By Graham Glover –
I find the idea tempting. Really tempting.
On so many levels I’m the last guy in the world that should seriously consider this. The fact that I’m writing a post about it boggles the mind. Nothing about it seems like something I would do or that anyone who knows me thinks I would find appealing. But I’m tempted. Really tempted.
By Graham Glover – We’re all guilty. You. Me. All of us. We’re guilty of political idolatry. More […]
By Graham Glover –
Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the Mass. The Mass is held among us and celebrated with the highest reverence (Augsburg Confession, Article XXIV: The Mass, 1).
Christians have in different places and at different times referred to their worship in different ways. Some call it the Mass, others the Divine Liturgy.
By Graham Glover –
I love to debate. I mean, I love to really debate. I’m not talking about simple, quaint discussions concerning issues without much disagreement. I have in mind those passionate arguments and heated conversations in which tempers just might get a little out of control as each side tries to make their point.
By Graham Glover –
Social conservatives in America have been on the losing end of two epic battles over the past 43 years. The first occurred in 1973 with the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade to legalize the innocent slaughter of unborn children. The second occurred in 2015 when the Court fundamentally altered the legal and historical definition of marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges.
By Graham Glover –
First, a confession: I’ve been politically depressed for about 8 months.
When 2016 began, my political psyche started going downhill. As the primary season rolled on, my political bad mood turned in to downright depression. I think it hit rock bottom after the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. For the past month I’ve wanted to shut down politically. Seriously, I thought I had reached the point of no return. My love of and faith in politics had all but worn out.
By Graham Glover –
Sometimes I feel as if I should be having a vocational identity crisis.
I’m pretty sure that I was taught by the church, guided by the Holy Scriptures, that my primary responsibility as a pastor is to preach the Word of God. This preaching takes many forms: sermons, teaching, counseling, and presiding. But no matter the form, my vocation is first and foremost about proclaiming Christ and Him crucified. He is the source, the subject, and the object of everything I do as one who holds the Office of the Holy Ministry.
By Graham Glover –
Last week was extraordinary. It was as vocationally, spiritually, and personally fulfilling as any week in recent memory.
Last week I got to be a pastor.
By Graham Glover –
Say it with me: “Politics is not theology.”
One more time: “Politics is not theology.”
To put it another way, the art of politics is not the practice of theology.
In other words, politicians are not theologians. While not a novel or groundbreaking statement, it is one I find increasingly necessary to make in this volatile political season.
By Graham Glover –
Next time you attend the Divine Service at your parish, I want you to watch.
Watch how your pastor acts.
Watch how he handles himself, especially when he presides over the Sacrament of the Altar.
Watch how your fellow parishioners act as they come forward to receive into their mouths the very body and blood of Christ.
By Graham Glover –
After listening to the last two weeks of political rhetoric, one might conclude that we are a divided nation. And that conclusion would be more than accurate.
Our nation is divided. Deeply divided.
The ideas, images, platforms, and personalities that the Republicans and Democrats offered in Cleveland and Philadelphia are as fundamentally different as any as I’ve witnessed in my lifetime.
By Graham Glover –
It looks like a Baptist. It sounds like a Presbyterian. But, it’s really a…Lutheran.
Huh? What? That doesn’t make any sense.
Yeah, I know.
If it looks like a Baptist, it ought to be a Baptist, right? If it sounds like a Presbyterian, it ought to be a Presbyterian, right?
Rational minds would think so.
By Graham Glover –
“You shall honor your father and mother that it may be well with you and you may live long upon the earth.”
I’ve given up trying to figure out how this year’s election will unfold. Every prediction of mine has been wrong. I still think Hillary wins in an Electoral College blowout, but now I’m even starting to doubt that prognosis. The Donald, despite himself, just might pull off the most improbable of campaigns.
By Graham Glover –
Your feelings mean very little.
I don’t much care about them.
In fact, you shouldn’t put a lot of stock in them either. They will betray you. They will deceive you. They will make you say and do things you will later regret. Their subjectivity is the source of eternal uncertainty.
By Graham Glover –
I’d love it if more of you were Lutheran. Specifically, it would be great if you were a member of or in fellowship with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. It’s not that the LCMS has a monopoly on the truths of Christendom, but as I proclaimed in my ordination vows, I believe her confessions to be a correct exposition of the Holy Scriptures and a right exhibition of the Christian faith. This is why I am and will remain a loyal member of her communion.
By Graham Glover –
Dorothy is right: “There’s no place like home”.
For the past 8 ½ years my family and I have had 6 homes, not including those temporary abodes of mine when deployed.
That’s a lot of homes, especially considering they encompass 5 different cities.
What I find remarkable though is that if you ask my daughter and son where “home” is, they don’t hesitate in their response. Home is Gainesville, Florida – the place where they were born, but only lived respectively for 2 ½ and ½ years of their life.
By Graham Glover –
I have a really strange job. I get a paycheck from the United Sates Federal Government to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Yes, you read that correctly. The American Government pays me to be a Christian clergyman.
In parts of the world such a statement is not strange at all, but here in Merica, this is not the typical way things are done.
By Graham Glover –
I’m pretty sure it’s geographically impossible, but I think I’ve found the Garden of Eden.
Yes, that Eden. The place where it all began. Perfection on earth. (At least until our first parents decided to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.)
I didn’t discover this place. Apparently over 65,000 people live there, with almost a million more visiting every year.
Honestly, I’m a little surprised nobody has made the connection before.
By Graham Glover –
Finally, it’s over. After a long and slow decay into political oblivion, social conservatives need to hang it up. Their movement is dead – completely devoid of life.
