Samples, and more samples. Many new ones are now available at The Lutheran Study Bible’s web site, here: cph.org/lutheranbible

Here is an interesting article from Christianity Today, online. Which you can read here. Here’s a snippet that offers some common-sense observations. While the trends in the mega-church might be on a larger scale, similar challenges are facing medium and small congregations:

At some point cultural adaptation itself needs to be adapted—back into gospel culture. For instance, African churches found it necessary to tolerate polygamy and other cultural practices in the first generation of missionaries. But by the second and third generations, maturing Christian disciples were undermining polygamy. In corporate America, it may be necessary to use the ethos of marketing to gain the gospel a hearing. But after a generation, shouldn’t megachurches begin shifting away from business and consumer language in the way they conceive of their work? In none of Paul’s prayers for his churches does he highlight “innovative growth strategies” that “multiply impact.” His language is radically un-businesslike and inefficient. One example: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Eph. 1:17). Unfortunately, the latest Leadership Network study shows that the language of business and consumerism persistently frames the megachurch worldview. . . . While the megachurch has some unique dynamics, most medium-sized and smaller churches in America are not that much different in demographics. It’s not as if no young people attend smaller churches, or as if every member of a smaller church is an active volunteer! And many a smaller church chases after “strategies and programs” that can “meet spiritual needs” and “multiply effectiveness.” As it turns out, the megachurch is like a megaphone. It is not so much an aberrant form of church as a large, flashing icon of the American church. It’s no secret that too many evangelical leaders are captivated more by business culture than biblical culture, spending more time absorbed in strategies and effectiveness and relatively little time in prayer. No, it doesn’t have to be an either-or situation, but let’s face it, it often is.

Here is a story I found very interesting, and perhaps you will to. How does a nation come to terms with its history?

Russian archbishop’s censure of Stalin as ‘a monster’, makes waves – Feature
By Sophia Kishkovsky

Moscow, 4 August (ENI)–Comments by a senior official of the Russian Orthodox Church condemning Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, accusing him of genocide, shortly before a European security forum equated the crimes of Stalin and Hitler, have stirred heated debate in the Russian media and blogosphere.

“I think that Stalin was a spiritually-deformed monster, who created a horrific, inhuman system of ruling the country,” Archbishop Hilarion had said in a June interview with the news magazine Ekspert. “He unleashed a genocide against the people of his own country and bears personal responsibility for the death of millions of innocent people. In this respect Stalin is completely comparable to Hitler.”

Hilarion is head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, a post Patriarch Kirill I held before he was elected leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in January.

Hilarion’s comments came shortly before a session of the parliamentary assembly of the 56-member, Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Lithuania. At its 3 July meeting, the organization in a resolution stated that both Nazism and Stalinism “brought about genocide, violations of humans rights and freedoms, war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

The resolution called on member states to mark each 23 August, the day of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which divided Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union, as “a Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism”.

The Russian foreign ministry denounced the resolution as “an attempt to distort history for political purposes”.

The Second World War is considered a sacred topic in Russia, where it is called the Great Patriotic War. In May, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the creation of a commission to fight the “falsification of history” and defend the official account of the Soviet past.

Stalin is portrayed by top officials, and also in a study guide for high school teachers approved by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when he was president, as an effective manager, comparable to the Russian tsars or to Bismarck, who united Germany in the 19th century. Putin has also continued his efforts to unite the pre-revolutionary and Bolshevik strands of Russian history into a seamless narrative.

Shortly before Victory Day celebrations on 9 May to mark the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, Patriarch Kirill indicated an interpretation of events that might diverge with that of the Kremlin. The Soviet victory in the war was “a miracle,” Kirill said, and the suffering of the Soviet people during the war is atonement for its rejection of Christianity during the Bolshevik era after the Russian Revolution in 1917.

At the end of July, during his first official visit in Ukraine, Kirill laid a wreath at a monument to victims of a Stalin-era famine that Ukrainians regard as genocide, and which President Medvedev refused to visit in 2008. The Patriarch spoke of how his family, and the entire Soviet people, had suffered under Stalinism.

Read more…

Celebrate the New Luther’s Works in English with 50% Savings Off the Current Volumes

Concordia Publishing House is happy to announce an expansion of Luther’s Works: American Edition. The newest volume will be available this October. You can now save 50% on the entire current print collection, volumes 1–55, and the CD-ROM edition. Offer good through September 1, 2009.

The new Luther’s Works is available by subscription. Starting this October, one volume will be released every year for a total of 20 volumes. Visit cph.org/luthersworks to review the prospectus for the expansion of Luther’s Works: American Edition. You can also read a selection of endorsements and the table of contents for the first new book, volume 69 (John 17–20).

Please note: the 50% savings offers only applies to the current Luther’s Works titles. But you can save 30% on the new Luther’s Works when you subscribe. Each volume is currently priced at $49.99, but as a subscriber you pay only $34.99. Volumes will ship to you automatically.

The Kindle 3 is on its way and it is sure to revolutionize reading, like never before. Here is a preview video.

Those who oppose the Lutheran Church and reject its teachings, or are merely curious and interested in understanding it better, will often ask: “Where was the Lutheran Church before Martin Luther?” Here is the answer that C.F.W. Walther provides in his superb essay, “Concerning the Use of the Name Lutheran,” printed in serial form for the first several issues of his newspaper Der Lutheraner, that is, The Lutheran.

So long as there has been an orthodox church on earth, there has also been the Lutheran Church. She is (as strange as that sounds) as old as the world, for she has no other doctrine than the patriarchs, prophets and apostles had received from God and preached. Certainly the name Lutheran first arose 300 years ago, but not what is signified by the name. So as often, therefore, as the question is to put to us: ‘Where was the Lutheran church before Luther?’ it is so easy to answer: She was everywhere that there were Christians, who believed in JESUS Christ and his holy Word from their hearts, and would not let themselves be dissuaded from this faith, which alone saves, by any human institutions or who finally in their tribulation in death still also took their refuge in him.*

Walther’s point is simply that the name “Lutheran” is what we use to distinguish the faith and confession of the one, catholic, apostolic church, from all its other forms in erring churches. In a sense there is no such thing as a “Lutheran Church” but when pressed to make clear what it is that God’s Word teaches and proclaims, we therefore, to distinguish it from other options, refer to it as the Lutheran Church, but it is actually is nothing other than the good, old, faith once delivered to the saints.

* Source: CFW Walther, “Concerning the Name Lutheran” in Der Lutheraner, Sept. 23, 1844, (Vol. I, No. 2), p. 6. Translated by Joel Baseley.