Lutheran Carnival XX: Laetare

I would argue, my dear friends, in the first carnival since both some (not all) ELCA bloggers took offense at what we did and the whole Book of Concord controversy, I am, in some ways, glad this carnival doesn't even come close to touching those topics (the site has, admittedly). While a lot has happened and a lot of people have blogged about things, it is good every once in a while and look back on the past. I had one person email me thanks, because he read a whole bunch of stuff he never would have read otherwise. While in terms of emails, this carnival probably could have done better, in terms of submissions, you will not believe how many we got. I can't believe how many we got. You would think there is no way to organize these things, but there is one way. None of the people who submitted blogs will be named, except in one case, and we will see why that is in a second.

We are now getting into the true hardcore history with what I know about this man. Andrew Musculus was a Professor at Frankfurt/Order and one of the men involved in the Formula of Concord. This is from the Historical Introductions to the Book of Concord by F. Bente.

In his zealous opposition to the Majorists, Andrew Musculus (Muesel, born 1514; studied at Leipzig 1532-1538, then at Wittenberg; became a zealous and passionate adherent of Luther, whom he considered the greatest man since the days of the apostles; from 1540 till his death, September 29, 1581, professor and pastor, later on, General Superintendent, in Frankfurt-on-the-Oder) also made some extreme statements. Later on, however, he cooperated in preparing and revising the Formula of Concord. Musculus wrote of Luther: "There is as great a difference between the dear old teachers and Luther as there is between the light of the sun and that of the moon; and beyond all doubt, the ancient fathers, even the best and foremost among them, as Hilary and Augustine, had they lived contemporaneously with him, would not have hesitated to deliver the lamp to him, as the saying is." (Meusel, Handl. 4, 709; Richard, 450.)

First and foremost, these post can be put into two very general categories: dead blogs and live blogs. The dead blogs are blogs that now exist only in the Wayback Machine. Not only that, there is no way to link to a specific post in the wayback machine. I got creative, and posted them on my Long Thoughts blog.

First off is a post by Josh and his original blog, I Think I need a Stuff Drink about sex and drinking.

The second dead blog entry is from Twylah and her now deceased blog Lutheran in a Tipi and a post on Contemporary Christian Music

The third dead blog entry is from All Theology is Pharmakology (which is still up but inactive) and his post St. Matthias, the Apostle's Day where Pr. Humann demonstrates his skill in translating.

The first two bloggers still blog at Here we Stand, just so you know.

Now we come to blogs that have been around for a while, and are still posting away.

The first of the many submissions in this category comes from Kelly's Blog. Entitled Experiencing the Passion of the Christ?, she examines the phenomenon of the movie The Passion of The Christ and some of the misguided attempts to capitalize on its success.

Old School Confessional and the post Thought offers cogent thoughts on "Blessed are the poor in spirit."

The blog The Joshua Victor Theory was sent in, and his post A Eucatastrophe of Biblical Proportions. Tolkien coined a word, 'eucatastrophe', as a counter to 'catastrophe', to describe something going terribly wrong that turns to something good. Then-vicar Josh Schneider dovetails from the eucatastrophe of Frodo's destruction of the Ring in the Lord of the Rings to the ultimate eucatastophe--the death of Christ which brings salvation to all.

Someone extremely brave sent in the whole month of February 2004 from Confessing Evangelical. During this month, John Halton documents his move from Classical Anglicanism to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England. I remember reading this over two years ago, and thinking how thankful I am that the truth found John. Another person sent in a whole slew of links from John's blog. In The Miracle of Holy Baptism John presents the sure promises of scripture on the occasion of his son's baptism. In his post Leading People to Christ he reminds us that if you're going to lead someone to Christ, you need to know where Christ is. Andrew didn't lead Simon Peter through a prayer - he physically led him to where Jesus could be found, and left it to Jesus to call Simon Peter to himself.

The next post comes from Love and Blunder entitled Sorry, I'm dating Jesus. Rob tells about his and Devona's experiences dating and what they learned. It reminds us of human nature and the things we need, while still being based on life here. In Olivia Becomes our Sister, this beautiful post is written by Olivia's mom, and fellow sister in Christ, Devona on the baptism of her first child. Incarnation discusses other confessional Lutheran blogs which helped Rob to realize perhaps the most fundamental difference between the doctrine of his modern evangelical upbringing and his current understanding as a confessional Lutheran is the incarnation of Christ. What he was misunderstanding for many years was that Christ is the Word, He became flesh, and dwelt among us. Finally, It's me for you and you for me discusses Rob's first week as a father.

Dear Daniel, the next edition of your carnival is coming up!
Ooops, wrong email.

Begger's All makes an appearance with the post My Father's Day. Tim gives an account of his father's death. In another post, Survey: Where does evangelicalism come from?, Tim provides a brief survey of the roots of evangelicalism.

Someone sent in this Territorial Bloggings post called Our Children Aren't Stupid!. Glen Piper explains that the reason for the decline in the depth & quality of what we teach our children is due, not because of the kids, but rather due to our shortcomings & unwillingness to do the hard work of ensuring that our children are equipped with a proper catechetical foundation.

The First British Blog Ever finds a way in with his post The Silver Ring Thing and the Attack of the Drones. Christian sexual abstinence cannot have it's raison d'etre in a silver ring. The ultimate reason a Christian has for even bothering to pursue any kind of purity, is not only in commitment to one's future spouse, but because Christ has already given him/her His very own purity and righteousness in his/her baptism.

Bunnie Diehl had two posts sent in by people. The first, Personal Relationship, has two sentences that shows classic Bunnie Diehl.

Many people in the comments below are saying that there's theology and then there's having a personal relationship with Jesus. Would those who see a distinction between the two fill the rest of us in on what you mean by personal relationship with Jesus?

Then good souls argued out their points, for and against the posed question, for a total of 89 comments. It's safe to say the Bunnie Diehl was a key gathering spot in the confessional Lutheran blogosphere in March 2005. The second post, What is the purpose of the Sacrament of Holy Communion?, is a post that asks for thoughts on what scripture says about the purpose of holy communion which brings out 172 comments.

Necessary Roughness has a friend in the blogsphere who sent me the post Christmas Just the Beginning. He has thoughts on Bach's Christmas Oratorio, and how it reminds us that Christmas is just the beginning.

I was then inundated with links from Wattersblogged! I told the person it was OK if this person sent me links without descriptions. I didn't realize this person would send me nine of his links. The problem is, they are all good. Anyway, here we go. Molly's Writing a Book, It Only Takes a Spark to Set Forest Fire Going..., Epiphany and the tsunami, Steve Hein and The Two Kingdoms, Two courageous bishops, Ash Wednesday, The March of Ecumania, Are Lutherans Protestant?, and We love because He first loved us. Hopefully, the titles are self-explanatory.

Someone sent me a couple of IntolerantElle posts. The first, A Little Advice for the Girls on Valentine's Day discusses love and what it actually means. The second post called Lactose-free, Gluten-free Chocolate Cake to Die for, Dahling! gives her recipie for chocolate cake without all the nasty lactose and gluten that upsets her digestive system. I have tried this, and I couldn't tell the difference.

We come to the end of this little carnival, someone sent in a couple of links from Random Thoughts of a Confessional Lutheran. Terri Schiavo is Dead gives my response to her state-mandated death. Finally, in Volcano Near Mt. Doom, I go on randomly babbling, but somewhere in this, I ask for someone to become my new female best friend. I also discuss why my hypothesis that the darker the beer, the more confessional the beer drinker fails.

This carnival was definitely fun to do. While I wouldn't call it an astounding success (over half the links came in after the posts were due), I definitely can't call this a failure. Things worked out OK, some of you had fun browsing through the archives of other people's blogs, and I sat here in bed for over five hours compiling this thing.

The next host is Dan at Necessary Roughness. Since there will be four weeks worth of posts to use, there's no excuse for not having anything. Posts for LCXXI are due Friday, April 7 by 7pm CDT (0000 UTC Saturday for those elsewhere). The Carnival should be up by Sunday, April 9. May God bless you all these next two weeks.