Presidential gut check

I didn’t watch the Presidential press conference last night, but let’s do a quick (and probably incomplete) count of the crises on Obama’s plate right now:

• Iraq
• Pakistan
• Afghanistan
• Bank bailouts
• Swine flu
• Economic recession
• Carmaker bailouts
• Rising joblessness
• The crappy housing market

And don’t forget that a bunch of those are all tied together so it’s not like they can be tackled just one at a time.

I point this out because he’s managed to balance all of these fairly well and, while the degrees of success might be varied, he hasn’t really fumbled anything badly. And he’s managed to not suspend any civil liberties in response, which is more than some former presidents can say.

Wolverine Wednesday

In my defense, I had completely forgotten about this and it never, ever occured to me.

When I posted a status update including a link to my just-published Movie Marketing Madness: X-Men Origins – Wolverine column, I got a response from someone I went to high school with reminding me of something called “Wolverine Wednesday.”

Let me explain.

When I was in high school choir (stop it) there were a couple guys in the same section as me who were seriously in to comics. Now I liked comic books and all but these two were serious. And every Wednesday they would wear one of their Wolverine t-shirts since it was, as they branded it, “Wolverine Wednesday.”

I didn’t even think about that when publishing my column on a Wednesday. However thanks to this reminder I’m not able to enjoy all sorts of emotionally scarring flashbacks to high school that I had previously repressed. Yay.

That’s a nice Golden Goose…Mind if I slaughter it?

It occurs to me that between telecom companies pushing for broadband caps that would come with fees for heavy usage and state and local governments looking for the institution of sales taxes for online purchases, there’s a general movement afoot to stifle the one platform that has consistently grown over the last decade and has the potential for even more explosive expansion.

The problem is that they expect that even with these increased consumer costs, activity will remain the same, that people will download the same number of movies from iTunes even when that movie cost them $15 to checkout and then another $5 in broadband usage fees. That people will buy the same number of items from Amazon even though it cost them $20 in taxes.

I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think consumers will adjust their spending levels to account for these increased costs and this grand plan won’t turn out to be quite as grand as their advocates think they will.

Getting Blue Ribbony

I’ve been reading off and on the “Walking Together – The LCMS Future” report compiled by the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Synod Structure and Governance that was assembled by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Becoming more well versed and knowing what’s going on in the Synod is, after all, one of the goals of the Brothers of John the Steadfast and so I’ve tried to take some time recently to really check out this report since it has the potential to greatly impact the future of the LCMS and the congregations it’s made up of.

The proposals contained in the report are meant to be discussion points and nothing, to my knowledge, has been formally presented as an official recommendation to the full board. Thank goodness for that.

A full point-by-point enumeration of my problems with some of the documents points is something that I’ll have to put off for another time when I have the bandwidth to really get into is. But there are two major problems I have with what’s presented that can be easily summed up:

First, there’s far too much talk in the document of ways that existing processes can be streamlined by simply cutting out congregations, both pastors and laymen. In too many instances is power ceded to District Presidents and other political appointees while shutting out the voices of others. The danger here is that groupthink will emerge and decisions impacting the entire Synod with little to no oversight by either the clergy on the ground or the rank and file members. I’m sure all those people in appointed roles are Godly men, but if they can’t be held accountable by congregations the possibility of negative changes being enacted rises significantly.

Second, the proposals are filled with talk of the Synod and its employees “encouraging” and “supporting” congregations.

This is actually the biggest problem I have with what’s laid out and winds up, ironically, providing the clearest reason not to enact the structural and procedural changes laid out in the document.

Congregations might be in need of encouragement, but I’m fearful that this encouragement will come in the form of being reassured that trying new ways to water down the Gospel in order to appear more pleasing to “seekers” is just fine. “No, you don’t need a cross in the sanctuary. And by the way, have you thought of changing ’sanctuary’ to ‘meeting room?’”

I highly doubt that, given the other programs in the Synod that are focusing on outward evangilism that are meant to be all-inclusive and non-offensive to either non-religious individuals or members of other religions, this support and encouragement will be offered in the form of encouraging congregations to hold true to traditional creeds and confessions. I might be wrong but I’m guessing I’m not.

Too many congregations are falling away from those traditional confessions. Too many are replacing historic liturgy with popular music. Too many are looking for moves of the spirit instead of focusing on the promise of the Sacraments are our connection with God and points where our faith can be strengthened.

These congregations need to be encouraged to come back to the confessional, liturgical fold and, failing that, reprimanded. As Scripture says, first go to your brother with your grievance against him in love and if he fails to repent bring a witness and, failing that, bring him to the authorities. The Synod needs to be the resource to which congregations that are discarding an adherance to the true, revealed Word are brought and not a source of encouragement to those congregations as long as they continue to increase the number of “spiritual moments” that are tallied up.

While the Blue Ribbon Panel’s document is titled “Walking Together” there’s very little in it that’s meant to bring well-intentioned people together in unity of doctrine and practice, unity that should be based on a common confession of the faith. There might be value in logistical changes being made, but I think those that cut out systems of checks and balances aren’t the ones to be looking at.

And if the Synod is actually interested in bringing people together, it would do well to first look back at the Augsburg Confession, one of the foundational documents of the Lutheran Church, and make sure it was adhering to the points made there and correct congregations and thinkers who would deviate from that. If they feel that AC doesn’t offer an up-to-date list of points to agree upon they can always include The Lutheran Manifesto written by Dr. Baue last year and find that it addresses points not made in the AC, points that are relevant to today’s church.

That’s all for now. As I said, if I have the time I’ll make a point-by-point refutation of the problems I have with items in the proposed document later on.

Confessional Lutheranism via OPML

Oh sure, there are the Sacraments (Word, Baptism, Lord’s Supper) by which we are given God’s grace. But what about OPML?

I’d been looking for more Lutheran-oriented blogs to start reading and decided to start by tapping the “Linked Blogs” section of the Brothers of John the Steadfast website. After subscribing to each one individually I decided to streamline the process for others and so have created an OPML file with all those feeds, which you can easily import into the RSS reader of your choice.

Lutheran OPML

In addition to what’s there there are, naturally, the feeds for the BJS site as well as the Issues ETC program and the Twitter feed for the Lutheran Study Bible, which offers a selection from that publication throughout each day. Hope this is handy to anyone who’s interested.

For the record I gladly would have included the feeds to LCMS pubs The Reporter or The Lutheran Witness but none are offered.

Iambic insanity

So today is “Talk Like Shakespeare Day” in Chicago.

This is bugging me because if we are really going to talk like Shakespeare, which is a literal interpretation of this idea, we’d have to do some research into the linguistic devices in favor at the time he was alive.

But instead it seems to mean we’re all supposed to talk in sonnet-like verse, which is, if you’re going to be strictly literal about it, would be appropriate on “Talk Like Shakespeare Wrote Day.” Which is different.

Organized

Much as I did on MMM I’ve now successfully categorized all the posts here on CT.WP. Considering what’s here now is cobbled together from a myriad of other blogs (some work-related, some started but then abandoned, etc) that was no small task but now it’s done and no longer looking over my shoulder at me accusingly.

Evelyn

There was a nice story in the Tribune last Friday about Evelyn Dee, the woman who played the organ at the York Theater in Elmhurst, for a number of years after the theater was renovated (and split from a single screen into three) and reopened in 1992.

That reopening was when I started working at the York, first as an usher and later on as an assistant manager over the course of five or six years. As the story says, every Friday night Evelyn would arrive about a half hour before the start of the 7:00 show in Theater 2 (the middle and biggest screen and, naturally, the one with the organ) and get ready for her set. After the ushers had cleaned out the theater after the previous show she would make her way down the hallway, often with one of us walking with her. Not because she needed the help but because we geninely like Evelyn and were chatting with her, as well as just wanting to make sure she got down to the organ safely.  Then when the show was about to start we’d go down and help her come out of the organ pit and back up the hallway.

We’d always ask what movie she wanted to see that week and make sure that, even if it was going to be a popular one that was likely to sell out, we had a seat reserved for her. I can remember getting into some heated conversations with customers when I tried to explain that X seat was for the organist and I didn’t really care if not having it meant they were going to have to leave. Evelyn got her seat, come hell or high water.

She was part of the Friday night routine at the York and whenever I think of her it brings a smile to my face. We considered her part of the staff and a fixture of the theater every bit as important as the marquee that hung out over the front sidewalk.

I didn’t hear about her 2001 passing until much later and was sad until I realized she had done what she loved – play for an audience – until she just couldn’t anymore. The 7:00 and 9:00 audiences in Theater #2 never failed to give her a hearty round of applause. On the few occasions she couldn’t make it in customers would express their disappointment.

She was a wonderful lady and a lot of fun.

Awake and alert

I’m shocked by the comments Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa made about Cubs manager Lou Pinella not because I think he was out of line in any way but simply because it shows there was a period of a game where LaRussa was fully conscious and not sleeping with his eyes open in the dugout.

Oh you’re welcome OCD. It really was my pleasure.