A Cool Email, From A Fan Of Putting Out The Fire

I got a really cool email on Friday. Here's the entire email with the exception of the name of it's author. (and used with permission of course, of course)

> Frank, WHAT HAPPENED???? Did you finally do it????? Put out the fires, I mean! Got my April Lutheran Witness, and there is not one, single, solitary mention, logo, or reference to Ablaze!. And most of the list of contributing authors is enough to make any Confessional smile. Just sign me, Twice Burned in ********.

Here is my response to said email:

******, I wish! If only I had that kind of power....hmm, world domination...hmm, but sadly I do not. I really am not as pessimistic as I sometimes sound. I really do believe that there is hope that the LCMS can be turned around. The problem is that it will take time. We didn't get to the place we're at overnight. I look to the younger generation who see their parents miserably failed post modern feel good theology for what it is and want to go back to being confessional Lutherans again! As long as there are good pastors out there who can properly catechize the laity, there is hope. That's for the email and feel free to keep in touch. It's good to hear from like minded folks where ever they are. Especially in Twice Burned ********. Pax, Frank

Now I know that sometimes my sarcasm comes across as doom and gloom. This is really more of a quirk of my personality than my outlook on life. To have an outlook on matters of the Church that is negative is really a lack of or an unwillingness to trust that God is God. If Scripture says that Christ will be with us wherever His Word is preached purely and His sacraments are administered rightly, than He will be! This in spite of what we, myself included, poor and miserable sinners try to do to pervert the Gospel.

My problem, and boy do I wish it was everybody's problem, with the Ablaze! program is that it has all its focus on us and what we do instead of what Christ has done for us and continues to do for us every time we hear the Word preached and receive the Eurchrist. This idea that we need to do something for God's Church is exactly why American evangelicalism is so screwed up right now. And I for one do not understand how a supposedly confessing church that has confessions that state exactly what we believe and teach can get it so wrong.

Now onto the original email... I'm about a month behind on my reading. The last thing Lutheran that I read was the March issue of the Lutheran Witness where our synodical president Rev Jerry Kieschnick said that St. Patrick was Ablaze! Once my convulsions stopped and the nauseous feeling subsided I took a little break from things Lutheran and went on to reading comic books. At least when Spider-Man talks trash about Captain America it's just make believe. So with my little sabbatical I didn't even catch that there was nothing in this month's Lutheran Witness about the Ablaze! program. And as I stated in my response above, I just don't command that much power to make Ablaze! go away. I just don't! Sorry ******.