A Soft Answer Turns Away Wrath

A soft answer turns away wrath,     but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,     but the mouths of fools pour out folly. The eyes of the Lord are in every place,     keeping watch on the evil and the good. A gentle tongue is a tree of life,     but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. A...

Jesus Had Two Dads….?

In an earlier set of articles (first, second) I wrote about how a poor choice of wording can lead to challenges in clearly communicating a message. In this article I'm going to discuss another incident - this time involving Jesus's paternal parentage. To set the table - we know from Scripture that Christ was begotten of...

ASC: “Go Directly to Jail,Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200”

In the board game "Monopoly" the objective is to roll a pair of dice, move your token around a board, purchase and develop various properties, charge rent to people that land on your properties, eventually bankrupt them, and in the end own all the assets in the game. One of the squares in the game...

ASC Finds Fraud

One of the burdens a company takes on when it accepts money from the public is to use the money for the projects it's soliciting the funds for. If the charter is to build schools, then the funds can't be used to build churches. If the charter is to engage in low-risk investments, that rules...

Rachael Denhollander, Sexual Abuse and the Church

Deaconess Kim Schave is the past chair of the Domestic Violence and Child Abuse Task Force in the LCMS. In an interview on Issues Etc hosted by Todd Wilken, Kim discussed Rachael's experience with Larry Nassar, the presence of abusers in the church, what needs to happen when there are allegations of abuse, and related topics. The...

“What is a Little Girl Worth?”

At its most fundamental level the Larry Nassar, USA Gymnastics, and Michigan State University sex abuse scandal is about trust betrayed. It's how both six year old girls and Olympic competitors went to Larry for treatment only to have their personal integrity violated while the officials that should've protected these women failed to do their duty....

Two Questions That’ll Test the Spirits

In the years I've been on the internet I've had all manner of exchanges with more people than I care to count, and over the course of all these discussions I began to see (or God revealed to me) a remarkable pattern. Regardless of what the original question or assertion was - if it's central...

LCC: Still Looking for a Communications Director

Yes, I've been off the air for a while. No, I'm not leaving this blog. Things I can bill customers for have come to the fore and I like having a roof over my head, food in my tummy, and time to blog on things like this. Never fear though - I have a fair...

Ecclesiastical Supervision in the LCMS

I've written a fair bit about LCC's various issues - however it's not the only church with problems decisively dealing with unresolved issues. LCC's parent Synod - the LCMS - has a history littered with examples of issues and controversies that were allowed to fester and grow before being dealt with. The pattern I've seen...