In our last post we used the expression 'Supply Side Jesus' which comes from a cartoon by Sen. Al Frankin. We had intended to link to it on Youtube but have not mastered the trick. It is called 'The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus' and it is worth finding and having a look-see.
Our 'Dutch' ancestors liked sauerkraut. It was a way to preserve cabbage through the winter and beyond. Sometimes they would place apples inside the kraut barrel for a special treat at Christmas.
We rinse our kraut, mix in a shredded apple, and add some brown sugar to sweeten it. We cook it in Reisling seasoned with bacon drippings and add a shot of gin for the taste of juniper. This is a good side dish to go with our bratwurst steamed in beer and bay leaf. Some mashed 'pratters' with bacon gravy to finish the plate. Serve with dark beer and pumpernickle.
Political Correctness is found on both sides of the political spectrum. During World War I it was not politically correct to use German at all. Sauerkraut became 'Liberty Cabbage,' something like, when the Republicans tried to rename french fries by calling them 'freedom' fries. We think that this sort of nonsense is just silly. We have never liked having folks tell us what words we must use; or what words should, or should not be, considered as offensive. We'll be the judge of that! Thank you very much!
In the E.L.C.A. they would like for all of us to use 'gender-neutral' or 'inclusive' language. If you go to the headquarters on Higgin's Road in Chicago, and happen to refer to the Holy Trinity as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; someone might get a case of the vapors!
Gender neutral language ends up using abstractions; and God is not an abstraction. He is a Person. He may even be eccentric. He may be a bit romantic about this morality play that we call history. He may consider the old chivalry to be a jewel in His crown. It is not at all pious to speculate about such things. This is precisely the reason that we should confine ourselves to what is revealed. We call Him 'Father' because Jesus taught us so to do. As Luther might put it, we should so fear and love God, as not to put word's in His mouth, but rather, to take Him at His Word Alone!
We prefer that the sacred be treated as though it were,... well, sacred! We prefer;and ought to prefer, that the liturgy and hymns be intoned, said and sung as they were written, Faithfully translated that we might understand their meaning. We do not find in all of this 'liberty cabbage' of inclusive language any apples of goodness for our Christ's Mass!
We think that feminists are rather prudish in their own way. They remind me of the high priest, Caiaphas, who rent his garments when Jesus referred to Himself as the 'Son' of God. He thought it so offensive, that he handed Him over to the Roman Governor to have Him executed. Pilate presented the Jews with, not one, but two,' Sons of the Father'. Jesus and Barabbas, the later name meaning, 'son of the father'. Jesus was accused of nothing more than using offensive language. Barabbas was guilty of 'theft' or as it might be translated, 'terrorism'. It is possible that Barabbas was a Jewish terrorist. Pilate gave the Jews a choice for release. The crowd drunk on the liberation theology of their day chose Barabbas! Jesus could be said to have been crucified for not being politically correct. He was certainly not gender neutral in His choice of words. We can only wish that these feminists were as zealous in His cause as they are in their own! Like the proverbial virgin sensitive to the pea under her mattress; so sensitive are they, as to the use of the pro-noun 'he', that they will not rest until it is rooted out of their worship. That pea has been there for two-thousand years disturbing the peace of no one. It is only in our day that skin has been found so sensitive as to cry out for it's removal. Theirs is not the Christian faith of always and everywhere. It is not catholic. It is a thin-skinned faith; and that is why it will not last.
Even so, we should live and let live. Then, let them worship God in their own way; and let us worship God in His!
May He help us all to be good apples in this sour world, and may He preserve us for the Feast to come! Let us put aside all our disagreements and worship the Heavenly Babe for Whom the Herald Angels sang , Gloria in excelsis Deo! Peace and Goodwill to all!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sausage in Our Grits!
When Socrates Henkel wrote his History of The Tennesee Synod he noted that they were often accused of adhering too closely to the Jeffersonian Principles of politics. In his day almost all of the folks in our church voted Democrat. Catawba was the Democrat's 'Banner County' in North Carolina. The Democratic Party was the party of separation of church and state then as now. This idea of 'two kingdoms' one of the sword and the other of the Gospel is at the heart of Lutheran thinking. Unlike the Calvinist or Anglicans who are wont to confound these two realms and render to Ceasar the things that are God's; so scrupulous we were in attending to this distinction that we refused to receive letters of incorporation from the State. Our Charter came from Zion! Jefferson did not think much of corporations either.
Catawba folk were very cautious about power structures; the power that one man might have over another man or that one group of men might have over other men. Our church polity was congregational; the pastor and all synodical authority was only advisory. In affairs of state this attitude carried over as power was seen as something to be kept close to home and jealously guarded, less somebody set up a monarchy or still worse a papacy! Jefferson thought the same and the Democrats guarded against the consolidation of power not only in the government but in private monopolies and concentrated wealth. In general the concentration of power in Washington has followed the concentration of power on Wall Street and in the giant corporations who's stocks are traded there, in the great banking houses who's debts are public and who's profits are private.
All of this is true, but the primary reason that we were Democrats has to do with the fact that some southfork farmer went down to the county seat in Lincolnton one day and the Presbyterian Whigs who ran the place made fun of him. He went back home and sent the word around that good Dutch folk weren't acceptable to those people down there. A petition was got up to form a new county and that is how Catawba County came to be...and of course it weren't no Whig county either. We voted for Jackson!
While most Catawbans today are Republicans they are also mostly Baptist. The Baptists believed in separation of church and state too, until they became the majority. Back in the old days Catawba was mostly farmers. Farming is close to nature and nature is close to God. Today they are employed in less noble occupations and they ain't so close to God as they used to be either! Jefferson said that farmers were the chosen people of God...if God ever had a chosen people. Those chosen folk worshiped the Jesus who loved the poor and they voted the Democratic ticket. Today they vote Republican ticket and worship supply side Jesus. They no longer have any regard for the separation of church and state and won't be happy until they have forced their supply side idol down all of our throats. That's called social conservatism. The fact that they don't believe in power until they have it is called neo-conservatism. The freedom that they believe in is the freedom that wolves have over sheep. Theirs is the freedom that would give one group of men way too much power over the rest of men. So long as that group is their own they won't care.
Unlike supply side Jesus the real Jesus did not hold with trickle down economics. I know this because of the story He once told about a poor man named Lazarus who depended for his fortune on what trickled down from a rich man's table. Jackson believed that the success of a society should be measured at it's base and not at it's apex. The Republican idea is the opposite and it is the inverse of the idea found in the Gospel of St. Luke.
My great grandfather Fox was a farmer, a Lutheran and a Democrat. My great granfather Dellinger was a farmer, a Methodist and a Republican. They both livrd east of Statesville on opposite sides of the Salisbury road. They were different in every way and each convinced that the other way was the wrong way. They each had large families and of course opposites are wont to attract so there was a lot of intermarriage between those two families. One morning after the Fox's had set down to breakfast, Grandpa's new Dellinger son-in-law piped up that, it being election day, he was going out to vote and that he was gonna vote for the whole Republican slate!
Well, the grits had went round and he had some on his plate. The sausage was at the head of the table by grandpa's plate. So the Dellinger boy asked Grandpa to please pass him the sausage. Grandpa with his head down over his plate raised his eyes and said, Son, if you want sausage in your grits you'll vote Democrat! Then, having made his point, he passed him the sausage.
My family is still Lutheran and still Democratic. Perhaps this is so because my great grandfather moved to Iredell County. This happened in 1918 when Catawba elected a Republican Sheriff. Grandpa Fox said that he would not live in a county that would have a Republican Sheriff; so he loaded up the family and moved to Iredell County. Here we reside to this day. Different from the folks around us; they simply accept us as being eccentric. We think that one way to measure the freedom of a society is in the number of eccentrics it tolerates. That, and the amount of sausage that may be found in the grits of it's poorest citizen!
Catawba folk were very cautious about power structures; the power that one man might have over another man or that one group of men might have over other men. Our church polity was congregational; the pastor and all synodical authority was only advisory. In affairs of state this attitude carried over as power was seen as something to be kept close to home and jealously guarded, less somebody set up a monarchy or still worse a papacy! Jefferson thought the same and the Democrats guarded against the consolidation of power not only in the government but in private monopolies and concentrated wealth. In general the concentration of power in Washington has followed the concentration of power on Wall Street and in the giant corporations who's stocks are traded there, in the great banking houses who's debts are public and who's profits are private.
All of this is true, but the primary reason that we were Democrats has to do with the fact that some southfork farmer went down to the county seat in Lincolnton one day and the Presbyterian Whigs who ran the place made fun of him. He went back home and sent the word around that good Dutch folk weren't acceptable to those people down there. A petition was got up to form a new county and that is how Catawba County came to be...and of course it weren't no Whig county either. We voted for Jackson!
While most Catawbans today are Republicans they are also mostly Baptist. The Baptists believed in separation of church and state too, until they became the majority. Back in the old days Catawba was mostly farmers. Farming is close to nature and nature is close to God. Today they are employed in less noble occupations and they ain't so close to God as they used to be either! Jefferson said that farmers were the chosen people of God...if God ever had a chosen people. Those chosen folk worshiped the Jesus who loved the poor and they voted the Democratic ticket. Today they vote Republican ticket and worship supply side Jesus. They no longer have any regard for the separation of church and state and won't be happy until they have forced their supply side idol down all of our throats. That's called social conservatism. The fact that they don't believe in power until they have it is called neo-conservatism. The freedom that they believe in is the freedom that wolves have over sheep. Theirs is the freedom that would give one group of men way too much power over the rest of men. So long as that group is their own they won't care.
Unlike supply side Jesus the real Jesus did not hold with trickle down economics. I know this because of the story He once told about a poor man named Lazarus who depended for his fortune on what trickled down from a rich man's table. Jackson believed that the success of a society should be measured at it's base and not at it's apex. The Republican idea is the opposite and it is the inverse of the idea found in the Gospel of St. Luke.
My great grandfather Fox was a farmer, a Lutheran and a Democrat. My great granfather Dellinger was a farmer, a Methodist and a Republican. They both livrd east of Statesville on opposite sides of the Salisbury road. They were different in every way and each convinced that the other way was the wrong way. They each had large families and of course opposites are wont to attract so there was a lot of intermarriage between those two families. One morning after the Fox's had set down to breakfast, Grandpa's new Dellinger son-in-law piped up that, it being election day, he was going out to vote and that he was gonna vote for the whole Republican slate!
Well, the grits had went round and he had some on his plate. The sausage was at the head of the table by grandpa's plate. So the Dellinger boy asked Grandpa to please pass him the sausage. Grandpa with his head down over his plate raised his eyes and said, Son, if you want sausage in your grits you'll vote Democrat! Then, having made his point, he passed him the sausage.
My family is still Lutheran and still Democratic. Perhaps this is so because my great grandfather moved to Iredell County. This happened in 1918 when Catawba elected a Republican Sheriff. Grandpa Fox said that he would not live in a county that would have a Republican Sheriff; so he loaded up the family and moved to Iredell County. Here we reside to this day. Different from the folks around us; they simply accept us as being eccentric. We think that one way to measure the freedom of a society is in the number of eccentrics it tolerates. That, and the amount of sausage that may be found in the grits of it's poorest citizen!
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