Podcasts about lutherans

How can Lutherans faithfully respond to an increasingly pagan society? The Rev. Dr. Matt Richard, pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Minot, North Dakota, joins Andy and Sarah to talk about a recent insightful visit to his local post office and what he witnessed there. He shares what this experience brought to light for him regarding America's spiritual condition, how atheism and spirituality play a role in American culture, what syncretism is and why it's problematic, and how Lutherans can faithfully respond to an increasingly pagan society. Read about Pastor Richard's experience at facebook.com/share/p/15e6sxnrpH and find more from Pastor Richard at pastormattrichard.com/2025/06/let-world-rage-christ-is-enough.html. As you grab your morning coffee (and pastry, let's be honest), join hosts Andy Bates and Sarah Gulseth as they bring you stories of the intersection of Lutheran life and a secular world. Catch real-life stories of mercy work of the LCMS and partners, updates from missionaries across the ocean, and practical talk about how to live boldly Lutheran. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.

 . . . and Rome looks at them and says, "What is this, a joke?" Far from it!  Pastors Craig Donofrio, John Bombaro, Sebastian Grunbaum sit down with Bishop Juhana Pohjola as they prepare to participate in the ordinations of the first two pastors of the newly founded Confessional Lutheran Church of Italy.  Bishop Pohjola discusses the founding of the Evangelical Mission Diocese of Finland twenty-five years ago with a handful of church members and it has now grown to over fifty congregations.     

Jesse and Hunter discuss the history, theology, and their personal experiences with Lutheranism. In it, they celebrate similarities while highlighting differences of the denomination.--contact@parableministries.comhttps://www.parableministries.comhttps://www.instagram.com/parable_ministries/--Music created by Chad HoffmanArtwork created by Anthony Kuenzi--Jesse Turkington is the executive director of Parable Ministries and has been a Bible teacher since 2014. When Jesse was just finishing high school, he started a little Bible study at his parent's house. Little did he know, this Bible study would change the direction of his life. He fell in love with the richness of the Bible and he wanted to pursue serious study. About 10 years later, Jesse still carries that passion for the Bible and from this passion was born Parable Ministries - a Bible teaching resource. -Hunter grew up in Montana and now serves the Church in Albany Oregon where he works as a youth and young adults pastor. He and his wife Ana stay busy with two kids. Hunter loves studying the Bible and communicating it in a way which encourages further exploration of others. Hunter enjoys listening and making podcasts for others to enjoy.

There are many threats to the U.S. economy. How might investors prepare for uncertainty? We discuss fixed income opportunities. • Learn more at thriventfunds.com • Follow us on LinkedIn • Share feedback and questions with us at podcast@thriventfunds.com • Thrivent Distributors, LLC is a member of FINRA and a subsidiary of Thrivent, the marketing name for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

Today on the Christian History Almanac, we remember one of the leading Lutherans in America during the Revolutionary Era. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Preorder Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781964419152-sinner-saint The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781962654708-the-impossible-prize Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781962654791-ditching-the-checklist Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1962654753?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_FCNEEK60MVNVPCEGKBD8_5&starsLeft=1  More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher Overcast Google Play FOLLOW US: Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (outerrimterritories.com).

This weekend we come to the end of the Easter Season. We will also be celebrating the Lord's Supper in our service this weekend. As we do so, we will consider a communion hymn instead of an Easter hymn. There are several words that we associate with the Lord's Supper. We call it a Sacrament, which is a holy act, instituted by Christ, has an earthly element connected to God's Word, and imparts a blessing from God, namely forgiveness of sin, life and salvation. We also refer to it as Holy Communion based on Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17. Lutherans teach the Real Presence of the Lord's Supper, in contrast to the Roman Catholic teaching of Transubstantiation or the Reformed view of Representation. This is the clear teaching of Scripture based on 1 Corinthians 11:23-27, where Paul says that we receive Christ's body and His blood, but also receive with our mouths the earthly elements of bread and wine. This hymn highlights several important truths about the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. First, it reinforces what the Sacrament is. The hymnwriter states: "As Host You spread no common food, here is Your body and Your blood" (verse 1), but also "this bread and cup my lips have pressed" (verse 2). This is the Real Presence. He also tells us that the Lord's Supper is not an action of man, but of God. We receive the blessings that God gives in this Sacrament. "Where pardon, peace, and life are spent" and "You bless, and my soul is blessed" (verse 2). This blessing from God motivates us and strengthens us for lives of service to Him. "Now let me as Your guest depart... a new life may my offering be" (verse 3). Our prayer is that God would work in us through His word and sacrament to keep us in the faith until He returns on the last day, when we "as Your heavenly guest, in anthems praise You with the blessed" (verse 4). This hymn serves to remind us about why we come to the Lord's Table. It teaches us what it is. It assures us of what God offers through it. As such it encourages us to come to the Lord's Supper and receive His blessing for our eternal blessing. May the LORD bless your worship this weekend, as well as Your reception of His precious sacrament!   he Lord's Day is a term found in Revelation, which referred to Sunday. The early Christians called the first day of the week the Lord's Day, because it was on that day that the Lord had risen from the dead. He was the victor! It was now HIS day! This hymn by Julia Elliott does several creative things. First it uses the Biblical idea of light vs. darkness in each of the verses, tying this concept to three different historical events: The creation of Light, the resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. With each verse she focuses on a different person of the Triune God. And in each verse she points out that we pray that our Triune God would continue His work of bringing light into our dark lives and world through the Gospel.  Ephesians 5:13-17 serves as part of the basis for this beautiful hymn. There Paul writes: "But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.” See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is."   Join us in our study of this hymn and its writer, and as we learn more about the Scriptural foundation and meaning of our hymns so that our use of them would be more beneficial as we gather in worship and use this hymn of praise. May the LORD bless you as He enlightens you through His word this weekend!

How does Crean Lutheran High School raise up young Lutherans for future vocations? Conni Schramm, Learning Success Teacher at Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine, California, joins Andy and Sarah for our Set Apart to Serve series to talk about what she gets to do every day at Crean Lutheran, how she became a teacher and her many years of service in Lutheran education, why providing Lutheran education is important to her, what is unique about Crean Lutheran High School, and how Crean Lutheran is raising up the next generation of church workers. Learn more about Crean Lutheran at creanlutheran.org. Christ's church will continue until He returns, and that church will continue to need church workers. Set Apart to Serve (SAS) is an initiative of the LCMS to recruit church workers. Together, we pray for workers for the Kingdom of God and encourage children to consider church work vocations. Here are three easy ways you can participate in SAS: 1. Pray with your children for God to provide church workers. 2. Talk to your children about becoming church workers. 3. Thank God for the people who work in your congregation. To learn more about Set Apart to Serve, visit lcms.org/set-apart-to-serve. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.

Lutherans started the Protestant Reformation. However, they shy away from the term today. The Thinking Fellows discuss why the term became contentious but why Lutherans must still identify with it. The conversation highlights Lutherans' challenges in identifying themselves within the broader Christian community and the need for more effective engagement with other traditions. The episode concludes with reflections on the future of Lutheran identity and a teaser for the next episode. Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Preorder Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi More from the hosts: Caleb Keith Scott Keith Adam Francisco Bruce Hilman  

Revelation 21:1-6Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Do you teach them about the rapture? That's the question a woman asked me as I sat at Starbucks trying to write a sermon. On Thursdays before I preach, I usually head to a coffee shop or the library to write. It's not uncommon for someone to strike up a conversation—I guess it's not every day you see someone sitting in public with a Bible open.On this day, a woman and her husband sat at the same large table as me. I could feel her eyes on me. I knew what was coming. I made the mistake of looking up from my screen—and she got me.“So, are you a Bible student?” No, I'm a pastor here in New Pal.“Well, you're awfully young to be a pastor…” (Like I haven't heard that one before.) “What's your church?”When I said, “Cross of Grace Lutheran Church,” the back-and-forth stopped, and she proceeded to tell me how great her church and her pastor are. Then, either noticing my intentional body language—literally leaning away—or the way I kept glancing back at my half-written sermon, she ended the conversation with one last question:“Do you teach them about the rapture?”The rapture? I thought. I tried to come up with a kind response instead of simply saying, “Uh… no.”“Well, in my tradition, that's not something we focus on…” I said.And goodness, was she disappointed in that answer.“Well, you gotta teach them about the rapture. It's the most important thing.”The most important thing? There's so much I could have—should have—asked:What do you mean by rapture?Why is it the most important thing?What does your pastor say when preaching about it? Who do you think gets left behind—and why?But I had a sermon to finish, after all.I've never preached on “the rapture.” I don't think I've ever even preached on a passage from Revelation. So, wherever you are, lady, this one's for you. Because you're partially right—it is important for us to understand what the rapture is, the bad and harmful theology behind it, and what we might imagine in its place when we talk about life after death.Some of you know all about the rapture. Maybe you grew up in a more fundamentalist church or were terrified by the Left Behind series in the mid 90s. Others of you, good Lutherans that you are, may only have a vague idea of what it means. But all of us have been exposed to some version of this belief. Usually, when people talk about the rapture, it's part of a theology called dispensationalism. You may have never heard that word, but you've definitely seen signs of it—like every time you pass a billboard like this, now how'd that pan out? Or this… Or when you notice our culture's fascination with the apocalypse and end time predictions.Not to bore you too much, but the idea of the rapture was invented by a British preacher named John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. He took the traditional understanding of Jesus' return and split it into two parts. First comes the rapture: Jesus appears in the sky, snatches up born-again Christians, and whisks them off to heaven for seven years. During that time, God inflicts wrath on the earth and Christians watch safely from above. Then, after those seven years, comes the final return of Jesus to fight the battle of Armageddon (mentioned in Revelation) and establish an earthly kingdom.This whole timeline is a patchwork—stitched together from one verse in 1 Thessalonians, three from Daniel, and a single verse from Revelation. Behind all that is a bad theology and a harmful hermeneutic—a way of reading and understanding the Bible. First, this approach takes the Bible literally, as if Revelation were some sort of roadmap to the end times. But, as you've heard us say before, we mustn't read the Bible literally—we're called to read it literate-ly and seriously, taking into account the many voices and genres that make up Scripture. Revelation is apocalyptic literature, a kind of writing well known to the seven first-century churches it was written for. It's not a crystal ball—it's a prophetic vision full of metaphor and symbolic imagery, not a literal forecast of future events.Second, this theology takes a few out-of-context verses to offer false certainty about what's to come, rather than wrestling with the mystery of faith. The Bible gives us many different images of Jesus' return: a banquet in Luke, a wedding feast in Matthew, paradise, green pastures, even a return to Eden. But none of these say when this will happen. In fact, Jesus says clearly: “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36) Jesus doesn't want us trying to piece together a divine timeline. He wants us to live in hope and with trust.And perhaps the biggest thing the rapture gets wrong is this: the idea that we'll float off to heaven and away from all this; that our souls get to finally escape the pain of this world and just be with Jesus. But here's the thing: the Bible never says we're just souls that happen to have bodies. We are both—body and soul—and they will not be separated. Resurrection always includes the beautiful body God gave you.And what if—just hear me out—what if at the end of all things, we don't go to heaven… What if heaven comes to us?Which is exactly what Revelation says. God establishes a new heaven and a new earth here, in our midst, and God takes up residence with us. Doesn't that sound more like the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ? The God who entered into our suffering? The God who heals what is hurt? The God who accomplishes the divine plan through seemingly insignificant people, places, and things.It should be no surprise, then, that God would come down to this broken world—full of broken people—and heal it until there are no more tears, no more mourning or pain or death, and make a home here with us. That sounds like the God we know in Jesus.Lutheran theologian Barbara Rossing, an expert on the rapture and end-times thinking, says people are drawn to rapture theology because they want to see the Bible come to life. They want to connect Scripture with their own lives. They want to experience God—and think that can only happen if they leave this place.But the truth is: the Bible is coming to life and we do experience God—in this world, in our lives.The Bible comes to life everytime we feed someone who is hungry, give water to someone who is thirsty, wipe the tears trickling down one's cheek, visit the imprisoned and detained, relieve someone's pain, or welcome the immigrant. We are in the presence of God here on earth every time we come to the table, when we share meals with our friends and our enemies, or as Jesus says, when we love others as he loves us.Those acts—those holy, small, grace-filled acts—create little pockets of heaven on earth. They allow us to experience God right here and now, until that great day when God comes to live among us forever, making God's kingdom come and God's will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.So no—the rapture isn't the most important thing. But trusting that God will come down, give us new life, and dwell with us in a world made new, free of pain and suffering and death? Now that sounds more like it. Amen.

A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter St. John 16:16-22 by William Klock On Easter morning we heard St. John's account of the empty tomb.  How Mary Magdalene had come running to the house where he and Peter and the others were hiding.  How she sobbed out that someone had taken Jesus' body.  How he and Peter ran to the tomb as dawn was breaking and how they found it empty, with the linen graveclothes lying there neatly.  And we heard John say that “he believed”.  Somehow…inexplicably…Jesus had risen from the dead.  John believed in the resurrection of the dead.  They all did.  It was their hope.  But it wasn't supposed to happen like this.  Maybe it was fear, maybe it was confusion, maybe he just wanted to be more certain, but he didn't say anything.  They went back to the house where the other disciples were.  They went back into hiding.  Doors locked, windows shuttered, no lights, no fire.  When things blew over, they could sneak out of Jerusalem, slink back to Galilee.  Maybe they could go back to their old lives and everyone would forget that they'd been followers of Jesus. But then the next week we read from John's first epistle.  We read those words: Everything that is fathered by God conquers the world.  This is the victory that conquers the world: our faith!  That doesn't sound like the same John afraid to even tell his friends that he believed Jesus had been raised from death.  And last week we read from Peter's first epistle and he exhorted us to bear patiently with suffering.  Peter went from hiding behind locked doors on Easter to boldly preaching the risen Jesus in the temple court just fifty days later.  He would eventually find himself proclaiming that gospel in Rome itself, where he would be martyred for that holy boldness.  What happened? Brothers and Sisters, hope happened.  Jesus, the risen Messiah, appeared to them in that locked room.  They saw him, resurrected and renewed and yet still the same Jesus with the scars of the cross in his hands and feet.  They saw Jesus risen from the dead.  Not a ghost, not a spirt, but Jesus bodily raised.  It wasn't supposed to happen that way.  It was supposed to be everybody all at once, not just one person even if he was the Messiah.  But there he was, proving the old doctrine of the Pharisees and the Prophets and their fathers true—just not the way they expected.  But even that's not so much what motivated them to leave their hiding places and to proclaim the risen Jesus to the world.  It's what Jesus' resurrection meant.  Because Jesus' resurrection was more than just an astounding miracle.  Jesus' resurrection was the proof that God's new world had been born, that new creation had begun, that the promises he made through the prophets and the hopes of God's people were being fulfilled.  Jesus' resurrection meant that the hopes of God's people were finally becoming reality.  Jesus had kindled God's light in the midst of the darkness and they knew the darkness would never overcome it.  But as they worked this out, they also realised that while Jesus had inaugurated this new creation, it would be they—Peter, John, Mary, the others, you and I—who would carry and announce God's new creation to the world.  Again, this hope, made real, made manifest in the resurrection of Jesus, is what sent the disciples out, not just to announce that God had performed a miracle in raising Jesus, but to announce the God's new creation had been born and that Jesus is its king—and if that proclamation cost them everything, even if it got them killed—they knew that God would raise them and that he would vindicate them, just as he had Jesus. Nothing else changed.  They were hiding in that locked and darkened house because—usually—when the authorities crucified a rebel or a revolutionary, they would also round up and crucify his followers.  As it turned out, it doesn't seem that anyone was seriously interested in doing that to Jesus' disciples.  But they didn't know that.  The real danger came when they went out and began proclaiming the good news about Jesus—as they challenged the false gods and the pretend kings of the darkness with the light of the Lord Jesus, as they confronted this fallen world and its systems with God's new creation.  That's when they were mocked, beaten, arrested, and martyred. Think of Paul.  He was one of the one's breathing threats against Jesus' disciples.  He was there looking on while Stephen was stoned, holding coats so people could better throw stones at him.  And then as Paul was on his way to round up Christians to bring them before the Jewish authorities, he was met by the risen Jesus.  And, again, it wasn't just an amazing miracle that inspired Paul to take up his own cross and to follow Jesus—to follow Jesus and to be beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and eventually murdered for the sake of the gospel.  It was hope.  It was what the resurrection of Jesus meant.  Jesus, risen from the dead, was proof of God's faithfulness and proof that his promises of forgiveness and new life and new creation and of humanity and creation set to rights—everything the Jews (and Paul!) had hoped and longed for—it was proof that it was all true and that it was coming true in Jesus.  The light has come into the darkness and the darkness has not and never will overcome it.  It was proof that if we are in Jesus the Messiah, we have a share in God's new creation and that no amount of suffering and not even death can take that away.  People aren't going to risk their lives to report a miracle.  What drove Peter, John, Paul—and all our brothers and sisters since—what drove them to risk everything to proclaim the good news was the knowledge, the assurance, the hope that through that proclamation God's promised new creation would overcome the darkness, the sadness, the tears—that it would make all the sad things of this broken world come untrue—for them and eventually for everyone who believes.  The kingdom would spread and grow until heaven and earth, God and humanity are at one again. All of this is what Jesus is getting at in our Gospel today from John 16.  It's from the middle of the long teaching that Jesus gave to his disciples when they were in the Garden of Gethsemane, after they ate that last Passover meal with Jesus.  Over and over Jesus exhorts them saying things like, Don't let your hearts be troubled…trust God and trust me, too.  And: I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit that will last…If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you.  If you were from the world, the world would be fond of its own.  But the world hates you because you're not from the world.  No, I chose you out of the world.  And at the beginning of Chapter 16 he says to them: I've said these things to you to stop you from being tripped up.  They will put you out of the synagogues.  In fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will suppose that they are in that way offering worship to God…I have told you these things so that when their time comes, you will remember that I told you about them.   I expect the disciples were remembering that part of what Jesus said very well when they were hiding.  “Jesus said they'd come to kill us,” they whispered in the dark.  What they didn't remember—or at least what they didn't understand were the words we read today.  In verse 16 Jesus says: “Not long from now, you won't see me anymore.  Then again, not long after that, you will see me.”   They expected—like pretty much everyone else—that the Messiah would bring some kind of revolt or revolution.  He would overthrow the pagans and take the throne of Israel and, ruling over Israel, he would restore God's people to their rightful place and status in the world.  So it's no wonder that when they heard this, they started murmuring amongst themselves.  John goes on: “What's he talking about?” some of his disciples asked each other.  “What's this business about ‘not long from now, you won't see me, and again not long after that you will see me'?  And what's this about ‘going to the Father'?”   Maybe Jesus was going to finally do what the Messiah was supposed to do.  Maybe he was going to go gather his army and come back to battle the Romans.  John writes: They kept on saying it.  “What is this ‘not long'?”  “What's it all about?”  “We don't know what he means!”  Jesus was doing that thing again where he would say cryptic things or tell a confusing story.  It got their interest and then he could fill them in.  Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, John says. “You're discussing with each other what I meant, aren't you?” he said.  “You want to know what I meant by saying, ‘Not long from now, you won't see me; and then again, not long after that you will see me.'  That's it, isn't it?  Well, I'm going to tell you the solemn truth.”   I can see them all stopping the whispers and leaning forward.  “Yes, Teacher.  Tell us what you mean!”  So Jesus goes on in the silence:  “You will weep and wail, but the world will celebrate.  You will be overcome with sorrow, but your sorrow will turn into joy.”  I can picture the confused looks coming back to their faces.  The Messiah was supposed to make everything all better.  He was supposed to set everything to rights and to wipe away all the tears.  The Messiah was supposed to bring an end to weeping and wailing!  So Jesus gives them an illustration they could understand: “When a woman is giving birth she is in anguish, because her moment has come.  But when the child is born, she no longer remembers the suffering, because of the joy that a human being has been born into the world.”  And then he adds in verse 22: In the same way, you have sorrow now.  But I shall see you again, and your hearts will celebrate, and nobody will take your joy from you.”   Even with the childbirth illustration, it was still pretty cryptic.  Even with what follows—which we'll come to in our Gospel for Rogation Sunday in two more weeks—even with that, the disciples really didn't understand—yet.  It was all there in the Prophets and it was all there in the things Jesus had been teaching.  The son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the legal experts.  He must be killed and raised up on the third day,” Jesus had said at one point.  It doesn't get much clearer than that.  And yet the events of that first Good Friday and Easter Day came as a complete surprise to them.  But then when they met the risen Jesus it all started to come back to them and it started to fall into place.  The wheels started turning.  Mental light bulbs started turning on.  The one thing left that they needed was the Holy Spirit—but I don't want to get ahead of the story.  We're still in that fifty days between Easter and Pentecost. And I think those fifty days must have been some of the most exciting days in the history of the world.  The disciples sat with Jesus—risen and glorified, the first bit of God's new creation real and tangible and true right there with them—and he taught them.  He went back over the scriptures—no doubt saying things he'd said a hundred times before—but now, in light of the resurrection, it all started to make sense.  And I can imagine their excitement growing between being there with Jesus in all his resurrected glory and as they connected the scriptural dots and as they saw how the story they had grown up with, the story they lived every year at Passover, the story that defined who they were, the story they knew so, so, so well began to unfold in a new way.  They'd always known it was a great story about the mighty and saving deeds of the Lord, but over those forty days in the presence of Jesus and hearing him teach and explain the story turned into something more glorious than they ever could have imagined.  The God they'd known became so much bigger and more glorious than they ever thought he could be.  And then it was time for Jesus to ascend and he had to tell them, “Wait.”  They were ready and eager and excited to go out into Jerusalem and Judea to start telling everyone the story—the story everyone knew, but now seen in a new and glorious light through the lens of Jesus' resurrection—and about this new hope they knew.  God's new creation had finally come and they'd spent the last forty days living in his presence.  But Jesus said, “Wait.  Your excitement about what God has done is only part of what you need.  Wait.  Just a little bit—ten more days—so I can send God's Spirit.  Couple this good news with the power of the Spirit and not even the gates of hell will stop you!” And, Lord knows, the gates of hell have tried, but the gates of hell had already done their worst at the cross, and Jesus rose victorious.  And that's how and that's why those first disciples took up their crosses and followed Jesus.  Peter was crucified at Rome, Andrew was crucified in Greece, Thomas was speared by soldiers in India, Philip was martyred at Carthage, Matthew was martyred in Ethiopia, Bartholomew in Armenia, James was stoned to death in Jerusalem, Simon was martyred in Persia, and Matthias in Syria.  Only John survived, after being exiled to Patmos.  You see, in the risen Jesus they saw the proof that sin and death have been decisively defeated, that the false gods and kings of the old evil age have been exposed, and most of all they saw that God's promised and long-hoped for new creation has been born.  The resurrection gave them hope and that hope sent them out to proclaim the good news even though it meant following in the suffering of Jesus.  And their stories have been the stories of countless Christians through the ages—of the Christians who died in the Roman persecutions, who died at the hands of the Sassanids, the Goths, the Vikings, the Caliphs, the Turks, the Kahns, the French revolutionaries, the Communists, the Islamists.  It's been the stories of countless missionaries who marched into hostile territory for the sake of the gospel, knowing they very well might die for it, but also knowing that the way of the cross is the path into God's new creation. Brothers and Sisters, too often these days we've lost sight of this.  Maybe it's the prosperity gospel, maybe it's that we haven't known any meaningful persecution for so long, but we Christians in the modern west seem to have forgotten this.  There's no room for suffering and the way of the cross in our theology.  We gloss over what look like “failures” in church history.  I was listening to a sermon this past week.  The preacher was telling the story of a missionary named Peter Milne.  Milne was a Scottish minister and part of a group that called themselves “one-way” missionaries.  When they shipped out to far off lands to proclaim the gospel, they packed their worldly goods in a coffin.  It was symbolic.  They were going out as missionaries with no expectation of ever returning home.  They would die—one way or another—in the land they went to evangelise.  Peter Milne went to the New Hebrides in the South Pacific.  It was a land of head-hunting cannibals.  Milne wasn't the first to go.  Others had gone before and were killed by the natives.  Milne was the first to go and to survive and to have a thriving gospel ministry.  When he died fifty-some years later in 1924, he was buried in his coffin with the epitaph: “When he came, there was no light.  When he left, there was no darkness.”  When he'd arrived there wasn't a single Christian on the island.  When he died, there wasn't a single person who wasn't a Christian. But here's the thing—and the preacher I was listening to completely missed it: Following Jesus means first taking up a cross.  It's not about the glory of “successful” ministry.  It's about dying to self, and living for the hope of God's glory and the spread of his kingdom.  The preacher I listened to said nothing of the others who had gone before Milne to the New Hebrides and been martyred.  They don't fit in with our prosperity and business model theology.  We admire their willingness to give their lives for the sake of the gospel, but they sort of get chalked up as failures.  But to do that is to miss what it means to follow Jesus, to know the pangs of childbirth, but to also experience the joy that makes the pain and the sorrow pale in comparison. As Tertullian said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, but so are all the other good-faith “failures”.  There was a week when we were church-planting in Portland that I found myself all alone.  Veronica's mom was sick and she and Alexandra had travelled up to Kelowna.  The other family that was helping us to get things off the ground had to be away that weekend.  It was just me.  But The Oregonian newspaper had just run a story on us.  I'd had several contacts that week.  The show had to go on.  We were meeting at a Lutheran Church on Sunday evenings, so I asked the pastor there if one of their organists could come and play that evening.  She came and she and I sat there waiting.  And 7pm came and went.  And 7:05, and 7:15 and we knew no one was coming.  I was discouraged and it was obvious.  She and I said Evening Prayer together and then she told me her story.  She and her husband, a pastor, had been Lutheran church planters in Jamaica for almost ten years.  They had a very small group that had asked them to come to help them plant a church and for ten years they tried and nothing ever happened.  When they finally decided to quit there were no more people than when they started.  She said that she and her husband found the whole thing utterly discouraging.  They had made significant sacrifices to be there and nothing had happened.  It was tempting to be angry with God.  They returned home thinking they were failures and wondering why.  They'd been faithful in proclaiming Jesus.  They'd spent hours every week in prayer with that little group of people.  And then several years later they received a letter.  It was from a pastor in Kingston.  Not long after they'd left, he'd arrived to plant a church.  His group moved into the building left behind by the Lutherans and quickly began to grow and thrive.  And he wrote to thank them.  “You soaked this place in prayer and you cast gospel seed all through the neighbourhood,” he wrote.  He didn't know why it never grew for them, but he knew they'd been faithful and he was now reaping a harvest he hadn't planted and he wanted to thank them for their faithfulness.  That elderly Lutheran organist told me that story with tears in her eyes and said, “Be faithful and don't be discouraged.  Whatever happens, if you are faithful, the Lord is at work.  Some of us plant, some of us water, some of us reap, but it's all the Lord's work.”  She reminded me of the hope that lies before me—and that lies before all of us—and that Jesus doesn't just call us to follow him; he first calls us to take up our crosses.  Just it was necessary for Jesus to give his life that he might be raised from death, so must we die to ourselves that we might live.  Brothers and Sisters, fix your eyes on Jesus.  He knew the joy that was set before him and so he endured the cross.  He scorned its shame.  And because of that the Father raised him from the dead and has seated him at his right hand.  His kingdom has been born.  Now the joy of the kingdom, of new creation, of God's life is before us.  May it be the reason that we take up our crosses and follow our Lord. Let's pray: Gracious Father, as we come to your Table this morning, give us a taste of your great kingdom feast; let us see Jesus, risen from the dead; and make us especially aware of your indwelling Spirit that we might be filled with the joy of your salvation and the joy of your new creation.  Strengthen us with joy, so that we will not fear to take up our crosses and follow Jesus.  Amen.

The Fellows continue their conversation about Lutheran identity. This time, they discuss the term "evangelical." Lutherans have used the term to describe themselves since the early Reformation. In recent times, confessional Lutherans have turned away from the term. Caleb, Scott, Adam, and Bruce discuss why the word is worth using and qualifying, even though it has come to gain new definitions in Western Christianity.  Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Preorder Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi More from the hosts: Caleb Keith Scott Keith Adam Francisco Bruce Hilman  

Are Bishops force to retire? Do Anglicans and Lutherans have the Real Presence? What's Limbo? Join us for Open Line Monday with Fr. John Trigilio.

Are Bishops force to retire? Do Anglicans and Lutherans have the Real Presence? What's Limbo? Join us for Open Line Monday with Fr. John Trigilio.

The Thinking Fellows continue discussing the issue of a Lutheran identity crisis. This week, they deal with the moniker: confessional. They define confessional and explain why it is essential to Lutheranism. They also cover how the term has been used within specific movements in American Lutheranism, particularly the LCMS, to bludgeon people over a reasonable disagreement. Overall, Lutherans must subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions and thus be confessional, but it is not necessary to be involved in the gatekeeping that "confessional" movements can participate in today.  Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Preorder Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi More from the hosts: Caleb Keith Scott Keith Adam Francisco Bruce Hilman  

ETFs come in many different styles and can help with diversification inside of client portfolios. • Learn more at thriventfunds.com • Follow us on LinkedIn • Share feedback and questions with us at podcast@thriventfunds.com • Thrivent Distributors, LLC is a member of FINRA and a subsidiary of Thrivent, the marketing name for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

Somebody Told Me. In this episode, we read the Book of Concord on election, and discuss why God chooses to forgive all people on the cross, why some reject the gospel, why Lutherans reject double predestination, what the consequences are to trust that we are always justified for Christ's sake, and much, much more. SHOW NOTES:  The Book of Concord (New Translation): The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church https://amzn.to/3YbpA9h  Concerning the Eternal Predestination and Election of God https://thebookofconcord.org/formula-of-concord-epitome/article-xi/  Two Hundred Years Together https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Hundred_Years_Together   More from 1517: Support 1517 Podcast Network: https://www.1517.org/donate-podcasts 1517 Podcasts: http://www.1517.org/podcasts 1517 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1517org 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/1517-podcast-network/id6442751370 1517 Events Schedule: https://www.1517.org/events 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education: https://academy.1517.org/   What's New from 1517: The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781962654708-the-impossible-prize Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781962654791-ditching-the-checklist Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1962654753?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_FCNEEK60MVNVPCEGKBD8_5&starsLeft=1   More from the hosts: Donovan Riley https://www.1517.org/contributors/donavon-riley  Christopher Gillespie https://www.1517.org/contributors/christopher-gillespie   MORE LINKS: Tin Foil Haloes https://t.me/bannedpastors Warrior Priest Gym & Podcast https://thewarriorpriestpodcast.wordpress.com   St John's Lutheran Church (Webster, MN) - FB Live Bible Study Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/356667039608511  Donavon's Substack https://donavonlriley.substack.com Gillespie's Substack https://substack.com/@christophergillespie  Gillespie's Sermons and Catechesis http://youtube.com/stjohnrandomlake  Gillespie Coffee https://gillespie.coffee   Gillespie Media https://gillespie.media     CONTACT and FOLLOW: Email mailto:BannedBooks@1517.org  Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BannedBooksPod/  Twitter https://twitter.com/bannedbooks1517   SUBSCRIBE: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BannedBooks Rumble https://rumble.com/c/c-1223313  Odysee https://odysee.com/@bannedbooks:5 Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/banned-books/id1370993639  Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2ahA20sZMpBxg9vgiRVQba  Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1370993639/banned-books 

John 20:19-31When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. All across the country—and the world, for that matter—congregations are hearing sermons on Pope Francis, as they should. In fact, I am certain Lutherans will have not preached this much about a pope since the days of the Reformation! I am also certain today's sermons speak much kinder of the Pope than Luther, who called the pope of his day a sewer of wickedness and the antichrist. Today, there will be none of that. Pastors of all denominations are lifting up Pope Francis' advocacy on migration, environmentalism, and reform in the Catholic Church. Many will praise him for his efforts to empower women and his more open posture toward the LGBTQ faithful. Others will highlight the simple lifestyle Francis chose, long before he became pope. In Argentina, when he was known by his birth name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he eschewed the opulence of the bishop's palace, choosing instead to live in a modest apartment. He cooked his own meals, regularly visited the slums of Buenos Aires, and took public transportation. People regularly saw the archbishop on the bus. It wasn't just about frugality—it was about solidarity. He wanted to live close to the people he served. He was a shepherd who smelled like his sheep.This commitment continued when he became pope. In 2013, Francis declined the luxurious papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, choosing instead a two-room suite in a guesthouse for clergy visiting the Vatican. Breaking a century-old tradition, Francis said, “I am not used to opulence. is good for me and prevents me from being isolated.”Even yesterday, at his funeral, Francis was placed in a simple wooden box, not the traditional triple casket. His final resting place at St. Mary Major has no grand tomb, no ornate inscription—just a plain headstone with the name "Francis." A quiet, fitting end to a life marked by humility, service, and downward mobility.How fitting it is, then, that Francis' death coincides with the story of Thomas, because both Francis and Thomas were deeply familiar with the wounds of Jesus. Usually when we hear this story from John, we focus on Thomas' doubt. We jump to his defense—saying we all want proof, all want what others have received. But today, what stands out to me is Thomas' courage and Jesus' graciousness. How gracious it is for Jesus to offer his wounds to Thomas, to provide exactly what his faith needs. It's as if Jesus says, “If it's my wounds Thomas needs to believe, then it's my wounds I will give.”It is a remarkable grace—to show someone your wounds, to put on display the very thing that inflicted pain, to reveal the reminders of rejection. Yet Jesus doesn't stop there. He invites Thomas to touch them. That is grace upon grace.And it works.Thomas doesn't simply see the wounds and say yes, Jesus has risen. Thomas goes further in both deed and word than all the other disciples. I imagine his fingers trembling as he touched the still-scabbing nail marks. His hand must have shook as he reached into the spear-sized hole in Jesus' side. And then, only after entering the wounds, Thomas says the deepest confession of faith yet uttered in the Gospel.: "My Lord and my God!"Not just master, not just teacher— my God.Jesus is revealed not through strength but through weakness. Not in greatness but in meekness. It's not a miracle of abundance, not a sign of divine power, but wounds that lead to worship. Seeing the wounds, the disciples recognize Jesus. Touching the wounds, Thomas' faith is born anew.Francis understood this. He knew that if he wanted to encounter the risen Christ, he needed to find and touch Christ's wounds just as Thomas did. In one homily, Francis said:"How can I find the wounds of Jesus today? I cannot see them as Thomas saw them. But I can find them in doing works of mercy and in giving to the bodies of our injured siblings in Christ, for they are hungry, thirsty, naked, humiliated, in prison, in hospitals. These are the wounds of Jesus in our day."This wasn't something Pope Francis merely preached about. He embodied this, too.Early in his papacy, he traveled to Lampedusa to mourn migrants lost at sea and decry the "globalization of indifference." In war-torn Bangui, he entered a besieged Muslim neighborhood to preach peace, declaring Christians and Muslims brothers and sisters. In Bangladesh, he met with Rohingya refugees, embraced their suffering, and called them "the presence of God today."But perhaps the most moving example is this: That is Pope Francis doing a video call through WhatsApp with the only catholic church in the Gaza strip. What's remarkable is that Francis has called that community every night at 7pm since the third day of the war. Anton, the spokesperson of the congregation, said “the pope would always ask how we were, what did we eat, did we have clean water, was anyone injured?" Was anyone injured? Even from a video call, Francis did his best to enter their wounds, to see suffering, to understand the pain they were enduring, that they continue to endure. And he did this every night, no matter how busy he was or where he was, telling them he was praying for them. I imagine the community on the other end of the call did in fact show the pope their wounds, like when bombs fell on the attached school, killing six Christians sheltering there. Or in these last eight weeks while no humanitarian aid has been allowed in and people have died from starvation and disease.Anton says the pope's final call came on Saturday, two days before he died. Francis told them he was praying for them and said he needed their prayers. "He told us not to worry as he would always be there for us," Anton said. "He was with us until his last breath."It is not our inclination to look at wounds, let alone touch them. We tend to look away from pain, suffering, and death. Yet the story of Jesus and Thomas, and the example of Francis, invite us to do just the opposite.And I get it—looking away is easy, even necessary sometimes. All the hurt and injustice can feel overwhelming, paralyzing even. But to have the option to look away is a privilege many do not have. The invitation Jesus gave Thomas is the same invitation given to us: reach out your hand. Touch the wounds.I know we aren't the pope. We can't just call someone in Gaza or travel to the war-torn places of the world. But are there not wounds here, among us? Like in our neighbors grieving losses we don't always see. In young people fighting battles with anxiety and loneliness. In the elderly who sit in nursing homes, too often forgotten. In the struggling families trying to make rent here in Central Indiana. The wounds of Jesus are in the growing homeless population in downtown Indianapolis. They are in the food pantries and shelters that are stretched thin, even in our own backyard. They are in the racial and economic divides that persist right here in central Indiana.Friends, the invitation Jesus gave to Thomas — "Reach out your hand and touch" — is the same invitation he gives to us. To draw near. To notice. To listen. To show up.So where, in your daily life, is Jesus inviting you to touch a wound? - In the coworker going through a divorce? - In the friend who's been quiet for too long? - In the neighbor who just lost a job?And for the wounds across the world: stay informed. Pray. Vote. Protest. Give generously. Stand against oppression that causes such suffering. Only when we are familiar with the wounds and what causes them can we do something about them.And Though your fingers may tremble and your hands may shake as you do it, you are reaching out to Jesus himself. And there—in the trembling, in the reaching—we find him.The risen and living Christ, our Lord and our God. Amen.

Over And Done With. In this episode, we read Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope and discuss the validity of the papacy's claims to divine authority, the response of Lutherans and Protestants to the death of Pope Francis, how to love one's neighbor while disagreeing them, the distinction between heterodoxy and heresy, and much much more. SHOW NOTES:  Complete Sermons of Martin Luther - Klug https://duckduckgo.com/?q=complete+sermons+of+martin+luther+klug&t=osx&ia=shopping&iax=shopping Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter https://amzn.to/42jreZ0 Postman quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7942005-what-orwell-feared-were-those-who-would-ban-books-what   More from 1517: Support 1517 Podcast Network: https://www.1517.org/donate-podcasts 1517 Podcasts: http://www.1517.org/podcasts 1517 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1517org 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/1517-podcast-network/id6442751370 1517 Events Schedule: https://www.1517.org/events 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education: https://academy.1517.org/   What's New from 1517: Celebrate 2,000 Episodes of Christian History Almanac! https://www.1517.org/chacelebrate The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781962654708-the-impossible-prize Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781962654791-ditching-the-checklist Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1962654753?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_FCNEEK60MVNVPCEGKBD8_5&starsLeft=1   More from the hosts: Donovan Riley https://www.1517.org/contributors/donavon-riley  Christopher Gillespie https://www.1517.org/contributors/christopher-gillespie   MORE LINKS: Tin Foil Haloes https://t.me/bannedpastors Warrior Priest Gym & Podcast https://thewarriorpriestpodcast.wordpress.com   St John's Lutheran Church (Webster, MN) - FB Live Bible Study Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/356667039608511  Donavon's Substack https://donavonlriley.substack.com Gillespie's Substack https://substack.com/@christophergillespie  Gillespie's Sermons and Catechesis http://youtube.com/stjohnrandomlake  Gillespie Coffee https://gillespie.coffee   Gillespie Media https://gillespie.media     CONTACT and FOLLOW: Email mailto:BannedBooks@1517.org  Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BannedBooksPod/  Twitter https://twitter.com/bannedbooks1517   SUBSCRIBE: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BannedBooks Rumble https://rumble.com/c/c-1223313  Odysee https://odysee.com/@bannedbooks:5 Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/banned-books/id1370993639  Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2ahA20sZMpBxg9vgiRVQba  Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1370993639/banned-books 

How are international students brought into community with Lutherans around the world? Sue Hasselbring (Ministry Catalyst for International Student Ministry, Inc.) and Ken Bickel (Board President for International Student Ministry, Inc.) join Andy and Sarah to talk about why International Student Ministry exists and how they serve students, how each of them got involved, what occurs through each ISM site, and information about two upcoming events: In Depth Bible seminar and Equipping Conference. Learn more about International Student Ministry, Inc., and how to get involved at isminc.org or by contacting sue@isminc.org. As you grab your morning coffee (and pastry, let's be honest), join hosts Andy Bates and Sarah Gulseth as they bring you stories of the intersection of Lutheran life and a secular world. Catch real-life stories of mercy work of the LCMS and partners, updates from missionaries across the ocean, and practical talk about how to live boldly Lutheran. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.

Preached for meeting of Northern Illinois Confessional Lutherans. Jesus, who conquers death and Leviathan, is recognized in provision and fruitfulness.

In this episode of the Thinking Fellows podcast, Caleb Keith, Adam Francisco, Bruce Hillman, and Scott Keith engage discuss an ongoing identity crisis within Lutheranism. They explore various terms such as confessional and missional, their meanings, and the implications for the Lutherans. The conversation explores the historical context of Lutheran identity, the role of tradition and doctrine and how they shape the identiy of a church.  Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi More from the hosts: Caleb Keith Scott Keith Adam Francisco Bruce Hilman  

In this second installment of our conversation with Pastor Erik Janke of May River Lutheran Church, we go deeper into the sacramental life of the Lutheran Church—exploring what Lutherans believe about communion, baptism, and the authority of Scripture.Pastor Jeff and Pastor Erik unpack some of the differences between the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) and other branches of Lutheranism, including the ELCA and Missouri Synod, and why staying grounded in God's Word is at the heart of it all.

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod faces significant challenges based on the latest Pew Research Center findings, with declining prayer frequency, weekly worship attendance, and scripture reading. Tim and Jack offer candid insights into the demographic shifts and spiritual trends affecting LCMS congregations nationwide.• LCMS demographics show an aging trend with only 19% of households having children, down from 28% a decade ago• Lutherans maintain strong marriage rates with 69% of members married compared to 50% nationwide• Weekly worship attendance has dropped from 47% to 34%, significantly below the national average• Only 27% of LCMS members read scripture weekly, while 55% seldom or never engage with the Bible• Members reporting regular spiritual peace has plummeted from 63% to 43%, with those reporting no peace doubling• The church body is becoming more politically homogeneous with 66% identifying as Republican• Strategic recommendations include prioritizing young family outreach, developing leadership pathways, emphasizing spiritual disciplines, and maintaining gospel-centered messagingWe must engage the community by offering Christ's peace in a troubled world, building bridges between our traditions and today's needs, and creating spaces for genuine spiritual growth in an increasingly anxious society.Support the showJoin the Lead Time Newsletter! (Weekly Updates and Upcoming Episodes)https://www.uniteleadership.org/lead-time-podcast#newsletterVisit uniteleadership.org

What does the bumpy start to the year signal for the coming months? • Learn more at thriventfunds.com • Follow us on LinkedIn • Share feedback and questions with us at podcast@thriventfunds.com • Thrivent Distributors, LLC is a member of FINRA and a subsidiary of Thrivent, the marketing name for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

What sets the Lutheran church apart from other Protestant traditions? In this episode, Pastor Jeff welcomes Pastor Erik Janke, founding pastor of May River Lutheran Church and fellow fire department chaplain, to unpack the rich theological roots of Lutheranism, its historic emphasis on Word and Sacrament, and the unique structure of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS).

In episode THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN, Wade and Jason discuss the Lutheran approach to tradition and how this relates to the Reformation slogan sola scriptura (scripture alone). Does tradition have authority? Are all traditions the same? Is scripture the only authority in the church? The guys discuss all this and more. We hope you enjoy the episode! Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Celebrate 2,000 Episodes of Christian History Almanac! The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi More from the hosts Michael Berg @ 1517 Wade Johnston @ 1517 Let the Bird Fly! website Thanks for listening! Attributions for Music and Image used in this Episode: “The Last One” by Jahzzar is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. “Gib laut” by Dirk Becker is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License. “Whistling Down the Road” by Silent Partner. “Not Drunk” by The Joy Drops is licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International License.

Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller of St. Paul Lutheran, Austin, TX Pr. Wolfmueller's YouTube Channel Has American Christianity Failed? The post Myths About Lutheranism: Lutherans Teach Once Baptized, Always Saved & Lutherans Teach Baptism Saves, Not Faith – Bryan Wolfmueller, 3/26/25 (0853) first appeared on Issues, Etc..

Today InPerspective with Dr. Harry Reeder March 26, 2025

Richard Doerflinger on the Dr. J Show, episode 275 https://youtu.be/W1CEN49YgGU “When young women go to college, they are instantly expected to fall into the hook-up culture," Richard Doerflinger says in Part 2 of this interview. "Their initial feeling is ‘I'm free. I'm liberated from all these restrictive norms. Nobody's watching. Sex is consequence-free.'” And yet, among these young women is more depression, anxiety, isolation, suicidal thoughts, and cutting “to know you're alive," he notes. "Then they can't figure out why they feel so miserable.” Watch part 1 here: https://youtu.be/RSUCTbkjOtM More about Richard Doerflinger: https://lozierinstitute.org/team-member/richard-doerflinger/ Chapters 00:00 The Impact of Contraception on Society 02:49 Consequences of the Contraceptive Mindset 05:49 Moral Norms and Their Importance 09:10 The Dangers of Relativism 11:56 The Role of Experience in Moral Decision Making 15:06 The Breakdown of Marriage and Family 18:14 The Need for Moral Absolutes 21:08 Reviving Natural Intuition 23:59 The Long-Term Effects of Individual Choices 26:55 The Importance of Sharing Experiences Transcript (Please note the transcript is auto-generated and contains errors) Richard Doerflinger (00:00) the social science part of it. What happens when people pass new, broader, more sweeping contraceptive programs? Do they reduce abortions? And I ended up doing a fact sheet with a couple of dozen references, concluding that they don't reduce abortions in a number of cases, they have increased abortions. The contraceptives have given people a false sense of security. made them more open to more casual sex and therefore opened them up to the possibility of a pregnancy that they don't know what to do about because they're the act that created that child was so anonymous and and so meaningless to them in a way. So it's a it was a big wake up call for me because even as a even as a social phenomenon. Contraception doesn't work. It certainly at reducing the number of abortions. And that's something that John Paul the second mentioned in his encyclical on the gospel of life as well. People think it's going to prevent it, but it can be very many times a road toward it. You had this technical thing that was supposed to prevent this. But as a backup to contraceptive failure, you have this other technical thing that will solve the problem you didn't think you were supposed to have. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (01:39) And you know, repair of a couple of economists, Janet Yellen and her husband, right? You know this article. Yes, yes. Richard Doerflinger (01:48) Let's sources, yeah. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (01:51) Basically, they were asking the question, how is it possible that in the age of contraception and abortion, both being readily available, that we have more out of wedlock childbearing than we ever did before? How is this possible? And they concluded pretty much what you just concluded, which is that the social is, contraception is the social cause. It's not a cause like smoking causes cancer, but it's a social cause in the sense that it sets a set of incentives into motion. which then the net result of the whole new system that you've created ends up with people having pregnancies that they feel socially are not sustainable, because you're the father of the child is your boss who's married to someone else. And you would never have done that if you didn't have contraception, you know, that type of thing or some schmuck you picked up at a bar, which you never would have done if you didn't feel protected. And so the woman has a choice of either aborting the baby or carrying it to term and being a single parent because there's no marriage isn't really practical. And then our friends in the crisis pregnancy center world, the pregnancy care center world, they are dealing with this issue all the time. And they would like to be able to tell the young ladies, should be, can you marry this guy? And oftentimes the answer is it would really, they couldn't in good conscience urge the girl to marry the guy. So there have been a whole series of consequences from the widespread promotion of sex that is not intended to be procreative, you know, if you can put it that way. Can you, from your perspective, Richard, spell out, you know, just kind of trace more of those consequences? What are some other things that have followed from the whole contraceptive ideology, the whole contraceptive mindset? What are some other… things that you've documented or observed. Richard Doerflinger (03:50) Well, one thing, and this was the subject of Anne Maloney's chapter in this book about, you the boys from the trenches. She's been teaching for many years at a women's college, Catholic women's college. And, you know, the female students, they come there, they're freed from their past social Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (04:03) yes. Richard Doerflinger (04:20) environment from their parents and so on. And instantly you are expected to fall in with the hookup culture. their initial experience or their initial feeling is, I'm free, I'm liberated from all these restrictive norms and nobody's watching. And I'm a liberated woman. The sex is consequence free. Well, it's not consequence free because what she found in talking to these young ladies over decades really is more depression, more anxiety, more cutting, cutting yourself in the arm to know you're alive, more isolation, more abandonment, more suicidal thoughts. And they can't figure out why they feel so miserable. It's the saddest thing I've ever read. And as we as well, you know, where's where's the young man? Well, you know, it was one night. never talk to me again. This is a very destructive culture, destructive, especially to women, though I don't think it's it's good for men either. So it's something you can see writ large in social findings. My friend Helen Alvarez calls it the immistration of women. That means women are more miserable than ever before. And that shows up in social surveys. And I think it does make people ready for abortion. The other thing is that the ideology that started with contraception and then was used to create a Supreme Court judgment that there was a constitutional right not only to contraception but to abortion, I found has gotten used by later courts, by later judges, to justify the lethal neglect of handicapped newborn children to as a precedent for euthanasia and assisted suicide for elderly. And so the whole idea that life, innocent life, supposedly burdensome life or imperfect life has no great rights that can Trump, should stop using that word, shouldn't I, can override liberty, personal liberty. that has gotten into any number of other areas where life is at risk. So it's something that has been kind of poisoning society. This idea that you can have actions that are, you don't have any actions that are consequence free. And very often the consequences are bad consequences for the most helpless among us. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (07:45) And you know, I like the way you put that because the whole idea that there are some norms, some moral norms that have no exceptions, there's a reason for those things having no exceptions. And the underlying reason is that you're trying to protect the true equality of every human being and their right to life. know, so much of this has been done in the name of equality for women. Well, when they're talking about equality for women, they're talking about in terms of income or occupational stature, that kind of thing. There's no question that women make more money as individuals than they used to, or that women have more education than they used to. That's certainly true. And so men and women are more equal. But only in that dimension. The women are now more miserable than they were before. And the idea that every human person has a baseline of human rights, that gets completely shot. you know, that the woman has the sole right to determine whether this particular person even gets to live, you know. That idea is extremely corrosive. And it's one of these things, it's superficially appealing, but when you really dig down a little bit, you find there's all sorts of dark sides to it. And, you know, it seems like it's been the job of the faithful Catholic remnant to make sure that at least somebody digs down a little bit. to pass that superficial appeal of the thing. Richard Doerflinger (09:14) Yeah, it's a, it reminded me of something that was once written by one of my favorite priests that I ever met, Jesuit priest named John Connery SJ. And he had a steady debate going back and forth between him and Richard McCormick, who was one of the great consequentialist theologians in the United States in journals like Theological Studies. And he ended one of his articles about moral absolutes with a statement that I thought, well, it's so obvious that you're the first person that wrote anything that brought it home to me. And that was, look, it's when it's hard to obey a moral norm, that's when you need the moral absolute. You don't need moral absolutes for when it's easy. You only need it when it is when the temptation is greater to to violate it. And I don't know why they're just stuck in my mind as well. It's enormous common sense. But for some reason, there are people who think that that's not true. The. And the whole history of Catholic moral teaching has been to refine and sometimes to expand the application of its witness to life. You know, more and more of the church has turned against capital punishment as, you know, an unnecessarily violent means for trying to punish or stop crime. Our tradition on war has become more and more skeptical about the idea that you could ever have in practice today with all our technology, a just war, a limited war. And so here, when life is at its most helpless, we seem to be wanting to go in the opposite direction. And I would like to say to some of my liberal Catholic friends, do you really think that once you make this new paradigm where it's only your subjective Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (11:20) Mm-hmm Richard Doerflinger (11:29) desires and your own experience that are going to make the moral norm for you. You don't think anybody's going to think of applying that to war. I don't see any reason why not. If it's a paradigm, it's a paradigm. It undermines all moral absolutes. So I think it's very, very important to that. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (11:45) Right And it undermines all moral absolutes, but it also places the weak in an even weaker position, right, because there's nothing to which they can appeal. The law of the strongest becomes much more potent in a relativistic type of system, and this is something Pope Benedict was, I think, referring to when he talked about the dictatorship of relativism. If you really don't have any standards, then you are going to end up with the law of the strongest, whether you mean to or not, whether you like it or not. that's where you're going to end up because you don't have any standard that everybody can appeal to. Richard Doerflinger (12:30) That's right. That's John Paul II as well in the Gospel of Life. When liberty, when freedom does not serve the truth, it's just a war of the strong against the weak. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (12:44) Right, right. And that's pretty much where we are. Richard Doerflinger (12:47) what we seem to be heading for. The other thing that just surprises me is that a lot of the Protestant denominations, and this has been noted by Mary Eberstadt and others, have taken this road toward a more subjectivist, more relativist morality, accepting the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, in terms of sexuality, among other things. And those are the denominations that are dying. know, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the Episcopalians, at least some branches of them have decided we need to get with the spirit of the age so that people will find us credible. And instead, people found them dispensable. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (13:43) Yes. Richard Doerflinger (13:44) They were just saying the things that the secular society was already telling them and wrapping it around in some theology, but you don't need the theology if you've already got, you know, the answer to what you're allowed to do, which is pretty broad answer. So it's very frustrating to find that this, you know, sexual revolution, obviously, I mean, you have to just open your eyes had many, many casualties. And I don't know why that can be invisible to bishops, to theologians. The evidence is all there. again, know, Berenstead has been, and her contribution to this as well, and in yours, it's all there. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (14:36) That's right. Richard Doerflinger (14:37) Question about it, really. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (14:40) Well, I can tell you how this works, Richard. can tell you exactly how this works, because this is the kind of stuff I track, right? People selectively choose the evidence. And so the people who are talking about lived experience, they always have one kind of experience in mind, the experience of the hard case, whatever the hard case might be, the issue is abortion or the issue is end of life issues or homosexuality or whatever the issue is, it's always the hard case where it's hard to meet the norm, like you were saying before, but they never ever present the evidence, the lived experience of the people who violated the norm and then later regret it. And the whole list of reasons why people turn out to regret violating the norm. You know, it's like we're driving down the Pacific Coast Highway in California, which is a beautiful winding road, but we're driving down that highway with no guardrails. in a car that has no brakes. Well, when you go careening off the cliff, you kind of wish you had the brakes. You kind of wish somebody had said, danger, slow down, you know? But that's what the absolute moral norm can do for you, is it keeps you from the worst kind of catastrophe, but still give you lots and lots of freedom about how. So for example, you and your wife, I want to come back to your story, which by the way is the subject of his contribution here. That what you discover is when you say, okay, certain things are off limits. We're not going to use the rubbers anymore. We're not going to take the pills anymore. Okay, that's off limits. But within that, within the constraints we've now accepted for ourselves, we can do all sorts of things. We're very free if we stay in the playground, you know, and the playground is much safer than the free for all that includes cars coming through at 50 miles an hour. You know, can, the kids can't play in that kind of environment. And so, but the contraceptive ideology has broken down marriage precisely as Paul VI said it would do because if you have a strong marriage culture and you know you're supposed to be sexually exclusive, that means this ring says I'm off limits. I'm off limits to everybody, you know, and you're off limits to everybody because you got a ring on your finger. Richard Doerflinger (16:59) Even the guys who are trying to cheat on their wives and go to a bar to pick up a woman they don't know, they realize they need to take that ring off first. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (17:12) Yeah, that's right. No, that's very true. That's very true. Because there is still some residual moral norm around that you don't mess around with somebody's spouse. But contraception makes it seem like it will be OK, that we can get away with this. It's not as potentially catastrophic and stuff. And how many marriages are destroyed by infidelity? A lot. A lot are destroyed by infidelity, obviously. So yeah. Anyway, go ahead. Richard Doerflinger (17:44) I was just going say that, you when you're talking about the playground, it reminded me of something that I think GK Chesterton said about there was once a playground. It was on a sort of plateau, but it has this big strong fence all around, all around the playground. And kids would come and they would play. And sometimes they, you know, when running in a ball game, they'd actually bounce off the fence or something, you know, that everybody was having a good time. Everybody decided. Although their parents decided, well, this is very restrictive. We will take away the fence. The next day they came, the fence was down. The children arrived. They were all huddling together in the center and no one was laughing. And it reminded me also of there's a palliative care physician I used to work with on the issue of physician assisted suicide. said something very similar. said, because I know that deliberately ending the life of my patient is the one thing I must never do that freed me to do all of the ways to explore all the ways in which I can relieve his suffering and accompany him or her. Because I know that's where I don't go. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (19:09) Mm-hmm. Richard Doerflinger (19:10) So I think that's very true on all kinds of issues. You say this is what I will not do. What is it? Meet Lo, Fustasing. I'll do anything for love, but I won't do that. Those norms are there to free us for the ways in which we can live with each other and, yes, plan our families. and respect each other. I that was one of the other things that just I had to respect my wife's body and its natural cycles and so on. And that helped to undergird my respect for her, which, of course, every husband should have for his wife. And so it is a way of working with reality instead of trying to change reality to your whims. I think this is a much longer term debate or struggle than just, you know, changing laws or, you know, changing official documents. It really is about changing culture. It's about changing attitudes. I've done some writing in the past about this whole worldview of expressive individualism, that every one of us is just sort of a individual. Well, it's really, it's very Nietzschean, you know, it's the will to power. I express myself, I can create myself, making my identity by the way that I work out what I want to do. And that is so destructive on so many levels. And I think that the marriage culture, the idea of actually committing yourself to another person, that that is freeing. It frees you from all the consequences of uncommitted sex that so many women have had to experience. And it is also something that, there is also you were talking about, you know, there's a there's a moral norm built into us, you know, instinctually, a mother has the instinct of protecting her child. at every stage. We have been trying to suppress that over the recent decades of developments on this is what your individual freedom frees you or maybe requires you to do. I was very taken aback once I was reading a Catholic account of abortion. This is a priest who is responding to an essay by Anne Landers in favor of abortion. And he went through all kinds of rebuttals about the arguments in favor. And then he said, but to get back to the one thing, the essential thing, the only thing to abort is to destroy your son or daughter. And I have been working with the, you know, this is the taking of a human life or this is, you know, a form of killing and so on. And suddenly just those words took me aback. Well, of course it is. You're related. This is a member of your family. It already is a member of your family. Even if your family is only the two of you. And I think it has taken a lot of work for society to break down that very natural intuition. And there must be ways to revive it because it hasn't entirely disappeared. mean, many, many abortions are very broken up about it. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (23:01) Yes, yes. And many men are broken up by their wives or girlfriends' decisions to have an abortion. And even siblings. Every once in a while somebody will share with me, you know, Dr. Morse, my mom told me when I was a teenager, my mom told me that she had had an abortion, you know, at some point. And that guy said to me, my gosh, I have a sibling who died, you know. So even there, none of these things only affect the individual. This is the other big myth, you know. The person making the decision cannot foresee all the consequences if you, particularly if you expand the consequences beyond yourself. What impact will this have on the people around me, on my husband, on my boyfriend, on my other kids, you know? What are all those consequences? This has always been the argument against consequentialism. You know, no, I mean, it's one argument against consequentialism. You can't possibly know all the possible consequences. Richard Doerflinger (24:12) And there's no way to quantify one against the other because they're different projects. And the first consequence is on you. I you have just made yourself the kind of person who does this. And I mean, there's certainly opportunity for repenting of that, for turning your life around again. But the first consequence is on your own conscience. There are people who, you this was the first time they realized they were capable of doing this thing that they didn't think they would ever do. And that changes your life. it's, yeah, consequentialism is, it's a very one dimensional way of talking about one very small subset of all the consequences that we create when we have a human act, a moral act. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (25:10) Yes, yes. And I'm glad you're calling it expressive individualism, because one of the… I almost think of it as a trick. You know, one of the tricks that is done to make you think this act is okay is that you greatly redefine what counts as a consequence. You know, so when you see people expressing themselves by deciding they were really born in the wrong body, and they're going to change the sex of the body, and they're going to leave their wife and their children to go live as a woman… You know, that person's thinking about the consequences to themselves. They're not thinking about the long-term impact on the wife and the children. Somehow that doesn't enter the calculation. It doesn't enter as a harm, you know? And that's how a lot of this stuff is done. That's the trick, I would call it the trick. And one of the things that we try to do here at the Ruth Institute is to make sure those people get a microphone, you know, that the people who've been left behind have an opportunity to say, you know, my dad did this and it was awful. My mom did this and it was awful for us, you know, all of those type of things to broaden that discussion so that people understand your actions do have far reaching consequences, not just to you today, but to generations down the line. You're gonna be having consequences, the consequences of these acts. So we have our work cut out for us in this volume, us little, our intrepid people who are trying to fight against consequentialism in the Roman Catholic Church. where it doesn't belong, okay people, it does not belong in the Roman Catholic Church. The rest of you maybe have an excuse, but no, we're not gonna accept this. So in your opinion, who should read this book? Who should get this book? Who should have it on their shelf? Richard Doerflinger (26:55) You know, I think it would be a very handy guide for pastors who, you know, deal with people coming to them with questions regarding sexuality and so on. know, people will not necessarily always listen to, well, that this is immoral in the teaching of the Catholic Church. They might listen to, well, I mean, what you're doing or what you want to do. has really done a lot of harm to a lot of women and a lot of men. And here's some experience. I mean, if people will listen to experience, this book has got those. I think people who are teaching moral theology or are teaching marriage preparation or RCIA, Pre-Kena programs, can look at this and get some insights that will help them to talk in a very down to earth way about sexual ethics. I mean, I have a vested interest, I would, you know, I hope everybody reads this book, of course, but I think especially in those consequences, you know, in those situations, it could be an extremely helpful guide for where to go when just saying no is not enough. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (28:19) Right, right. And do you think people would respond well if they received this book as a gift from someone else? I wonder if some of our viewers might want send it to their pastor, might want to send it to their moral theologian professor or something like that. I don't know. Maybe people don't respond well to that. But maybe they do. Maybe. I don't know. What do you think, Rich? Should people try that? Richard Doerflinger (28:46) It couldn't hurt. The one person I know I should not send it to. I was talking to one of our grown daughters the other day and said, you know, Maria, I just finished, you know, I got a chapter in a recently published book. We were talking about, you know, moms and my married life in our checkered history with family planning. You want to read it? She said, God, no. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (29:15) That's it. Richard Doerflinger (29:18) So, you know, your kids don't want to. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (29:20) Send it to her. Duly noted, Richard. We will not send it to your daughter. Richard Doerflinger (29:26) But I hope other people will be sort of interested in what we learned from our experience. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (29:33) Yes. And the strategic significance of this book, just to reiterate something that Rich and I started at and have been kind of hinting around about, is that lived experience is the terminology that people use to defend consequentialism. Lived experience can trump those moral norms. And we want to say that it's actually the lived experience of people who violate those norms that should tell us that the norms are very valuable to us. and that the norms are worth defending and the norms are worth keeping. Richard Dorflinger, thank you so much for being my guest on today's episode of the Dr. J Show. This has been very interesting, very, very helpful. Are you still writing and working in this series or do you have a website or something like that where people can keep up with you? Richard Doerflinger (30:25) I don't have a website. mean, if you were to do an internet search in my name, some of my work would come up. Also, some nasty articles about me from people who didn't appreciate what I was doing in Congress. my wife is asking me once in a while when I'm going to retire from my retirement. I continue to do writing and speaking. giving a talk at Notre Dame next week, part of their fall conference on the Catholic imagination, which is interesting, is they wanted me to apply the idea of the Catholic imagination, the Catholic worldview and how it looks at reality as having deeper levels than other accounts recognized and apply it to some of these issues like abortion. so So it's mainly, a lot of the speakers are gonna be novelists, poets and so on, but I get to take that idea and apply it to what I work on usually. And it's been an interesting exercise to figure out what I'm gonna say. I haven't figured out all of it yet. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (31:44) Well, Richard Darflinger, it has been a lot of fun talking with you about these issues, these very serious and important issues, but we have had a little bit of fun while we're doing it. I do hope that people will take this volume seriously. I do hope that people will use these thoughts to interpret what you see coming out of Rome from time to time and help you understand what some of these debates are in Catholic moral theology. Your contribution here, Richard, has been really a big help to me and I'm sure to many of the viewers of the Ruth Institute. So I want to thank you so much for being my guest on today's episode of The Dr. J Show. Have a question or a comment? Leave it in the comments, and we'll get back to you! Subscribe to our YouTube playlist:  @RuthInstitute   Follow us on Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/theruthinstitute https://twitter.com/RuthInstitute https://www.facebook.com/TheRuthInstitute https://theruthinstitute.locals.com/newsfeed Press: NC Register: https://www.ncregister.com/author/jennifer-roback-morse Catholic Answers: https://www.catholic.com/profile/jennifer-roback-morse The Stream: https://stream.org/author/jennifer-roback-morse/ Crisis Magazine: https://crisismagazine.com/author/jennifer-roeback-morse Father Sullins' Reports on Clergy Sexual Abuse: https://ruthinstitute.org/resource-centers/father-sullins-research/ Buy Dr. Morse's Books: The Sexual State: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/the-sexual-state-2/ Love and Economics: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/love-and-economics-it-takes-a-family-to-raise-a-village/ Smart Sex: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/smart-sex-finding-life-long-love-in-a-hook-up-world/ 101 Tips for a Happier Marriage: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/101-tips-for-a-happier-marriage/ 101 Tips for Marrying the Right Person: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/101-tips-for-marrying-the-right-person/ Listen to our podcast:  Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ruth-institute-podcast/id309797947 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1t7mWLRHjrCqNjsbH7zXv1 Subscribe to our newsletter to get this amazing report: Refute the Top 5 Gay Myths https://ruthinstitute.org/refute-the-top-five-myths/ Get the full interview by joining us for exclusive, uncensored content on Locals: https://theruthinstitute.locals.com/support

March 23, 2025: May God's words be spoken, may God's words be heard.  Amen. Today The Episcopal Church does a thing.  We usually go right along with the Revised Common Lectionary – the assigned readings for a Sunday followed by Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and a whole lot of others, and also the Roman Catholic Church… The post “Time To Get Your Hands Dirty” appeared first on Christ Episcopal Church.

How can theological education strengthen the Lutheran church in Taiwan and beyond? Rev. Dr. Tom Park, Serving the Lord in Taiwan as a theological educator, joins Andy to discuss the Lutheran presence in the region and the LCMS's partnerships there. He shares about the current need for theological education in Taiwan, the request that led to the creation of a new seminary, and how Concordia Theological Seminary Taiwan will serve China Evangelical Lutheran Church and other Lutherans across Asia. Learn more about Dr. Park's work at lcms.org/park, and stay updated on LCMS Asia region news at international.lcms.org/asia. As you grab your morning coffee (and pastry, let's be honest), join hosts Andy Bates and Sarah Gulseth as they bring you stories of the intersection of Lutheran life and a secular world. Catch real-life stories of mercy work of the LCMS and partners, updates from missionaries across the ocean, and practical talk about how to live boldly Lutheran. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.

Dr Adam Koontz talks about the Pew Religious Landscape Survey and what it says about our demographics and beliefs. Check out the 2025 Men's Gathering, the Maier Conference, and What God Has Joined Together Visit our website - A Brief History of Power Dr Koontz - Redeemer Lutheran Church Music thanks to Verny

MATT Church's First Ever Global Youth Activity MELISSA Elder Rasband tells members in the Philippines to ‘REdedicate their lives” in preparation for the temples being built MATT Elder Uchtdorf recalls the two times he had to flee to a new country and the challenges he faced. MELISSA Giving Machines Changed Millions of Lives in 2024—Here Are the Final Numbers MATT The Latest Temple News from the Church of Jesus Christ Related Southwest corner of Temple Square to reopen MELISSA Utah Christians — from Catholics to Lutherans to Latter-day Saints — begin countdown to Easter. A Post for Ash Wednesday. MATT Residents of Pinesdale, a Montana town founded decades ago by fundamentalist Mormons, are suing for the land they say rightfully belongs to them; the breakaway church maintains it was never theirs. MELISSA Managing Stress and Anxiety - the Church's ‘Caring' instagram page Caring.churchofjesuschrist   MATT A former branch president with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been charged with the rape of a teenager.   MATT: Famous Mormons: Which Famous Mormon had his name dropped to President Trump this week? Michael T. Benson (President West Virginia University) Mike Leach (American football coach) Danny Ainge (Basketball)   RELATED Celebrities Who Have Opened Up About Growing Up Mormon: Katherine Heigl, Ryan Gosling, More   Big/Little/No Deal: MATT Tariffs. And Their Arch-Apostle MELISSA The debate over BYU Professors and orthodoxy isn't over yet. MATT Newest LDS apostle says porn addicts can kick their habit through professional help and Jesus' love MELISSA Toxic Perfectionism in perspective: Latter-day Saints' unique outlook MATT Pew study shows how Latter-day Saints' political and social views have — and have not — shifted in the past 20 years MELISSA Utah Explains: What the Heck is “Mormon Cuisine”? MATT By bringing in a slew of 5-star prospects with no connection to Utah or the LDS church, BYU basketball has shown how quickly a school can change its standing in the modern era of college sports. MELISSA The Bachelor comes to Star Valley, Wyoming. Related. related. MATT Mormon Wives Star Jessi Ngatikaura Documents $2K+ Nose Job After Being Insecure About It During Filming. RELATED Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Star Mayci Neeley to Share 'Juicy Play-by-Play' in New Memoir Told You So. This Week in Mormon History:   80 years ago - Feb 28, 1944 [David O. McKay] Later, I went over to the Temple and instructed the [First] Presidency to take steps to have more reverence in the Temple. To that end suggested: first, the removal of the desk in the Celestial Room; second, not to have witnesses to marriages enter Celestial Room in street clothing; third, it will be well to consider the advisability of the General Authorities who perform marriages to be dressed in white.   90 years ago  - End of February 1935 [J. Reuben Clark] Tithing-Death Benefit. It is the intention of the First Presidency to give, as a matter of aid and reward for faithfulness, from and after January 1, 1936, to one or more or all of the faithful Church members of the family of a deceased tithe-payer dying after January 1, 1936, an amount equal to one-tenth (1/10) of the tithing paid by such deceased tithe-payer after January 1, 1935. The First Presidency may change, modify, or discontinue the plan and practice thereof in whole or as to any individual case if wisdom or the necessities of the Church seem in their opinion to make such a course desirable.   175 years ago - Feb 28, 1850 Originally named the University of Deseret, the University of Utah is the oldest state university west...

Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller of St. Paul Lutheran, Austin, TX Pr. Wolfmueller's YouTube Channel Has American Christianity Failed? The post Myths About Lutheranism: Lutherans Are Illogical – Bryan Wolfmueller, 3/6/25 (0653) first appeared on Issues, Etc..

There's a lot of financial data out there. How do you interpret it and how do you explain it to your clients? • Learn more at thriventfunds.com • Follow us on LinkedIn • Share feedback and questions with us at podcast@thriventfunds.com • Thrivent Distributors, LLC is a member of FINRA and a subsidiary of Thrivent, the marketing name for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

On Ash Wednesday (March 5), the church enters the holy season of Lent, in which we focus on Christ's righteousness, sufferings and death, and the new testament in His blood. Much ink has been spilt over the decision of St. Jerome to translate the Greek "diatheke" as "testamentum" in his Latin Vulgate, which ultimately influenced the King James Version's selection of “testament” as a translation of this term. This, in turn, led to our common division of “Old Testament” (2 Corinthians 3:14) and “New Testament” (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Hebrews 9:15). However, diatheke can also mean “covenant,” which is how many recent English translations, such as the ESV, render the term (except in Hebrews 9:16–17, where it opts for “will,” as in, “last will and testament”). Lutherans tend to prefer the translation “testament” over “covenant,” since covenants in the Bible sometimes require works on the part of humans. But in no case does a testament (a will) involve the works of the beneficiary — not to mention that it must be put into effect by the death of the testator. As we will see, even “covenant” can be understood correctly — provided that we pay attention to context and keep in mind the proper distinction between Law and Gospel. Rev. Carl Roth, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Elgin, TX, joins Sarah to talk about the “Searching Scripture” feature in the March 2025 issue of the Lutheran Witness titled “Covenant or Testament?” on Jeremiah 31:31–34. This year, “Searching Scripture” is themed “Opening the Old Testament” and will walk through ways that the Old Testament witnesses to Jesus Christ and His grace, mercy and peace, delivered through the holy Christian church. Follow along every month and search Scripture with us! Find online exclusives of the Lutheran Witness at witness.lcms.org and subscribe to the Lutheran Witness at cph.org/witness.

On Ash Wednesday (March 5), the church enters the holy season of Lent, in which we focus on Christ's righteousness, sufferings and death, and the new testament in His blood. Much ink has been spilt over the decision of St. Jerome to translate the Greek "diatheke" as "testamentum" in his Latin Vulgate, which ultimately influenced the King James Version's selection of “testament” as a translation of this term. This, in turn, led to our common division of “Old Testament” (2 Corinthians 3:14) and “New Testament” (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Hebrews 9:15). However, diatheke can also mean “covenant,” which is how many recent English translations, such as the ESV, render the term (except in Hebrews 9:16–17, where it opts for “will,” as in, “last will and testament”). Lutherans tend to prefer the translation “testament” over “covenant,” since covenants in the Bible sometimes require works on the part of humans. But in no case does a testament (a will) involve the works of the beneficiary — not to mention that it must be put into effect by the death of the testator. As we will see, even “covenant” can be understood correctly — provided that we pay attention to context and keep in mind the proper distinction between Law and Gospel. Rev. Carl Roth, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Elgin, TX, joins Sarah to talk about the “Searching Scripture” feature in the March 2025 issue of the Lutheran Witness titled “Covenant or Testament?” on Jeremiah 31:31–34. This year, “Searching Scripture” is themed “Opening the Old Testament” and will walk through ways that the Old Testament witnesses to Jesus Christ and His grace, mercy and peace, delivered through the holy Christian church. Follow along every month and search Scripture with us! Find online exclusives of the Lutheran Witness at witness.lcms.org and subscribe to the Lutheran Witness at cph.org/witness. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.

It's Tuesday, March 4th, A.D. 2025. This is The World View in 5 Minutes written by Kevin Swanson and heard at www.TheWorldView.com.  I'm Ean Leppin. Vietnamese Christians Flee to Thailand An estimated 4,000 Vietnamese Christians have sought refuge in Thailand because of high levels of political and religious persecution in their home country.  And now, 60 of these Vietnamese believers,  men, women, children, and pregnant women, have been arrested in Bangkok, Thailand for participation in a memorial service, involving prayer and worship.  Summit in London to Discuss Ukraine European leaders huddled in London on Sunday for a quick summit, to hammer out a peace plan for Ukraine, after the breakdown of talks between the US and Ukraine's presidents. UK and France leadership are hoping to get buy-in from President Donald Trump on their plan sometime this week. Speaking to reporters after the summit the United Kingdom's prime minister, Keir Starmer announced that “a number of countries” had agreed to commit troops to a peacekeeping force in the Ukraine-Russian war.  STARMER: “First priority of this government, of any government, is the security and safety of the British people, to defend the national interest, particularly in these volatile times. That's why last week, I announced the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the Cold War. That's also why I met President Trump last week – to strengthen our relationship with America, our indispensable partners in defense and security. And it's why this weekend, I've been hosting European leaders here in London, to work together for the security of the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Europe as a whole. Through my discussions over recent days, we've agreed that the UK, France, and others will work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting. Then we'll discuss that plan with the United States, and take it forward together.” The European nations have also agreed to issue an arms build-up program plan at an emergency EU leaders' meeting later this week.  The US has spent $8.4 trillion for defense in the last 10 years. The European NATO nations have only spent $3.8 trillion over this same period. Thus far, over 12,600 civilian men, women, and children in Ukraine have been killed, and over 29,000. have been injured since 2022, according to UN numbers. Isaiah 2 speaks of the peace only the Lord can bring: “Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob;. . .For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,Neither shall they learn war anymore”  Baptists Losing the Largest Number of People Pew Research's most recent Religious Landscape Study has found the most precipitous drop off in denominational affiliation to be among Baptists - falling off from 17% to 12% of the population between 2014 and 2024. Methodists slipped 1.1%, Pentecostals slipped 0.7%, Lutherans 0.6%, and Presbyterians slipped by 0.5%. Non-denominational adherents (usually a mix of Baptists and Charismatic-Pentecostals), gained 0.9% of the US population over the same time period. The Reformed church flatlined at 0.3% of the US population. The Southern Baptists and United Methodists were the largest losers in denominational affiliates over the last ten years. 40% of US adults say they attend religious services less often than they did when they were children. And only 5% say they attend religious services more often. Millennials and Gen Zers are most likely to have abandoned the faith of their parents. About 70% said they were raised Christian, but only 41% still identify as Christian. That compares to 86% of Gen Xers raised, Christian, where 69% still identify as Christian. And, only 25% of US adults say they attend church weekly. 18% of young adults born in the 1990s and 2000s attend church weekly. 40% of those Americans born in the 1940s are weekly attenders, and 30% of those born in the 1950s attend church weekly.  Yet, Americans believing in heaven and hell has increased slightly over the last 17 years — 72% of Americans still believe in hell, and 85% believe in heaven.  All told. . . 62% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Christians: 40% are Protestant, 19% are Catholic, and 3% are other Christians. Hebrews 10 exhorts us not to forsake  “the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. 26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.” Liberal Media in its Death Throes Is the mainline liberal media in its death throes? Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has instructed the journalist staff of the liberal paper to emphasize "personal liberties and free markets” on its editorial page. That resulted in the immediate resignation of the Opinions Editor, and the loss of 75,000 paid digital subscribers, according to NPR. The paper had lost 300,000 paid subscribers when Bezos nixed an endorsement of Kamala Harris prior to the 2024 election.   US Border Crossings Dipped to 8300 in February The White House announced US Border Crossings dipped to 8,300 in February — that compares to hundreds of thousands per month recorded during the Biden administration.  Transgender Ban in Military In Effect Soon President Donald Trump's recent executive order banning individuals attempting to change their gender in military service will go into effect within 30 days. Under the order, the military must identify all transgendering troops by March 26, and remove them from military service within 30 days. A recent report counts 4,200 troops affected by the order.  These individuals have cost the US military $52 million for hormone therapy, gender-affirming surgery, and other treatment, as reported by the Associated Press.  This reported by Good News Network Verizon and ForgiveC0 Team up to Eliminate Hurricane Debt Verizon teamed up with ForgiveCo to eliminate $10 million in consumer debt for 6500 western North Carolina citizens who are still recovering in the wake of Hurricane Helene's sweeping devastation.  The North Carolina families learned that Verizon - the world's second largest telecommunications company - cleared their medical, financial, and other debts with the help of ForgiveCo, whose 'random acts of kindness' model purchases consumer debt, with no applications required.  In fact, no further action was required by the beneficiaries.   Recipients were then notified through surprise letters, emails and text messages. But, if a phone call learning that your debt has been cleared isn't exciting enough, Basketball Hall of Fame coach and Asheville native, Roy Williams, signed on to be the one to share the news with the impacted families.  Roy Williams commented on this in a recent interview. WILLIAMS: “The devastation from the hurricane specifically is the most horrific thing. People can not imagine. I saw it on TV, but when I came back to western North Carolina myself, we have a home there. There were three different ways to get to my home. Two of the roads were completely blocked and the other was one lane.... But I really believe this is my dirt. Being able to help people here is my deal.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Tuesday March 4th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Subscribe by Amazon Music or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. Filling in for Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com) I'm Ean Leppin feel free to email me contact@eanvoiceit.com. Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

This episode overviews the Lutheran and Roman Catholic dialogues that followed Vatican II in the 1960s. I introduce the talks about the Office of the Holy Ministry and the Eucharist.

Put your thinking caps on, ladies! It's time for another round of Rachel's Trivia Challenge!  This time, Rachel's spotlighting "Great Moments in the History of Lutherans in America.” Beginning with the age of exploration and going through the Colonial Era up to the formation of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in 1847, she's quizzing Erin and Sarah on some of the lesser-known and more unexpected chapters in American Lutheran history.   Which explorer brought a Lutheran chaplain along on his quest to discover the Northwest Passage? Which American colony was actually founded by Lutherans? Did Lutherans fight more notably as Patriots or Tories in the Revolutionary War? What is a “Prussian Union,” anyway? And can either Sarah or Rachel say “Die Deutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische Synode von Missouri, Ohio und andern Staaten” without tripping over their own tongues?   Resources referenced in this episode include:   Jens Munk: An expedition ahead of its time | Canadian Geographic  Early History of American Lutheranism (Bible Hub)  Peter Stuyvesant's relentless quest for order in New Amsterdam pushes Africans out of the church | A Journey through NYC religions  Henry Melchior Muhlenberg - Living Lutheran  Fighting Words | Christian History Magazine  Demagoguery or Democracy? The Saxon Emigration and American Culture (Rev. Dr. Larry Rast, Concordia Theological Quarterly)  Saxon Lutheran immigration of 1838–39 - Wikipedia  Die Deutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische Synode von Missouri, Ohio und andern Staaten – The Lutheran Witness (Rev. Roy S. Askins)  "History of Lutheranism" series with Rev. Dr. Larry Rast (The Coffee Hour on KFUO Radio)  "100 Years of LCMS Music History" series with Benjamin Kolodziej (The Coffee Hour on KFUO Radio)  Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies' Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram! Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at lutheranladies@kfuo.org.

This time co-hosts  Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) talk about whether non-denominational Christianity is the future of American Protestantism and what stake confessional Protestants have in denominational structures. The basis for discussion is  sociologist Ryan Burge's analysis of church statistics whose numbers indicate the remarkable increase of non-denominational Protestantism.  Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Congregationalists may sound like the ecclesiastical equivalent of Ford, Lincoln, Chevrolet, and Buick, but institutions matter to Christian faith and practice as much as they do to the manufacturing and sale of automobiles.  Follow the Anglican co-host @ivmiles and the Presbyterian co-host @oldlife.   

This episode is the first in a series reviewing Gavin Ortlund's recent critique of Lutheran Christology. I discuss the nature of attributions regarding the two natures, the relationship between the natures, and what Lutherans actually mean when we talk about the omnipresence of Christ's human nature.

The Presbyterian Church has a long history rooted in the Protestant Reformation, but what exactly sets Presbyterianism apart from other Christian traditions like Lutherans, Calvinists, or even Baptists?  Pastor Jeff Cranston sits down with Reverend Bill McCutchen, lead pastor at Hilton Head Presbyterian Church, to explore the history, theology, and governance of Presbyterianism. They discuss its origins with John Knox, the Westminster Confession, church structure, and common misconceptions.Here's What We Discussed!00:00 The Origins of PresbyterianismThe Presbyterian Church traces its roots to the Reformation, particularly through John Knox in Scotland. Pastor Jeff and Rev. McCutchen explore how Presbyterian governance differs from other denominations.05:10 The Role of Elders in Church LeadershipUnlike hierarchical denominations, Presbyterians emphasize elder-led governance. Instead of a single pastor or bishop, a plurality of elders guides the church's direction.07:07 The Influence of the Reformation & Westminster ConfessionThe Westminster Confession of Faith, written in 1646, remains a cornerstone of Presbyterian doctrine. Rev. McCutchen explains how it continues to shape Presbyterian theology.13:26 The Presbyterian Church's Role in American HistoryPresbyterians played a significant role in early American religious and social movements, including opposition to slavery. Learn how their influence spread across the U.S.16:57 Worship in a Presbyterian Church: What to ExpectPresbyterian churches vary in worship style, from traditional liturgical services with choirs to contemporary gatherings. Rev. McCutchen explains the common elements found in most Presbyterian worship.20:45 The Lord's Supper in PresbyterianismPresbyterians practice weekly communion in many churches, believing in the spiritual presence of Christ in the elements, rather than a symbolic or literal transformation.26:48 Common Misconceptions About PresbyteriansWhat do Presbyterians actually believe about baptism, salvation, and predestination? Rev. McCutchen clears up common misunderstandings.28:47 ClosingNext week, Pastor Jeff and Reverend Bill McCutchen continue their discussion, diving deeper into Presbyterian theology and its impact today.ResourcesHilton Head Presbyterian Church: https://www.hiltonheadpca.com/leadership The Westminster Confession of Faith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Confession_of_FaithHistory of the Presbyterian Church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PresbyterianismAtonement Series:Salvation on KTTThirty-three Things That Happen At Salvation on KTTJoin the ConversationWe love your feedback! If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review. If you have any questions or comments on today's episode, email me at pastorjeff@lowcountrycc.orgVisit my website https://www.jeffcranston.com and subscribe to my newsletter. Join me on Sunday mornings at LowCountry Community Church. Check-in with us on Facebook or Instagram @pastorjeffcranstonRemember, the real power of theology is not only knowing it but applying it. Thanks for listening!

Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller of St. Paul Lutheran, Austin, TX Pr. Wolfmueller's YouTube Channel Has American Christianity Failed? The post Myths About Lutheranism: Lutherans Don't Teach About Good Works – Bryan Wolfmueller, 2/14/24 (0451) first appeared on Issues, Etc..

On today's show Dr. Anders talks about differences between Catholics and Lutherans, Purgatory, white lies, sufficient and efficacious grace and more. Join us for Called to Communion.

In our second show of the second Trump administration, Amanda and Holly run through a list of recent events that point to a gross misunderstanding of what “religious freedom” means. They review the policy announcements made during the National Prayer Breakfast – including the creation of a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias” – and they look at how this administration's accusations and actions are limiting the religious freedom of several Christian groups who serve others. They also discuss the growing resistance, including court challenges and two opportunities for action to share your views with Congress and the Trump administration. In the final segment, Amanda and Holly share how BJC is celebrating Black History Month with a special invitation.    SHOW NOTESSegment 1 (starting at 00:38): The National Prayer Breakfast and an anti-Chrisitan bias task force Listen to Amanda and Holly's previous conversations on the National Prayer Breakfast in the following episodes: S1, Ep. 01 in 2020, beginning at 28:44 into that first episode of this podcast series. S4, Ep. 11 in 2023, exploring the many questions it raises and how it differs from the National Day of Prayer.  After the second event tied to the National Prayer Breakfast, President Trump released an executive order creating the White House Faith Office and announced his appointments to the office. On the same day, he released an executive order creating the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. Amanda posted her reaction to that action on Bluesky. In her testimony before Congress in 2018, Amanda spoke about the need to acknowledge and address violence and rhetoric directed against religious minorities in the U.S. and abroad.    Segment 2 (starting at 14:29): Executive order on education, lawsuits on immigration, and the rescinding of the sensitive locations memo President Trump released an executive order titled “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families” and BJC shared our concerns in a statement about how such an act would undermine religious freedom.  The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship joined the lawsuit filed by Quaker congregations challenging the removal of the “sensitive locations” guidance as a violation of religious freedom protections under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Read more about the lawsuit on our website. After we recorded this podcast, another lawsuit was filed by a number of religious denominations and organizations, including two supporting bodies of BJC: Fellowship Southwest and Convención Bautista Hispana de Texas. Read more from Baptist News Global.   Segment 3 (starting 24:10): Attacks on faith-based service providers and two opportunities for action For more on the comments from Elon Musk, Mike Flynn and Vice President JD Vance targeting religious groups, read this article by Michelle Boorstein for The Washington Post: Attacks on Catholics, Lutherans suggest new Trump approach on religion “Defunding and demonizing the government's faith-based partners will make its job harder” is the title of the op-ed published by Religion News Service, written by Amanda alongside Aaron Dorfman from A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy and Jennifer Walker Thomas from Mormon Women for Ethical Government.   TWO ACTION STEPS YOU CAN TAKE IN THIS TIME: Sign the letter calling on Congress and President Trump to provide necessary oversight to the Department of Government Efficiency, ensuring that the freedom for religious organizations to practice and honor their faith is not infringed upon by government action. It is organized by BJC, Mormon Women for Ethical Government, and A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy. Click here for the letter. Tell your member of Congress to oppose House Resolution 59, which could condemn a sermon by Bishop Mariann Budde as a “distorted message.” No one has to agree with her message to oppose this resolution, which wrongly indicates that the government should decide what is acceptable in matters of religion. We have a simple form you can use to send your own message. Click here for our form. We sent information about those two opportunities for action to people in our community who receive emails. If you would like to receive them, visit BJConline.org/subscribe to sign up for our email list! Amanda and Holly discussed the U.S. v. Skrmetti case in episode 6 of season 6.   Segment 4 (starting 31:39): Celebrating Black History Month Throughout Black History Month, BJC is sharing stories and insight on our Instagram and TikTok channels. Here are a few recent videos: Black history is American history Intersection of Black history and religious freedom Black artists INVITATION: You are invited to a special livestream event on Friday, February 28, which will re-launch the book African Americans and Religious Freedom: New Perspectives for Congregations and Communities. Click here to learn more about the book and sign up for the event! Respecting Religion is made possible by BJC's generous donors. Your gift to BJC is tax-deductible, and you can support these conversations with a gift to BJC.

"He opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God..." (2 Thessalonians 2:4). For centuries, these words have ignited fierce debate—who is this figure, this Man of Lawlessness? The Reformers had no doubt: the papacy itself bore the mark of Antichrist, not because of personal corruption, but because it placed human authority above the gospel of Christ. Lutherans continue to confess this today, but do we fully understand the implications of this doctrine? Is the Antichrist a single, future tyrant, a system of deception, or something far more subtle—an enemy of Christ present in every age? Perhaps it's all of the above.   Rev. Dr. Charles A. Gieschen, provost and professor of exegetical theology at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to discuss the doctrine of Antichrist.  Thy Strong Word, hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God's Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations. Submit comments or questions to: thystrongword@kfuo.org.

Pr. Rick Jurisch of Lutherans for Life Canada Lutherans for Life Canada The post Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Abortion and Euthanasia – Pr. Rick Juritsch, 1/27/25 (0272) first appeared on Issues, Etc..

In this episode, Caleb Keith, Scott Keith, and Adam Francisco discuss the viral appearance of Wesley Huff on Joe Rogan's podcast. They explore the impact of the conversation on Christian apologetics, the nature of truth and science, and the role of miracles in faith. The discussion also delves into textual criticism, cultural context, and the theological insights presented during the interview. The hosts reflect on the effectiveness of Huff's approach and the importance of continuing the conversation about faith in a modern context. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Bible in One Year with Chad Bird Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi Junk Drawer Jesus By Matt Popovits More from the hosts: Caleb Keith Scott Keith Adam Francisco  

Today we RETURN to open forum debate & QNA ! The topics are literature, books, Bible, Church history, patristics, councils, Islam, Koran, revelation, Protestantism, Calvinism, evangelicalism, Arianism, cults, Hebrew roots, JWs, etc. Calling all MUSLIMS, Catholics, Protestants, Calvinists, Evangelicals, Arians/JWs, Hebrew Roots, Black Hebrew Israelites: Open theological debate. Send Superchats at any time here: https://streamlabs.com/jaydyer/tip Get started with Bitcoin here: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/jaydyer/ The New Philosophy Course is here: https://marketplace.autonomyagora.com/philosophy101 Set up recurring Choq subscription with the discount code JAY44LIFE for 44% off now https://choq.com Lore coffee is here: https://www.patristicfaith.com/coffee/ Orders for the Red Book are here: https://jaysanalysis.com/product/the-red-book-essays-on-theology-philosophy-new-jay-dyer-book/ Subscribe to my site here: https://jaysanalysis.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ Follow me on R0kfin here: https://rokfin.com/jaydyerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jay-sanalysis--1423846/support.