Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 45

To the Christian Belongs the Past, Present, and Future

“To the so-called Lutheran, that is the true catholic Christian, belongs the entire past, before and after Luther.  The future must belong to him as well.  All things true and scriptural are his, when and where they are spoken.”  (Wilhelm Loehe, The Pastor, p. 157) That line, from the Wilhelm Loehe book we blogged about,  speaks […]

The Roy Moore Controversy

Roy Moore, the judge who refused to remove the Ten Commandments, is the Republican nominee for Senator from Alabama.  And, as you have probably heard, he has been accused of child molestation.  Some supporters don’t believe the charges, but some evangelical Christians are defending him even if the charges are true! I won’t go into […]

How to be a Pastor

I’m in a reading group with a bunch of pastors, which has me reading titles I would probably miss on my own.  I just finished a remarkable book from the 19th century that explains, in practical detail, how to be a pastor.  That is to say, it gives advice to young pastors about how to navigate […]

“The Universe Should Not Actually Exist”

According to contemporary physics, at the “Big Bang” at which the universe came into existence, there would have been an equal amount of matter and anti-matter.  But if that were so, the matter and anti-matter would annihilate each other.  Theorists have assumed that there must be some kind of asymmetry between matter and anti-matter, since, obviously, […]

God Has Already Repaid You

  Thanks to Pastor Ned Moerbe, who cited this quotation from Paul Gerhardt by way of Oswald Bayer in a sermon that he preached: In his last will and testament Paul Gerhardt reminds his only son, still living after all his other children had died: “Do good to people, even if they cannot pay you […]

Twitter Expands to 280 Characters–Can Now Handle German

Twitter is doubling the number of characters that can go into a “tweet.”  No longer must a user condense the thought so that it can be expressed in 140 characters.  Now the tweet can contain 280 characters. Twitter spokesmen said that one reason for the change is the differences in languages.  Chinese, Korean, and Japanese […]

Dear Next Mass Church Murderer,

A reader of this blog wrote this, and I thought it was worth passing along, with his permission, though he asked to remain anonymous. . . . Dear next mass church murderer,   We’d like you to consider our church as your possible target.  Our church is (**********) Church, located at (****************).  We’re a big […]

Democrats Win Elections, Think Control of Congress in Sight

November 7 was Election Day in several states, and the Democrats won big.  Now some Democrats are predicting that Tuesday’s vote is a foretaste of the midterm elections to come next year.  They believe that they will win control of Congress. The major election news came from Virginia.  The Democrat Ralph Northam beat Republican Ed Gillespie, […]

Why Violence Doesn’t Stop the Church

  Officials are saying that the church massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas, was not due to religion.  It was a “domestic situation” caused by a conflict between the shooter, Devin P. Kelley, and his estranged in-laws.  But his in-laws were not there!  He did kill his wife’s grandmother, but if his motive was a family […]

The 100th Anniversary of Communism

Having recognized the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we now need to turn to another milestone:  Yesterday, November 7, was the 100th anniversary of Russia’s Communist Revolution. That is to say, November 7, 1917, was the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.  There were other uprisings and insurrections, but that is the day the hard core Communists, […]