AN OPEN LETTER TO THE NEW PRINCIPLE BISHOP OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA

My congratulations and best wishes go to Elizabeth Eaton on her election. I truly hope that you're the moderate that you are characterized as being in the press. I especially hope that this quote from your press conference is accurate: "we really have to free ourselves of the siren song of a popular culture that doesn’t understand where true joy and freedom can be found." I fully agree with that statement. The "I don't want to offend anyone" attitude of the modern "Progressive" society would mute the teachings of the Church.

My conviction is that we must learn to Hate Sin while Loving the Sinner, a most daunting but necessary task.Your charge  is to find a way to Preach the Word, including God's commandments, without needlessly offending anyone, and yet inspire them to follow Christ. Granted, this is a nearly impossible task. You will have to develop a thin skin and become even more resolute in executing your authority as the voice of the ELCA in the world.

Your interview with TIME MAGAZINE was very interesting. I realize that you were trying to be honest but your response on the question of spiritualism was disquieting to me. I agree that spiritual people are not necessarily religious people, but that struck me as an unnecessary statement to make.  In my opinion, this is where the impartial religious scholar and the true seekers for God part company. You come from an academic background and a milieu of agnostic and atheistic scholars and I believe that showed up in your response and apparently you regard  this as a weak point in you religious self as well. I would suggest that you make this a very public struggle so that all of us in your fold can benefit from your insights and progress.

Your predecessor presided over a nasty schism in our ELCA synod. Although I personally supported the resolution on Sexuality, I know that many did not. I hope that we have all learned a lesson from this. Communication is sooooo important, and apparently not enough convincing communication was done. The issue is still rancorous  in the wider Lutheran Community and the ELCA should lead on this issue rather than sit back and lick its wounds. In my opinion, the ELCA leaders and theologians need to be more aggressive in their teaching of the wider flock. They need to address what they think is Scriptural (God's Word for us) and what is Secular ( the common Societal Mores and Norms of the Biblical times) in the Bible. In my opinion, this is where the problem lies. Is every word of the Bible to be taken as literal truth? My Bethel Bible series experience has convinced me of the answer to this question but many of my fellow parishioners are more conservative (Greek thinkers) in their interpretation of scriptures. We need strong leadership on this subject IMHO.

Again Congratulations and Best Wishes

Philip W. Johnson
Augustana class of 1960

GEODOODLES SMT-Kingdom Interpretation for Neo Geos: How to use Faust to do Time-to-Depth Conversion

GEODOODLES SMT-Kingdom Interpretation for Neo Geos: How to use Faust to do Time-to-Depth Conversion

How The Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) will affect peoples lives

Our Nation is divided into many ethnic/economic/geographic groups. ACA will affect all of us but was specifically designed to address some groups but not all. The long term welfare poor were the main focus of ACA with undocumented workers as a second strong focus. Medium term employed moderate income workers were targeted to pay for ACA either willingly or through expensive fines for non compliance. Long term high income employed workers were singled out for "income redistribution" by taxing their employer health plans (Cadillac health plans),

Here is how I predict these various groups will actually experience ACA:

The long term welfare poor will not readily sign up for a plan and welfare workers will have to go out and work them through the process. They will soon stop paying their monthly health care payments leaving the plans in the red. They will not go to their primary care physicians for preventive medicine and will continue their current practice of going to the emergency room when they are sick or injured.

Undocumented workers and their families will have to be tracked down by social workers to get them enrolled because they are afraid of ICE and deportation. They too will continue their current practice of using the emergency room and will not continue to make payments on their ACA health insurance

The medium term moderate income employed will grudgingly sign up and pay for a while but will eventually drop payments on their ACA health insurance. They will not got to their primary care professional for preventive medicine and will use the emergency room when medical care is needed,

Long term employed high income folk will pay most of the costs of ACA through vastly increased costs of their health plans and through additional taxes. They will also see increased denial of services and increased cost sharing with medicare.

It doesn't look good economically nor medically and, as usual, retired people on fixed income are the big losers.

How does a Religious Radical become Dangerously Extreme?

Both Christianity and Islam have dangerous radical elements. Buddhism, though not technically a religion, has a few radicals as well (remember the self immolation by Monks during the Vietnam War and the war with China over Tibet). It seems to me that religious people are all supposed to be peaceful. Sure, the Bible and the Koran have violent passages and even urge their reader to enact violence on the "infidels or non believer or wrong believers". Catholics have fought wars with Protestants (I mean real wars with armies lead by Kings and Emporers). The people of Islam have fought wars between different factions such as Shiite vs Suni. Yes, the war between Iraq and Iran that preceded the first Gulf War was sectarian and the final battle was the largest tank battle since WWII. The majority of the casualties in the second Iraq war were due to sectarian violence in the form of car and truck bombs rather than American guns.  The killing by American Christian radicals has been by bombs for the most part. The deliberate assault near Waco, TX that ended up burning men women and children in a Christian separatist sect in their compound was a terrible thing and a black mark on the reputation of Federal agents who "cowboyed" the operation when it could have easily been peacefully ended with the capture of the leader on one of his many trips to town for supplies. Oklahoma city was a revenge killing intended to kill as many federal workers as possible.

How do the architects of such heinous crimes justify their actions to themselves? I believe that it begins with a typical young "believer" who is following in parents foot steps and not really sure what he believes but goes through the motions to be socially acceptable. As time progresses and learning begins, either wisdom or zealotry  begin to take over. The wise believer holds fast to his common sense and humanity while the zealot begins to focus on specific passages that demand action and obedience. The zealot may have too much humanity to go over the edge into radicalism, but if he does not then we have the makings of a pro-active radical extremist. In times past, contact with others of a similar ilk was less likely than it is today with the internet and social media. Once radicalized, a zealot also has a vast library of stimulating oratory to urge him on and  many technical manual to teach him how to act out his fury in a violent way. 

True Believers who are Humanly Wise must rise up to oppose these dangerous men. Neither Islam nor Christianity want their bitter wine. We must speak out against violence and bigotry while we still can.

The Face of the Islamic Jihadist

Those in the media and the past several administrations have been kidding themselves about what sort of person might be a dangerous Jihadist/suicide bomber. We seem to want them to be wild eyed and obviously crazy from a poor country and a poor family with a poor upbringing. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Look at the two Boston bombers. They were both highly educated and came from highly educated and fairly well todoo families. The 911 Jihadists were similarly well educated and from educated families of the middle class. It seems to me that the driving force among these people is radical religious beliefs taught to them in mosques both real and  virtual (online). They willingly gave their lives to destroy as many infidels as possible. What is worst is that they were essentially all educated in America under our very noses. I have noted that our colleges and universities have welcomed students from Islamic countries mainly because their countries are paying a premium to get their young men educated here and the colleges and universities are raking in the dough. I especially noted this when I lived in Tulsa in the middle 1970's and the Iranian's were being taught to fly by the dozens at a local flying school which I thought was not a good idea politically. My wife was getting an advanced degree at OSU and when the Iyatolla Khomeni overthrew the Shah and began the terrible Islamic dictatorship in Iran, the Iranian students were all swooning with joy. It is obvious that these students were a threat to America all those years ago. It is time to take off the rose colored glasses.