brooklyn, NY !!!!
Dec. 26--Maspeth, NY
Dec. 27--Parsippany, NJ
Dec. 27--Maumee, OH
Dec. 30--St. Joseph, MI [yup..again]
Dec. 30--Niles, MI
Dec. 31--delivered [yayyy]


My little package traveled more than 3700 miles over 15 days but it did finally arrive.

Reading List for 2014

My 2014 reading list.  I wouldn't be much of a literary critic...I'm not sorry I read any one of these books...


Thomas McGuane,  Driving on the Rim
Ursula Hegi,  Floating in My Mother’s Palm
Jason Turow, with Michael Duca,  The Baseball Codes
Doris Lessing,  The Golden Notebook
Thomas H. Cook,  The Last Talk with Lola Faye
James Salter,  A Sport and a Pastime
William Kennedy, Ironweed
Tahmima Anam,  A Golden Age
William Boyd,  A Good Man in Africa
Mona Simpson,  My Hollywood
Ali Smith,  The Accidental
Gabriel Garcia Marquez,  One Hundred Years of Solitude (second reading)
Donald Carrisi,  The Whisperer 
William Vollmann, Europe Central
John Banville,  The Sea
Eudora Welty,  Delta Wedding
Vladimir Nabokov,  Lolita
Patrick O’Keeffe,  The Hill Road
W. G. Sebald,  Austerlitz
James Baldwin,  Go Tell It on the Mountain
Nadine Gordimer,  Life Times:  Stories, 1952-2007

Louise Erdrich,  The Plague of Doves 

Daniyal Mueenuddin,  In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Now...on to 2015 and a new list....