Lutheran Ping!
Posted on 11/21/2009 9:42:14 AM PST by WesternCulture
When I look at the world of today, I am appalled.
Luckily enough, I'm also a Lutheran and know what cure there is.
I'll tell you about it.
My grandfather was rather "well off".
Rich enough to hire people to take care of his summer houses in different parts of the country (Sweden), but instead he chose to work on those estates whenever having a little of time off, not out of a miser's love for money, but because the love of how it feels to be truly independent.
Church attendence in my part of the world isn't something you'd boast about to Americans, I'm well aware of that.
On the other hand, Sweden of today is indeed a country a guy like ML would've appreciated.
We are a sole 9 million and we have some of the most advanced industries and scientific institutes of the world whether we're talking bio-tech, IT or the ability to spew out fighter planes and advanced tanks (and no, we don't overestimate ourselves here up North, it's the Russians who do so - study what happened when Finland was attacked by them in WWII).
Martin Luther was a great, self-made man. My part of the World owe him everything.
Compare the performance of the most Lutheran nations on Earth (Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark) to that of the least ones.
- Norway has more dollar millionaires than any other nation.
-(Despite Muslim boycotts) Danes enjoy the highest salaries on Earth
- Two of the 20 richest men on this planet are Swedes and the Volvo V70 is the best selling car in my country
Where I live, you go to work but you don't just go to work, you are addicted to work, you strive to overachive youself and your soul belongs to a true TEAM of fellow workers. Yes, it feels good too - and you don't feel the urge to visit a pointless penny arcade or a karaoke bar afterwards like Japanese employees do.
Therefore, our society is prosperous, moral and secure and I drive around in a car like the Volvo V70.
Martin Luther was RIGHT!
About anything in particular?
I was hoping for more about the taxes in Sweden.
Well, if high taxes and socialized medicine are the keys to national wealth, American prosperity must be just around the corner.
I am a friend of Lutheranism. My children attend a Lutheran school. I am a Roman Catholic.
Unfortunately, in this part of the US, the Lutheran Church is guided by the ELCA and it seems to be particularly liberal. Not in my geographic location, but a little closer to urban centers. The leadership seems to be more politically-based than it is on the teachings of Christ.
The ELCA sanctions homosexual unions, which is contrary to the teachings of the Bible, and seems to be passive and silent with regard to pro-life issues. Though I do have many pro-life Lutheran friends in this rural geographic region that I live in.
Therefore, ELCA lacks any moral authority, which I believe is the foundation society, strong families, just laws and stable and robust economies.
I believe this sect of the Lutheran Church will marginalize itself out of existance. I hope the other branches of Lutheranism stay healthy and faithful. Actually, they will stay healthy, but only if they remain faithful.
I agree, though I would insert “confiscatory taxes and graft”.
You’re right! It is just around the corner. It will club us and take what little we have left.
“Well, if high taxes and socialized medicine are the keys to national wealth, American prosperity must be just around the corner.”
- Scandinavia isn’t rich because of high taxes.
It’s rich because of hard work, a true passion for competition and well run companies.
Study the history of Nokia, Volvo, Ericsson and IKEA. You’ll find the answer there.
Call it what you may, Nordic fighting spirit and the idea of looking after one’s own house existed long before Marx and Lenin.
In what part of Scandinavia are the muslims running wild in the streets??
Is it Denmark or Norway?
I thought all of the Scandanavian countries had serious and developing problems with Islam.
One
Holy
Catholic
Apostolic
Church
“And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!”
According to the Wikipedia it is 30-60% in Sweden. It doesn’t seem that any other country has such a weird spread.
If you add state and federal taxes together in the US we are pretty close to 60%.
My guess is that the American Revolution was got kicking over less than that?
Many countries that are predominantly Protestant (including Scandanavia and many English speaking countries) have received a great deal of political freedom and material prosperity. But freedom and prosperity are not indicators that a person or a country is right with God.
When it comes to freedom, some would say that the problem with these countries is that they have too much freedom. In the name of individual choice the citizens of United States, for example (by and large considered a ‘Protestant’ country) have taken the lives of 30 million unborn children—five times the number of Jews that Hitler killed. The situations in other ‘Protestant’ countries are no better when it comes to abortion.
There is freedom to produce, purchase, and view unprecedented amounts of pornographic, violent, and ungodly entertainment. There is freedom that makes possible the confusion of gender roles that our society is experiencing, not only through the homosexual movement, but through the much broader feminist movement.
While freedom has been collapsing into libertinism in some areas, it has been severely curtailed in others. Teachers can hardly mention God in the public schools into which most families are forced to put their children due to the government subsidies these schools receive. Freedom is also curtailed by high tax burdens in “English-speaking, Protestant countries.” (Yes, most countries have high taxes, even “non-English-speaking, non-Protestant countries,” but “English-speaking, Protestant countries” usually are expensive welfare states with abnormally high tax rates.) High taxes make it difficult for families to make ends meet, and this means middle-class mothers of young children find themselves forced to work outside the home. It used to be enough in affluent countries that the father alone was employed.
Countries that commonly are considered Catholic (and no such country nowadays is really that, but there are a few, such as Ireland, that maintain a Catholic ethos to a degree), while usually having low GNPs, tend to avoid some of the social problems found in the richer, “English-speaking, Protestant countries.” They tend, for example, to have lower rates of abortion, divorce, and pornography.
Sweden was such a great help in the last World War.
“On the other hand, Sweden of today is indeed a country a guy like ML would’ve appreciated.”
Are you kidding me? Sweden Lutheranism ordains homosexual bishop and other leaders. ML would’ve embraced that. Right.
Well said, though I would disagree with the statement about Ireland being Catholic. I have studied and lived in Ireland and, sadly, Mother Church is crippled there.
besides, you don't think that the Germans believe the same thing about themselves?
its nothing to do with being Lutheran....its because of where these people live and WHO lives there...( all gonna change)
but enough said.....we all know the picture...
Sadly, I must agree. Ireland (and Portugal) held out longer than most, but my most reports the old values are finally succumbing to what passes as “progress.”
I WAS ELCA, now LCMS. I resent the ELCA high jacking the name “Lutheran”. Thanks to them, it doesn’t mean much anymore. They’re a bunch of heathens.
“Yeah, that good old Nordic fighting spirit.
Sweden was such a great help in the last World War.”
- At least we aided Finland upon attacked by Stalin instead of declaring war on them (like Britain did) and we didn’t sell fuel to the Luftwaffe or trucks to Die Wehrmacht like the US did.
Do your homework instead of bashing a small nation that happened to be squeezed in between Communism and Nazism during the last World war.
“Yeah, that good old Nordic fighting spirit.
Sweden was such a great help in the last World War.”
- At least we aided Finland upon attacked by Stalin instead of declaring war on them (like Britain did) and we didn’t sell fuel to the Luftwaffe or trucks to Die Wehrmacht like the US did.
Do your homework instead of bashing a small nation that happened to be squeezed in between Communism and Nazism during the last World war.
“Unfortunately, in this part of the US, the Lutheran Church is guided by the ELCA and it seems to be particularly liberal.”
- Sounds disgusting. You have my support.
Liberalism, at least in the version that presently is being overwhelmingly successful in both Europe and America is a failed ideology.
Lutheranism, on the other hand, is not a failed religion and neither Sweden or Europe is a failed part of the World.
The best among our European sons and daughters come back from doing duty in Afghanistan in body bags, just like the brave American soldiers who don’t hesitate to pay the ultimate price for freedom.
One day, a free Western World will acknowledge their efforts and express gratitude towards those who resisted the vicious attacks from both domestic and foreign enemies on Western Civilization that false religions as well as false ideologies brought launched.
Have trust.
Greetings from Gothenburg, Sweden,
WesternCulture
“About anything in particular?”
- Yes, work ethics I believe.
Anyhow, don’t lend too much of an ear to me. I’m just another Northern European, trying to sell you an overprized car.
Dies is ze truth of ze whole ding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXzubuENjHk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifgHHhw_6g8
You wrote:
“...and we didn’t sell fuel to the Luftwaffe or trucks to Die Wehrmacht like the US did.”
You sold them STEEL. They made their rifles, tanks and bombs out of that steel. The German war effort would have floundered if not for Swedish collusion with the Nazis.
Come to think of it, isn’t Queen Silvia of Sweden (born Silvia Renate Sommerlath, December 23, 1943) the daughter of one of those scumbag Swedish steel dealers who did so much to help the Nazi war effort keep going? Yeah, actually she is.
Like I said:
“The Swedish economy was, for a number of years, almost fully integrated into the Nazis’ New Order; the country supplied Germany with high-grade iron ore (30 percent of that used by the German armaments industry), as well as ball bearings, foodstuffs, wood, and many other raw materials. In matters of finance, the Swedes cooperated with Germany by providing credit, which allowed the delivery of vast quantities of military equipment to the Wehrmacht. Moreover, after the war, the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, “examined gold it had received from the Nazis in payment for exports and returned about 13 tons that presumably had been stolen [from] Belgium and the Netherlands.”24”
http://www.adl.org/Braun/dim_14_1_neutrality_europe.asp
“Do your homework instead of bashing a small nation that happened to be squeezed in between Communism and Nazism during the last World war”
Do your own homework. You apparently didn’t know that your country made the steel that made the Nazi terror possible in Europe EVEN DURING THE WAR. Way to go!
You and the Nazis deserve Lutheranism. You’re suited for it:
http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/luther-jews.htm
“Liberalism, at least in the version that presently is being overwhelmingly successful in both Europe and America is a failed ideology.”
And it exists because of Luther.
“Lutheranism, on the other hand, is not a failed religion and neither Sweden or Europe is a failed part of the World.”
Wrong on both counts. Lutheranism is a failure. Sweden and Europe are both failures. Neither Sweden nor Europe will exist in 100 years.
No, this is the truth about Sweden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnP-XzB_U0
Kiss your Sweden goodbye. Your grandson, if you bother having any children, will be named Muhammad. Enjoy!
“Compare the performance of the most Lutheran nations on Earth (Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark) to that of the least ones.”
You mean like Japan, Singapore and Korea?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
- I'm very aware my country was forced to do trade with evil in order to survive (one thing you should know is that Sweden traded iron ore for German weapons so that the Nordic countries could fight the Red Army. Right or wrong - who cares when dealing with a Commie tyrant like Joseph Stalin?)
One relative of mine managed the vending of such steel, another one got shot by the Red Army but survived, back in (the Swedish speaking part of) Finland after wards he became a police officer. He never lost his faith in democracy and freedom under the reign of law and order.
Do my ancestors owe you some sort of apology?
Yeah, right.
Which Synod?
You wrote:
“I’m very aware my country was forced to do trade with evil in order to survive (one thing you should know is that Sweden traded iron ore for German weapons so that the Nordic countries could fight the Red Army.”
Sweden traded with the Germans so they could make money. They made LOTS OF IT. Remember, “In matters of finance, the Swedes cooperated with Germany by providing credit, which allowed the delivery of vast quantities of military equipment to the Wehrmacht.”
The Swedes were forced to do none of this by the Nazis nor the Soviets. They did so willingly.
“Right or wrong - who cares when dealing with a Commie tyrant like Joseph Stalin?)”
Who cares whether it is right or wrong? Spoken like a Lutheran! LOL
“One relative of mine managed the vending of such steel,”
So your relative made his living from making the Nazis happy. Peachy.
“...another one got shot by the Red Army but survived, back in (the Swedish speaking part of) Finland after wards he became a police officer. He never lost his faith in democracy and freedom under the reign of law and order.”
Who cares if he was shot? After all, right and wrong don’t matter according to you, right?
“Do my ancestors owe you some sort of apology?”
Not me, no. Some of the innocents of Europe, yes.
I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.
—Martin Luther
I believe that would be Sweden. It is about rampant rape of Swedish women by Muslims that I have read much more than about such assaults in Norway or Denmark.
Some small nations, to their undying credit, didn't sell out like Sweden. Some stood and fought and died while others made money!
“Some small nations, to their undying credit, didn’t sell out like Sweden. Some stood and fought and died while others made money!”
- Are you seriously wishing to say we Swedes did not prove, by deed, that we were on Finland’s side?
“Are you seriously wishing to say we Swedes did not prove, by deed, that we were on Finland’s side?”
I’m saying you Swedes willing embraced Nazi cause for money while others died to defeat Nazi and Fascist and Mohammedan tyranny!
“Who cares if he was shot?”
- I’d claim any truly Western family would care slightly more about his fate than you seem to do.
That relative of mine took part in defeating Russia.
In my eyes, he was a hero.
Who needs Russia?
“I’m saying you Swedes willing embraced Nazi cause for money”
- What you’re really telling me is you discard history books and take pride in posting nonsense on the Internet.
Sweden traded with the Nazis, yes, we also traded with Britain etc.
Would you starve your own nation to death, if, God forbid, you became the leader of it?
You wrote:
” I’d claim any truly Western family would care slightly more about his fate than you seem to do.”
I’M NOT HIS FAMILY. That’s the point. The fact that you have a relative killed decades ago by communist scum doesn’t mean the Swedes should have climbed into bed with Nazi scum. Stop making excuses for what the Swedes very knowingly did.
“That relative of mine took part in defeating Russia.”
How does excuse your nation’s collusion with the Nazis? You keep throwing these familial factoids as if they some how matter. They don’t.
“In my eyes, he was a hero.”
Again, how does that excuse Sweden serving the Nazis? How EXACTLY? Who you consider to be a hero in no way changes what your people did.
“Who needs Russia?”
Who needs Sweden? As a ‘neutral’ who served the Nazis Sweden was all but useless in WWII. What is Sweden really worth now? How many nations has Sweden ever freed? None. How many nations’ freedom will Sweden fight for today? None...except it’s own...and probably not even that if the fight looks tough.
But that’s okay, if need be, we would come to Sweden’s rescue. After all, as is well known and often ignored by the punt minority of Swedish chest thumpers, the US government secretly promised in the early 1960s to rescue Sweden’s weak butt if the Soviets invaded. This was kept secret until the 1990s so as not to embarrass the Swedish weaklings in front of their own people.
Kolokotronis is right. The Swedes only began to become disagreeable to the Nazis in 1943 when it became obvious the allies would crush them if they kept being such willing servants of the Nazis.
You wrote:
“Sweden traded with the Nazis, yes, we also traded with Britain etc.”
You traded with anyone willing to pay in other words. Your nation was like a prostitute. As long as the gold was good...well except for that huge amount of stolen Belgian gold your country had to cough up after the war.
“Would you starve your own nation to death, if, God forbid, you became the leader of it?”
So Sweden would have starved if they weren’t such willing lovers of the Nazis? R-I-G-H-T.
“What you’re really telling me is you discard history books and take pride in posting nonsense on the Internet.”
History says that while others died in the fight against Nazism, the Swedes took advantage of the situation and made money selling vital war materiels. WC, that’s what history books say. Calling the wartime venality of the Swedes nonsense does nothing for your credibility.
“Would you starve your own nation to death, if, God forbid, you became the leader of it?”
Over 1,000,000,000 Greeks died in WWII and the Civil War. How many Swedes?
I thought Norway was rich because of it’s oil.
its not it’s.
“Which Synod?”
- You seem clever enough to turn Lutheran.
Some propaganda aiming right at you:
Name a Catholic country looking like this upon scrutiny:
(Swedish workers assembling indestructable Volvos in the year of 1993)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0CtvtZFW-4
“I thought Norway was rich because of it’s oil.”
- Norway is extremely rich because of North Sea oil.
Without it, they would be like Denmark.
Denmark is one of the richest countries here on Earth, but the standard of living is not especially high in fact.
I love Denmark, but Helsingör (Northernmost suburb of Copenhagen) and Helsingborg (twin city across the “Sund”/”Sound” of Helsingör) are worlds apart.
In Helsingör, the average car is a VW Golf/Rabbit and few own really nice homes, in Helsingborg the norm is at least one Volvo V70 (hate us for it!) and people own wonderful apartments and houses.
But ok, Denmark is richer than Sweden on paper.
Around 35 000 Greeks died in WWII.
Don’t get me wrong. They were patriots and I salute them.
Get this:
Sweden and Finland are unique among small nations in the way they didn’t allow themselves to be scared off by Russia.
Instead, we chose to take Russia on and give it hell.
The only way to go if you ask me..
“So Sweden would have starved if they weren’t such willing lovers of the Nazis? R-I-G-H-T.”
- You’re not fooling anyone around here.
You’re trying to dodge the question.
I put this question to you in my former post;
“Would you starve your own nation to death, if, God forbid, you became the leader of it?”
Now, would you?
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