Posted on 03/27/2008 8:48:07 PM PDT by The Shrew
Usually radio hosts have to offend sacred moral sensibilities to be thrown off the air. Opie and Anthony were fired after they encouraged a couple to have sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Don Imus lost his job after using racist and sexist epithets against the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
But when the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod canceled its popular, nationally syndicated radio program "Issues, Etc.," listeners were baffled. Billed as "talk radio for the thinking Christian," the show was known for its lively discussions analyzing cultural influences on the American church. It seemed like precisely the thing that the Missouri Synod, a 2.4-million-member denomination whose system of belief is firmly grounded in Scripture and an intellectually rigorous theology, would enthusiastically support.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The PCA churches I’ve been to (three) have been quite conservative, solidly grounded in Biblical teaching and free of purpose-driven balderdash. Then again, it’s a fairly de-centralized denomination from what I understand, so your local church may vary. My wife and I have gone to the local PCUSA church a couple of times since we landed here in North Carolina, and I’m not impressed. Female associate pastor, too much “social responsibility” preaching, just a general squishiness about the entire place. My first PCA pastor in South Carolina, the man who married me and my wife, was a brilliant, no-BS Michigander who brought me into the fold and taught me so, so much.
}:-)4
We have the new LCMS hymnal and like it very much.
The National Council of Churches is BAD news.
• African Methodist Episcopal Church
• The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
• Alliance of Baptists
• American Baptist Churches in the USA
• Diocese of the Armenian Church of America
• Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
• Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
• Church of the Brethren
• The Coptic Orthodox Church in North America
• The Episcopal Church
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• Friends United Meeting
• Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
• Hungarian Reformed Church in America
• International Council of Community Churches
• Korean Presbyterian Church in America
• Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
• Mar Thoma Church
• Moravian Church in America Northern Province and Southern Province
• National Baptist Convention of America
• National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
• Orthodox Church in America
• Patriarchal Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA
• Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
• Polish National Catholic Church of America
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
• Reformed Church in America
• Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada
• The Swedenborgian Church
• Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch
• Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America
• United Church of Christ
• The United Methodist Church •
The liturgy (or lack thereof) in my LCMS congregation is far less traditional than the liturgy used 30 years ago in my old ELCA congregation.
Do I really have to swim the Tiber or could Rome send a ferry?
I realize that Catholics can be liberal too, but as an LCMS Lutheran I feel closer to the Catholics by far than all of the liberal apostate Protestant denominations. I disagree with the Catholics on many points of doctrine, but I don't personally believe the division with Catholicism is as severe or cut and dried as I guess most Protestants would. I don't think Catholics think they can be saved by works (no Catholic I ever met thought so) and no Catholic is required to pray to saints or to Mary. Still, if it comes down to liturgy, creedal and confessional orthodoxy or off-the-deep-end liberalism, women pastors, same-sex unions, and removing belief in Biblical inerrancy...I guess I have to find a Protestant denomination that I can support or it's off with the Catholics (provided I can find a conservative parish - I know how liberal some Catholic parishes are).
Trust me, all of this makes me quite sad. I love the LCMS. It's perfect for me. It's right in between the Catholics and the uber-protestants, and so it fits exactly with my own doctrinal beliefs. But, as I said, I can see the handwriting on the wall. Kieschnik and Co. are doing a number on the LCMS, IMHO. The church will be unrecognizable in ten years, let alone twenty.
It's the same pattern in every Protestant denomination. First the liberals get themselves elected to the local leadership. Then they get themselves elected to the district leadership. Then they end up delegates or voters at the parish/synod national voters meeting or equivalent.
Before you know it, they have hijacked an entire denomination from the vast conservative majority and begin to twist it into something unbiblical and unrecognizable. It always starts with "committees" to "explore" the "issue" of, say, women pastors, or same-sex unions, or biblical inerrancy...and before you can say "apostasy" they've plunged the denomination into chaos and discord, overturning the wishes of the majority and telling them in no uncertain terms to go to hell. This is what happened with the ELCA, the PC USA, the United Methodists, the Episcopalians, etc. The first stages of the same thing are underway in the LCMS with Kieschnik or whatever his name is. "This isn't your grandfather's church". Nice attitude. That's his way of telling the conservative majority to go to hell.
So it begins.
On Sundays during the summer, there is no LCMS congregation anywhere near so I attend Mass. Whether the parish priest is personally heretical (he's not), the liturgy is sound and the doctrine, with minor exception, differs not a whit from that announced in the Augsburg Confession. I find it much easier to think about baseball during a prayer for the magisterium than I do to think about Scripture during a hymn accompanied by bongo drums.
So heartbreaking !!! My LCMS church is hanging tough for the most part. However, our conservative pastor is hounded constantly by the “let’s-be-modern-and-GROW-the-church” crowd.
We have the great misfortune of having a wealthy man (and his co-elites) who has let it be known that he basically represents Kieschnick as he moved here from St. Louis and still maintains a seat on one of the boards. He trots back there periodically.
I could go on for hours or days. It is so upsetting and the tension in our congregation is severe. We continue to pray.
Their ploy is to go heavily after visitors and unchurched folks who lack a scriptural foundation. They are ripe for the picking and don’t get that “We are in the world but not of it.” That is one of my biggest disgusts. Many of these people are unwittingly duped.
Pray for the survival of our dear LCMS. Jesus can do anything.
I can assure you that the liturgy in our LCMS is very traditional and we’re using the new hymnal.
Which order of service does your congregation use?
From the PCA: RC Sproul, D. James Kennedy, M. Horton, Peter Leithart, Tim Keller, the list goes on...
Not liberal at all (although some have been found to sing something other than the Trinity Hymnal :>)
We even get fire and brimstone on Sunday, via Monsignor's homilies!
Too many churches have decided ti disregard the parts of the Bible that make then squirm uncomfortably.
We usually use the first setting beginning on page 151 but it varies.
I like the hymnal very much as it points out where the text is found in the Bible. It shows it's not just boring repetition but actually comes from scripture.
We have a very nice short Wed. evening service, also from the new hymnal. It uses lots of psalms.
Someone did a nice job with the new hymnal.
Girls serve as acolytes but do not help with communion. That is only done by the pastor and an elder. Women are not elders.
I hope your congregation has put Fray-Stop on the ribbons in LSB. They fray like crazy and can get ruined very fast once they start to go.
Still waiting on the “real” reason.
Some excuses were made saying it was because of money, but this was the most popular and widely known show!
Depends on where you are. On paper, yes the RCC is pretty sound. But some parish’s are down right nuts.
My bride is Catholic, and when we were dating (in Lincoln, Nebraska, a very conservative spot for both groups) she told her priest that she was dating a LCMS Lutheran.
He smiled and said “Well he should be very conservative, probably more than you are used to, but that will be all right.”
The sad thing is that there are a lot of CINO’s (many Catholic Freepers talk of them often) who are very nutty.
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