- Q: I submitted. Why isn't my sermon on the list of received entries?
- I'm afraid that Google Mail, in one previous round, marked a few legitimate emails as spam. I of course will check the "spam" folder regularly as the contest deadline approaches. Please don't give up, send me another email, or try asking any of your friends who did participate to send me an email, or try sending a note to my alternate address: same userid, @yahoo.com
- Q: Why am I signing away rights to my sermon?
- You
are not losing your rights, just granting rights to me so that I may be able to
publish the sermons. This will certainly involve publishing the sermons
on the web page (blog) for the project. In some future date, it could
also involve a book.
- Q: In my scripture passage, there's a concept that spills over into the next chapter. May I treat this concept in the sermon?
- Surely. I don't mean to be so strict in this regard.
- Q: How long will it take for my sermon to be evaluated?
- Typically
it's taken me about six weeks to read all of the sermons through
several times. I like to read them all once and then set them aside for
at least a week so that I may get a fresh perspective on a different
date.
- Q: What kind of feedback will I receive on the sermon?
- As
a layperson, I feel comfortable in recognizing sermons that either meet
the criteria well or are exceptionally good on their own merits. I'm
not sure it's my place to offer specific criticisms of the sermons I
feel are either of poor quality or don't meet the criteria well. It is
also my intent not to cause any embarrassment or controversy to those
who do not win. (I hope any embarrassment or controversy to the winners
is mitigated by the cash awards.) Thus, I've typically made a few
short complimentary comments about the winning sermons directly to the winners, and made no
critique whatsoever of the non-winning entries.
- Q: Why all this secrecy-- communicating by Blind Carbon Copy email?
- Again, I don't mean to cause embarrassment to any person or institution for "unrecognized" or "bad" sermons. You may tell others you entered and didn't win, but I won't.
- Q: What do you mean by "Waltherian law and gospel preaching"?
- C.F.F. Walther wrote the book, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel, wherein he published some theses about how the concepts of law and gospel should play out in preaching. Perhaps his most famous thesis is "In the fourth place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when the Law is preached to those who are already in terror on account of their sins or the Gospel to those who live securely in their sins." The goal of this kind of preaching would be to engender contrition over sins and thereby faith in Christ's work, not to engender a resolve (or guilt) to do future good works. Good works, however, are surely bound to follow, albeit the gospel is thought to be a better motivator than the law.
- Gerhard Forde wrote an amazing analysis of Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, in his book On Being a Theologian of the Cross. One of Luther's most famous theses here is, "The law says, "Do this," and it is never done. Grace says, "believe in this," and everything is already done." Here again, the sinner is reminded of never being able fully to "do" what the law requires, but the sinner is reminded of the promise of the completed work Christ in forgiving sins. We are warned through this axiom that works in and of themselves may be dangerous, if we put any hope of earning God's merits through them. While we may still hold that works are necessary, here the Heidelberg Disputation says, "It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ."
- Here's some scripture which may explain it better. In Isaiah 57, we are told that our righteousness and deeds will not profit us. God is instead looking for a lowly and contrite spirit.
12 "I will declare your righteousness and your deeds,
But they will not profit you.
15 For thus says the high and exalted One
Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,
"I dwell on a high and holy place,
And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit
In order to revive the spirit of the lowly
And to revive the heart of the contrite."
- If you or your seminary professors have a better articulation of these theological works, then by all means write sermons based on your understanding of them.
- Q: What do you mean by "specific misdeeds in the realm of peace and justice concerns"?
- There is biblical support for both the themes of charity and justice. The bible praises the good work of charity, or giving things to the poor, (Is 58:7; Job 31:17-20; James 1:27) and condemns the sin of injustice, or exploiting and taking from the poor (Is 58:3,6; Job 31:13,21,25,38-40; James 5:1-6). I've heard lots of sermons which praise good works or twist our arms for more good works. I've seen interfaith press conferences calling for political legislation to address various injustices. I haven't heard many theological treatments of the sins of injustice, a concept for which there surely is a lot of support in the bible and the (actual) tradition of the church.
- The Large Catechism's "Explanations to the Ten Commandments" talks not only about charity but unjust acts. One example of its urging charity is that when you meet a poor man, you must make sure you have not "suffered him to pine and perish in misfortune." Surely, Christianity and Lutheranism would be united in opposition to any such crime. What causes controversy is the question of what we have taken from the poor. The Explanation to the Seventh Commandment cites the items listed below as violations. I see Luther's writing as a Confessional basis for many of our typical "peace and justice" ChurchWide Assembly resolutions, but I don't know how much pulpit preaching is going on about these:
- "be grasping in the market"
- "the poor are daily overcharged,"
- "new burdens and high prices are imposed,"
- "skin, pinch, and hoard,"
- "wantonly drives a hard bargain, skins, and distresses him"
- "skin and scrape to the bone,"
- Q: How can you possibly combine two such disparate concepts?
- The winner of the first round of the 'Truth "versus" Love Project' did a great job of combining these two themes. The writer mentioned the terrible injustice of how a Midwestern town got rich off of selling beer to Indian Reservations. Just when our consciences were in terror over this fact, the sermon writer drew our attention to the promises of God found in the texts before us. There were no calls for good works, no urging for us to write to Congress. Just exposing a terror of the conscience, and then a survey of the promises of God. Other sermons submitted since then were probably far better for general purposes. Few were as good at capturing the spirit of what I'm trying to accomplish with this project.
- Q: Are you saying conservatives cannot be compassionate?
- On one hand, syndicated columnist George Will once said, "I do not wish to live in a country where the President is able to affect the economy." I find this to be a perfectly reasonable expression of a libertarian political system. There's no sin or virtue inherent in this one possible way of ordering our society.
- On the other hand, Rush Limbaugh grew in popularity in the last century as he encouraged mockery of the poor with his "Homeless Updates". He called the sexual humiliation of detainees held at Abu Ghraib "brilliant". Republicans didn't come out against Rush until he verbally attacked the new President. There's good conservatism and bad conservatism. I think that the church needs to have more engagement in the public square about outrages against human decency without advocating political systems or legislation.
- Q: Are you saying liberals deny Christian truth?
- In the sexuality debate, there may be some reasons for advocating a change in policy that aren't as inimical to tradition as are other reasons. Too often, I see rationalizations that involve everything from invoking "Jungian spirituality" to stating that transcription errors prevent us from having any confidence in what the biblical authors actually said. This nonsense is tolerated too often in the revisionist community. There's no reason why a "bleeding liberal heart" -- or even a desire to change Visions & Expectations -- has to go hand-in-hand with this view of scripture and tradition.
- Q: Is this all about the discussion our denomination is having about sexual ethics?
- I don't think my opinion (or yours) on this matter are entirely material to the project's focus. Nonetheless, I think that there is a Truth "versus" Love conflict tainting the dialog on that question. If you want to know, I'm unconvinced by the conservatives' claim we need to be worried about states giving out marriage licenses to homosexual couples. I'm even less convinced by the liberals' claim we need to start (or should continue) performing gay weddings in a select few congregations of the ELCA.
- Q: Why have you limited participation to students of ELCA Seminaries, rather than members of ELCA congregations studying to become pastors, or even to all Lutheran seminarians ?
- I have a strong conviction about this. I do not mean to disparage anyone's faith or commitment to the gospel or the Christian Church, especially on the basis of personal finances or choice of study. But I want to support and encourage a "center".
- Q: What is your view of tradition? Candles & icons? Slavery & preventing women from preaching?
- I am not interested in "high church" trappings: icons, candles, specific gestures, 16th century embroidery, organs, etc. These might be what the word "tradition" means to some: I'm talking more about traditional theology.
- In theology, I think being traditional might have more to do with re-discovering what your great-grandfather actually said than blindly following what your crazy uncle is saying right now.
- On the questions of slavery and women's ordination, I am of the view that the liberation movements when deeper into scripture. They looked at more passages in a more authoritative or literal sense rather than deciding to gloss over or be embarrassed by one or two passages. I hold that the actual tradition was on the side of liberation in these movements.
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