The English Surgeon...

After a long day I sat down with a homebrew and turned on PBS (I have the very, very, very basic cable subscription). I happened upon a fascinating documentary called "The English Surgeon". Here is a summary of the documentary....





What is it like to have God like surgical powers, yet to struggle against your own humanity? What is it like to try and save a life, and yet to fail? This film follows brain surgeon Henry Marsh as he openly confronts the dilemmas of the doctor patient relationship on his latest mission to Ukraine.
Henry is one of London's foremost brain surgeons, but despite being a pioneer in his field he stills rides an old pushbike to work and worries himself sick about the damage he can inflict on his patients. "When push comes to shove we can afford to lose an arm or a leg, but I am operating on people's thoughts and feelings...and if something goes wrong I can destroy that person's character ……forever".
Driven by the need to help others where he can, Henry has been going out to Kyiv for over 15 years to help improve upon the medieval brain surgery he witnessed there during his first visit in 1992. Today the patients see him as the great saviour from the West, desperate parents want him to save their child, and his Ukrainian colleague Igor Kurilets sees him as a guru and a benefactor. But for all the direct satisfaction he gets from going, Henry also sees grossly misdiagnosed patients, children who he can't save, and a lack of equipment and trained supporting staff. "It's like selling your soul to the devil, but what can you do? My son had a brain tumour as a baby and I was desperate for someone to help me. I simply can't walk away from that need in others".



I have to say this was an excellent documentary on the painful realities of everyday people facing issues with their brains, primarily tumors. I think the one moving moment was when they just finished a successful brain surgery on a young man who had severe bouts of epilepsy. They found the tumor and removed it and within 24 hours he was up and eating...which I found fascinating in terms of a turn around.



Yet, after this surgery Henry and Dr. Kurilets meet with a young woman who was having medical problems. Her thought was that she was bitten by a tick which gave her encephilitis, however Dr. Marsh sees something different. He sees a deep seeded tumor which is inoperable. He immediately says there is no hope for her and all of a sudden Dr. Marsh and the Dr. Kurilets are faced with having to tell this woman her fate. Marsh's thoughts were that she wouldn't survive 5 years and before she dies she will go blind and have other complications.


All of this discussion happened right in front of her. The woman doesn't understand English and so Marsh and Kurilets are trying to figure out what to say to her. Its obvious that the Kurilets is affected by the scenario and Dr. Marsh, who has seen this before, is still humbled by the situation. Kurilets simply asks "What do you say?" and Marsh says "You tell her the truth, but don't do it alone, have family with her..."

This discussion between the two doctors turns to dealing with patients that have no more solutions and ultimately no hope. They don't know how to deal with the idea of no hope when faced with this situation. However, I found it sort of ironic that amidst all of this discussion there are two rather large Orthodox Icons on the wall over Marsh' head. One, from what I could tell, was of Christ the Teacher. As sad as this all was, I wanted to say to them, "turn around and look at the wall!!!"

Anyways, I recommend you check out this docummentary, its sad, its happy, it brings a very real picture from the eyes of a surgeon, who I have found to be quite influential...anyone else see it?

The Lessons of a Court Room....

This past week I had jury duty in our county's court of common pleas. This next week I have jury duty in a Federal court in Florence, SC (can't anyone else do this?). I found it interesting to see the "rubrics" if you will of a courtroom. When you enter in you are put into an assigned seat, your told to turn off and turn in your cell phones. Of course when the judge walked in everyone had to rise and I found it interesting that the judge made some remarks about what to wear in a court of law. He stated "You all are in a court of law, as potential jurors. This is a place where serious matters are discussed, you are the peers of these people here, you should take this matter seriously and your dress and conduct should be fitting as you sit in this room."

I wish this judge would have lightened up a bit. It would have been nice to see his face on some video monitors and to have some cool and riveting music when he entered into the courtroom. Also whats with all the black he was wearing and the images of scales and portraits of other judges along the walls....(believe it or not, hanging over this particular courtroom was a portrait of Robert E. Lee)

I also wish the courthouse chairs were a bit more comfortable and that we didn't have to sit and stand every time the judge decided to get up. Sure, there are serious charges and crimes being brought up against defendants but do they always have to make it sound so serious with all of the "Are you aware of the charges pending against you?" sort of talk. Why can't the court system learn from the modern day church as to how they recieve and welcome their Lord and Savior and yes, their Judge? It may make going to court and sitting as a juror a little more exciting and comfortable.

But there again, I might have this all turned around....:). Your thoughts?

A Breath of Fresh Air in Charlotte....

I have to give credit to Pastor Alms at Incarnatus Est for pointing me to this article. I hate to post about the same article as he has done, but I can't help it since I live and work in Charlotte. It is so refreshing to hear someone in your own backyard take to task the mainstream pop-Christianity that is not only saturated here in Charlotte, but pretty much all over the US. I will be ordering his book and am looking forward to trying to hear him speak some time in the near future.

Slim Down Challenge....

Ugh, the pains of trying to lose weight and get healthy. I have struggled with it all my life, but about a month ago I visited my doctor and he noticed my blood pressure was through the roof. The solution: lose weight and excersize or go on medication. I opted for the first but often thought of how many times I've tried and how many times I've failed. So I came up with an idea that holds me accountable to a lot of people. Its called "The Rev. Slim Down Challenge". Basically its a weight loss program that not only to helps me get healthier, but also raises funds for my church's youth group. Parishoners and others are pledging money per pound that I lose and so far I am up to $50.50 per pound that I lose. On May 31st, 2009 I had to weigh myself in front of the congregation after Divine Service (talk about embarrassing) and I came out at a whopping 255 lbs! The challenge will take place over the next year. It started on May 31st 2009 and will end on May 30, 2010. I'd love to lose 60 lbs, by next Spring, but even if its 10 lbs., I'll be happy. I will be doing monthly weigh-ins on the last Sunday of the month and I have vowed to my congregation that they are going to pay!

All in all its actually working thus far, but I don't want to get too confident. However, the idea of making this absolutely public to my parish has really made me hone in on what I have to do and the congregation is fully in support of it. They too are trying to do some healthier lifestyle changes and they love the fact that they can support our Youth Group and get a healthier pastor to boot. One of the great tools that I am using is http://www.sparkpeople.com/ which is a free website that helps you record your nutrition and fitness for each day. It also provides many forums for people to research and chat about issues that they have had with becoming healthier through diet and excersize. So, I'll keep you posted as things go along...but heaven help me if I have to go to a potluck anytime soon....get thee behind me, green bean casserole!

A Request....

Give me your favorite music...whether its albums, artists or whatever. I'm getting tired of my music on my I-Pod, all 2,611 songs (or 73.3 days of nonstop music). I'm up for everything with the exceptions of rap and modern country. So whether its classical or classic rock to jazz or sacred music, I'm wanting to know what you listen to...maybe I already own what you recommend, or maybe, just maybe your recommendations will be on my I-Pod in the near future. One band that I have become a great fan of is a local NC band called The Avett Brothers. They have been on tour with Dave Matthews, and their music is great. They are sort of folksy, bluegrass with a little big of jazz mixed in...very unique in my mind.

LARD!!!

Ok, so its been a while since I've been on here, but hopefully that will change. What better topic to start back up a blog with than lard!?!?! Thanks to Rev. Alms for the link.

I remember my grandmother's pie crusts being the best ever because she used....LARD! Interesting article.

Quite Scary....

A very good friend of mine sent this to me. Its written by a pastor in the ELCA. Its pretty distrubing to me and I pray that it doesn't become infectious with our own church body.

Take my Seminary.Please.
byJohn S. McKenzie

Inasmuch as some have taken exception to my accusation in The Coming Storm that the driving force behind the revisionist movement in the ELCA is neither compassion, nor justice for poor beleaguered homosexuals, but elitism, I have undertaken to clarify my remarks.If I were ever blessed with the kind of success in my ministry that made it necessary to call an assistant pastor, I would most likely select a candidate who had never been exposed to an ELCA seminary and was not on the ELCA roster. Here is why:

1. The clergy, scholars, and bureaucrats of the ELCA are infected with feminism. In the 1970s, when the predecessors of the ELCA voted to ordain women pastors, they did not understand that they were buying a pig in a poke. They voted to ordain women and instead they were gradually overwhelmed with feminists whose loyalties to the cause of feminism required them to militate for inclusive language in all publications, the recasting of the gospel so that it could be heard in a different voice, celebrations at synod assemblies of the anniversary of the ordination of women every five years or so, homages to God as mother, lover, and friend, and finally in the new hymnal, the castration of God. In 1995 the denomination council forced the Board of Pensions to pay for abortions. Thank you, feminists of the ELCA, for raising our consciousness. That is what elitists do.

2. The clergy, scholars, and bureaucrats of the ELCA are infected with Marxism. When liberation theology reared its head in the 1960's and 1970's, it proved an outlet for left-leaning Christians in the U.S. who had soured on the Civil Rights movement, Camelot, the Great Society, and the fight against communism in Viet Nam. Under the influence of liberation theology, pastors taught that only the poor can truly appreciate who and what Jesus was. True followers of Christ must reject irresponsible participation in capitalist structures of oppression. The Church is fulfilled only insofar as it is a community of solidarity with the poor. The only good American is a self-hating American. How many conservative rural parishes across the Midwest have been wrecked by churchly disciples of Marx who alone knew how to pronounce the word, Nicaragua, and who alone knew what Jesus was really up to, insisting from their pulpits week after week that America was the source of all evil in the world? Instead of establishing North American base communities, congregations fought with their pastors and among themselves in a death spiral which need not have happened. Beware elitists bearing intellectual gifts.

3. The clergy, scholars, and bureaucrats of the ELCA are infected with the philosophy of community organizing. No group has done more to promote this philosophy than the Lutheran School of Community Organizing in Philadelphia. The church in our age wouldn't be so bad if it could be relevant. Those who claim that the creative proclamation of law and gospel must be the relevance of the Church do not understand what relevant really means. Relevant means being central in the political process. The Church could be relevant if it would learn to do community organizing and learn to speak truth to power. We have to get out in the community and interview people and find out what they really want and then use a combination of loud voices, political pressure and the occasional underhanded tactic to empower the people and shake down the government on their behalf. And while we are at it, we need the rabble to tell us how to be the Church. Then we can be super relevant. They will, of course, fill our pews every Sunday in gratitude. While the Roman Catholics are decommissioning such saints as Christopher, we are canonizing Saint Saul Alinsky. Never mind that he was a Stalinist and an atheist-he has much to teach us about leadership and power. Funds are presently available from the ELCA council of bishops for training pastors in community organizing. If you want to be a part of the elite, you have to keep up with your continuing education contact hours.

4. The clergy, scholars, and bureaucrats of the ELCA are infected with deconstructionism. I was shocked to hear of a presentation to the ELCA council of bishops a while back by an ELCA scholar who insisted that the Word of God is not Word of God at the point that the prophets, evangelists and apostles write it. It is not Word of God as the Church has canonized it. It is not Word of God until the believing community completes the hermeneutical circle by interpreting it. Then and presumably only then, is it Word of God. Of course, "believing community" ought to be read "scholars trained in Biblical interpretation and pastors trained by them". To garble Martin Luther, the simple layman armed with Scripture.needs to find a biblical scholar who can tell him what God really wants to say. I remember my vow of ordination in the old ALC. I vowed to teach in accordance with the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the Lutheran Confessions not insofar as but because they are the Word of God. That was then; this is now. In August of this year, we will declare the clear witness of Scripture to be unreliable when it comes to God's position regarding same-sex behavior. Thank God we have the elites to lead us into all truth.

5. The clergy, scholars, and bureaucrats of the ELCA are infected with antinomianism. Being a little more sophisticated than we, Lutherans in the 16th Century called antinomianism a heresy and stamped it out as best they could. We have revived it into the gospel of inclusion. It states that God so desperately wants fellowship with us that he is removing all those nettlesome demands that we stop sinning. The gospel nullifies and sets aside the law of God. Jesus just came to tell us we were barking up the wrong tree, listening to the law of God and all. It is a simple system which is easy to understand, easy to preach, and easy to live by. To quote Herod's words in Auden, "I love to sin; God loves to forgive sin. The world is admirably arranged." Rather than pursuing holiness of life as AC 6 would have it, we are free to pursue social justice and care for the environment and economic reform and, oh yes, advocacy for AIDS testing for bishops. Forget the small stuff of amending your sinful ways. If you want the Kingdom of God to come, leave it to the professionals who see the big picture so much better than you-professionals whom you support with your benevolence offerings.One might think that so many loyalties at work among the leaders of the ELCA might pull them apart. But a marriage of convenience has been achieved. Coolness begets coolness. It matters not so much that you are at variance with what has been believed everywhere by everyone in the Church, as long as you at variance in a way that other elites in academe and the media and in other liberal denominations recognize as cool. There is a confraternity of post-Christian thinkers in the ELCA including some kool-aid drinkers who embrace all of the above. It is a mutual admiration society. They read and discuss the New York Times. They quote National Public Radio. Their bookshelves are lined with volumes from Fortress Press demonstrating that they have been thinking radical new thoughts for ever so long. At one time, formal education stabilized the Church. Individuals who felt an internal call from God to the pastoral ministry received formal education in the colleges and seminaries of the Church which taught Scripture, the Great Tradition, the craft of preaching, the art of worship, and the care of souls, such that a congregation that called a pastor who had been trained in a seminary of the Church knew what it was getting. Moreover, the congregation could assume that the individual had loyalties and a worldview that were shared with the one holy catholic and apostolic Church with some modifications based on the particularities of time and space. Now our system of formal education is a consortium of interests and movements that, while they buy the loyalty of many constituencies, are destabilizing the Church. It is not creative destruction when unclean spirits and secular philosophies are imported into the discourse of the Church and allowed to run roughshod over faithful Christian lay people: it is the consolidation of power and control by the clergy, scholars, and bureaucrats who constitute the elite of the ELCA.If I were calling an assistant pastor, I would need to look outside the ELCA system. Pastors in the ELCA can be loyal to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it has been received. But pastors in the ELCA may be loyal to feminism, liberation theology, black theology, community organizing, deconstructionism, gay theology, mujerista theology, Gaia theology, or one of many other ideologies which are on the acceptable list for elites in our culture to adhere to. Most of these are served with side dishes of anti-Americanism, a rejection of nuclear families, and anti-capitalism There is no structure and no will to prevent heterodox loyalties among the clergy of the ELCA. I believe the lack of structure and will in the seminary system of the ELCA actually promotes a corps of Church leaders with heterodox loyalties. In return, the heterodox loyalties produce a corps of Church leaders who find safety only in the big tent which is the guild of clergy and scholars and bureaucrats. Back to my personnel problem. All ELCA interviewees would have the credentials of pastor. Many would have the requisite socials skills and demeanor. Many would work hard to occupy the office and perform the required duties. Some would be very impressive and say all the right things in the interview. Most would accept the mantle of intellectual leadership in the congregation. But whither would they lead? Would they think with the mind of the Church or with the mind of the world? Would the Holy Spirit speak through them, or would a cacophony of voices drown out much of what the Spirit would say. The risks of calling an ELCA pastor presently outweigh the benefits. Their loyalties are in doubt and as the Marxists would say, "It's not by accident." As will be demonstrated in August, loyalty to the guild and loyalty to the Gospel are two very different things.