Trinity Te Deum The official newsletter for Trinity Lutheran Church 1207 West 45 Street Austin, Texas 78756 Rev. Paul R. Harris – 512-453-3835 Church; 512-251-4204 Home Sunday School and Bible Study 9:15 AM – Divine Service 10:30 AM May 28, 2017 Volume 19 Issue 3 Professor Marquart,June – July remember 2017 this is This is again from Professor Mar- Of the Prayer Service, when Roe v Wade was only 6 years quart. He always advocated that pas- Conscience, and Clerical old, said the one place fitting for a pas- tors wear clerical collars because this Collars tor in a clerical collar to be arrested was a public testimony that Christ was at a protest against abortion. It was still in the world. I didn’t always. Thanks to all who came out for the took me over 30 years to come to the In fact, for the first 7 years I only Prayer Service at the Planned Par- conclusion that I should take a public wore one on Sundays or when per- enthood clinic. I was asked after if I stand on behalf of the unborn. It took 6 forming weddings and funerals. Then was disappointed at the turn out. years to start having Life Sunday ser- I was coming out of a church where I You’ll recall in the newsletter an- vice; it took me 7 years to write public had taken part in a Saturday afternoon nouncing this I said I would be hap- letters to the editor. And 10 years, be- wedding. Wearing a clerical collar, I py if 2 or 3 were there. There were fore having a public display and prayer was walking down the stairs of the several times that I didn’t count. I service at my own church. I am a slow church. Three teens were passing on don’t make a habit out of counting bloomer. Therefore, I don’t expect the other side of road about 50 yards that which comes as a gift from anyone to come to a position that took away. They shouted, “Satan rules,” God. I was thankful that Trinity al- me decades and decades to arrive it. and thrust a fist in the air. I thought if lowed me to host it in her name. I What really put be over the edge is a clerical collar bothers Satan that could have hosted as a pastor with- when I saw the post-election marches much, I should wear one more. And I out your name, but I am thankful on behalf of the “right” to kill babies have. Trinity stood publicly for life. in the womb. I couldn’t remain part of At my first parish, two pastors what some think is the silent majority from a small confessional Lutheran Kids and Church even if I really believe we are in the denomination, having read a conser- Rev. William Holzer, Grace minority. vative article by me, came to beat Lutheran, Brenham, Texas Someone asked me how the prayer my conscience up about staying in (PRH – This was the Pastor’s Page service went. Three things: One, I used the Missouri Synod. They were old- for their April 2017 newsletter. I have the prayer service I conducted in Loui- er than I and relentless. I spoke to given it the title “Kids and Church.” I siana at our mock cemetery. I remem- another pastor in the Missouri Syn- thought it treats a touchy subject truth- ber it taking longer. Two, I find it im- od about this. He told me, “You’ll fully. My connection to Pastor Holzer, possible to pray silently more than 10 find that once a pastor makes up his other than both being confessional pas- or so minutes. Aesthetic monks have mind to leave the Synod, even tors, is that he graduated in 1976 from for centuries warned about the dangers though it took him years to come to New Mexico Military Institute and I of dead zones in silent prayers. I notice that conclusion, he will expect you graduated in 1977.) the people who organize the 40 Days to come to that conclusion instant- Ecclesiastes 1:1 “The words of the for Life speak on their web page about ly.” I’ve found this to be true about Preacher, the son of David, king in not only going there to pray but to Jerusalem. 2 “Vanity[a] of vanities,” says many conscience things. The real keep vigil. This is what I’m going to the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, kicker here is that years later when I advocate we do. I would like to enlist all is vanity.” 3 What profit has a man was serving a parish in Detroit I ran volunteers to keep vigil for maybe as from all his labor In which he toils un- into one of those pastors at the little as 15 minutes. Three, there were der the sun? Michigan District convention. He more cat-calls and shouts, this time 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of was back in the Missouri Synod. I than when I was out there without a the whole matter: Fear God and keep asked him about it and he shrugged clerical collar, cassock, crucifix, and a His commandments, For this is man’s and said, “I had to pay my bills.” 14 group. The elder holding the crucifix all. For God will bring every work What does that have to do with the thinks that was the lightening rod that into judgment, including every secret prayer service? While at seminary drew the ire. thing, Whether good or evil.” I have been at Grace now for 20 years. I arrived with a wife and four 2 children; the youngest was 3 Next we must examine the winning God’s Holy Church. The history of the months old. I am an empty nester and and losing of souls. That would be re- children of Israel, written in the Old that little baby has a 11 month old of flected in the counts of the number of Testament, gives us certainty about the her own. A lot happens in 20 years. adult and child professions of faith: 196. results of the impure mixing with the When I arrived in 1997 we had a This number verses the number of adults pure Word of God. Lord, preserve us membership (on paper) of 912 bap- and children who were removed through from a slow death through the perver- tized and 769 confirmed. That’s 143 transfer to churches that do not share our sion of Your Truth. children under 14. Now we have 628 confession of faith or were removed. The Church is not built and does not baptized and 552 confirmed. That’s Those who were removed were also re- fall based on statistics. The Church is 76 children under 14. You could just moved by their own request, by the re- built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. about say half and half. Average wor- quest of the voters or simply those who He is the Way and the Truth and the ship attendance went from 421 to 260, left our area and failed to keep contact Life. Not one comes to the Father apart a drop of 161 souls. That’s 80 per ser- with the congregation. The number from Jesus Christ. vice. The sanctuary wasn’t over- would also include those excommunicat- The last point, one that has remained crowded when I arrived and now there ed by the voters, but that number over since the time I first arrived, is the is- are some who are calling for us to go the last 20 years is zero. The total num- sue of the grown children of the con- to one service a Sunday. ber of souls that were lost is 457. gregation. I, myself, now have six We have said our temporal good- A brief refresher in the doctrine of the grown children: two married and four byes to 222 adult members but not Church is necessary at this point. We be- single. All but one has left home and he one child. Yet we have a membership lieve and confess in our Creeds the uni- is in his final year of college. So, this is which rosters half the number of chil- versal (catholic) Christian Church. We an issue that lays heavily on my own dren that we had in 1997. What could confess what we believe and that means heart and mind. have caused that I wonder? If you add that the Christian Church is an article of There has been a custom in the con- back in the number called to glory faith. Hebrews 11 teaches us that “faith gregation to give the greatest grace to with our current membership, we is the substance of things hoped for, the its biological children. I understand would be 850 strong but we would evidence of things not seen.” Even this. In fact, see the first part of this ar- still only have half the children we though we gather every Sunday for wor- ticle. We greatly desire both the tempo- had. Could barren wombs equal a bar- ship we still fail to see the true Church ral and eternal welfare of the little ones ren sanctuary? with earthly eyes. Therefore we continue whom God has given us. Those who know me and listen to to confess that we believe that there are Our mission is to be both faithful to me know that I have begun to remark, true Christians in other denominations His Word and to be bold in the power “You can’t have too many children.” where the Holy Scriptures are present of the Spirit to proclaim the life, death, Whether you accept that simple state- through which the Holy Spirit can create and resurrection of Jesus Christ until ment as true or not, it can’t be refuted. and sustain faith where and when it He comes again in glory or He calls us Even a blind man should be able to pleases God. to Himself from this vale of tears. This see the truth in it. Therefore we do not automatically we have done and this we must contin- Our families have become like failed consign those who leave our fellowship ue to do. We shall sow the seed of the football teams: three and out. Or per- to the flames of hell. Only an excommu- Word and the Holy Spirit will give it haps two and out if one’s a girl and nicated individual would necessarily fall growth according to His good and gra- the other a boy. We are not alone in into that category, his or her excommu- cious will. this; the whole Missouri Synod shares nication being a testimony that he or she The final portion of this article ad- our affliction. has rejected the Gospel and stands con- dresses a situation that has persisted for Those are the only statistics that re- demned. That said, we also don’t dimin- many years, even before I arrived as as- ally matter for our congregation. The ish and ignore the threat of false doc- sociate pastor. That is the situation church buildings won’t survive into trine, no matter how little of a deviation caused by our children growing up and the next world, the world to come. from the pure word of God it seems. leaving the Brenham area. Some went Neither will any of the wonderful To depart from God’s pure word is like off to college, some to serve our nation things that we have laid up for the taking poison a little at a time thinking in the military, and some just left to glory of God. They won’t be in heav- you’ll build up an immunity to poison. find greener pastures and more lucra- en with us. False doctrine doesn’t work that way. tive careers. They departed the Bren- But children and grandchildren By its very nature, false doctrine wars ham area but never transferred their might be, by the grace of God. Per- against the Holy Spirit and trust in church memberships to reflect their haps we are missing the big picture? God’s pure word, seeking to put both to new situations. Perhaps we will gain sight of it again death. False doctrine is the work of the There is always and will always be a in the next 20 years? devil and must never be tolerated in deep concern of parents for their chil- 2 3 dren and grandchildren. We should about the truth of their spiritual condi- billow with the fresh winds of the expect no less. God has given us chil- tion so that we might bring them to re- spirit of the age every time we dren. He has given our children of pentance and eternal life. amend, edit, or color our way of their own. Throughout all the strug- May God the Father of our Lord Jesus thinking, speaking, or doing, so as to gles we have faced raising our own Christ bless you all though the remain- not offend the age. children, we should remember to look der of your years. An individual pastor or church real- forward to the blessing of grandchil- Pastor Holzer ly doesn’t have that many sails in the dren. A Boat with Billowed Sail air. I’m a dingy with one sail. It’s Yet we fail our children when we easy for me not to catch the spirit of Whether it’s Peter, Paul, and Mary’s fail to eject them from the nest. After this age as it blows about me. In an 1963 “Puff the Magic Dragon,” or the they have left our care and established emergency, I can just lower my one themselves in a new community, with 1977 – rather annoying - song by Styx sail. Church bodies have many sails their own home and a job, they need “Come Sail Away” or the 1980 – less to lower and they can’t, won’t, or to establish themselves as part of an annoying - song by Christopher Cross don’t lower them quickly. active and faithful church family. Per- “Sail Away”, images of the sea capti- Lutheranism has historically been haps we have forgotten that when they vate. But this is not about the sea but divided by those who would fill their become communicant members of the about a synod. sails with the American spirit, and congregation, they are promising to be A church denomination of any size is those who confessed against it. The faithful Christians in their own right. like a British Man of War. There are LCMS – and before her the ALC – Now we hardly expect them to be ful- numerous sails in the rigging designed tries to stand between the two posi- ly grown and mature individuals at to catch the slightest hint of a wind. tions. Historically, all you can say age 14. And we know they have a lot You just think you know what the dol- of growing up to do. taking this position will get you is drums are, and if you don’t look it up, But part of that growing up is our in- blown away. The moderate ALC was you’ll not understand why they put as sisting that they be responsible for blown right into the far left LCA many sails as they could in the air. their spiritual welfare just as we insist which really had been blown into the A church denomination, either inten- that they be responsible in all the oth- spirit of the age by the tropical force tionally or unintentionally, has many er areas of their lives. We expect no winds radiating from the General sails unfurled that can catch every less of them. Sometimes they must be Synod and her Definite Platform of gust, breeze, or gale of the spirit of the prodded and encouraged to live up to 1855: a true hurricane of a blow that age. The Synod’s health plans, retire- the commitments they made when the Good Ship LCMS weathered. ment plans, her bank (Church Exten- they promised their faithfulness at the Read the book Uncertain Saints. sion Fund) and now her credit union, time of their confirmation. But we This 1975 book outlines the moderat- as well as her providing military chap- dare not look the other way as they ing influence of the Lutheran Lay- lains and immigration and refugee ser- neglect their own spiritual welfare. If man’s League from its earliest begin- vices are a few of the many sails they are not regularly attending wor- nings circa 1917, and describes how ship where they live and seeking to LCMS, Inc. has aloft. our sails get set to catch the spirit of find and maintain membership in a You saw her catch the wind when the age: Laymen increasingly find our congregation where they live, they LCMS headquarters glommed on to theology at odds with the society have abandoned their commitment to the ice bucket challenge. You feel the around them. In time, some older pas- the Lord. They know it. And we huff and puff of the spirit of the age tors see that our ship is lagging be- should recognize that fact. when St. Louis seminary encourages hind without the spirit of the age bil- Keeping adult children (an oxy- your church to have a “watch party” lowing our sails. Then new leaders moron if there ever was one) on our for their Call service. (Why not call it arise who approach things from a dif- rolls to satisfy some fantasy of our Draft Day and billow with the winds ferent perspective. “The result was own does them no good. Just as keep- coming off the NFL draft?) You heard usually a theology or a ‘theologiza- ing adults on the congregation’s rolls her catch a gale when then President who have long ago abandoned the tion’ depending on one’s perspective, Kieschnick being interviewed after faith does them no good. We must of moderate lay practice. In the twen- 911 was caught off guard by the inter- confront them with the reality of their tieth century, this happened repeated- viewer asking him if he could say that spiritual condition and remove them ly on one question after another in lay all those dying in the attack were going from our membership rolls. We need life” (Graebner, Alan, 117-118). to heaven, and if he couldn’t say that to start treating adults like adults, After the syncretistic, unionistic how was he different than the Muslims which means being honest with them prayer service in Yankee Stadium, af- who attacked us? The Synod’s sails 3 4 ter Rev. Wallace Schultz was In the song, Puff the dragon ceases to Carter’s I Really, Really, Really Want pitched overboard off Lutheran go with Jackie Paper on a boat with to Learn About Ape-Men (AIG, 2015). Hour Ministries for doing his job as billowed sail because Jackie no longer Two short ICR books written by second vice president, I called their believes in him. Let us not stop believ- Randy Guliuzza and suitable for Chris- headquarters and asked them about ing in the dragon, the serpent, the old tian high-school or college use – Made this. Here’s what their official evil foe. He exists and it is his breath In His Image: Examining the Complex- spokesman said to me: “We have no you feel in the spirit of the age. ities of the Human Body (2009) and official position on that prayer ser- Clearly Seen: Constructing Solid Argu- vice.” Can you see the sails billow- Having Your Cake ments for Design (2012) – zestfully ing? and Eating It Too show how living creatures proclaim It is going to take incredible faith- It took me many years to understand God’s engineering genius. The first gives lots of specific detail on how God fulness, integrity, and courage for what my mom meant by this oft repeated made us to do amazing things, includ- the LCMS to drop her sails and risk expression of hers. I never asked and she never told. This was how my non- ing throwing a baseball at more than 90 languishing in the doldrums as the miles per hour. (Well, some of us.) spirit of our age passes by. Individu- home schooling mom “schooled” me. The article below suggests some re- The second, also well-written, shows als even at the synodical level may how “the whole universe…continually have all three, but the institution sources to deal with un-Biblical evolu- tion embraced by secular education and broadcasts the evidence of God’s hand- does not. She is giving every indica- iwork.” tion that her sails are fully unfurled: society. I can’t vouch for them. I can only say that the editor of World Maga- Discovering Intelligent Design: A her desire to open (again) an office Journey Into the Scientific Evidence in the nation’s capital, her allowing zine is a gifted scholar but also thor- oughly Reformed (think Protestant). (2013), by Gary Kemper, Hallie Kem- the taking of the name Lutheran off I also caution you that one or more re- per, and Casey Luskin, is Discovery’s of churches and universities. She is source might mention the latest attempt entry into the home school and private following the “Lutheran” organiza- to have your cake and eat it too. You school market. (Discovery, in conjunc- tions who have set forth full sail al- can embrace your Bible and have mod- tion with Illustra Media, also puts out ready. Thrivent for Lutherans is now ern geology, dating, and an old earth. excellent videos.) One section on cos- Thrivent; Lutheran Social Services Yes, the days in Genesis were 24 hours mic design examines Big Bang cosmol- of the South is now Upbring. in length but they were separated by ogy, fine-tuning of the universe and Lincoln said that public sentiment long, long periods. This is what is planet Earth, and materialist attempts to is everything. “With public senti- known by evolutionists as punctuated explain fine-tuning. A section on the ment, nothing can fail, without it equilibrium. (Google it.) complexity of life explains the impor- nothing can succeed” (Speaking of The problem with this is two-fold. tance of biological information, de- Homosexuality, 89). Everyone First, sticking with the Genesis record scribes “irreducible complexity” and knows the public sentiment on cli- you have vegetation on earth surviving debunks “junk DNA” talk. The text mate change, recycling, women, and for thousands, millions, billions of years also skewers Darwinist frauds, includ- ing highly publicized “transitional LGBTQ issues. If the LCMS com- without the sun. Second, if you go down forms,” and shows the abrupt appear- pletes her journey to that egalitarian this path, of accommodating what sci- ance of new organisms in the fossil land where women are ordained, she ence supposedly knows in this area, you will feel all the more pressure to do so record. will quickly fall to this issue too. Marvin Olasky She has already passed the way- in other Biblical areas. And what does June 25, 2016, WORLD Magazine points of women’s suffrage, girl science know about the existence of an- acolytes, women ushers, readers, gels, bread being Body, wine being Theism in Unscriptural and communion assistants. I don’t Blood, or the dead not being dead? You can’t have your cake and eat it Forms. see how any denomination who has There are men who are constrained to caught all these winds of this age too. Try and you, in some form or fash- ion, are inevitably the one who gets eat- admit the being of God, who depart can fail to be driven by them unto en. from the Scriptural doctrine as to his the rocks of women’s ordination and relation to the world. According to LGBTQ-ism. My personal opinion Design for Students some, God created matter and endowed is that this will happen at the latest Answers in Genesis publishes many it with certain properties, and then left in the lifetime of the generation be- books for children, including Ken it to itself to work out, without any in- low the Baby Boomers. Ham’s Dinosaurs of Eden (Master terference or control on his part, all Books, new edition, 2015) and Ruth possible results. According to others,

4 5 He created not only matter, but life, or pass from the theory that God does noth- one Omnipresent and[Pg 25] Al- living germs, one or more, from ing, to the doctrine that He does every- l-pervading Will, it is at least in the which without any divine intervention thing, without seeing the difference. Mr. highest degree unphilosophical to as- all living organisms have been devel- Russel Wallace, the companion and peer sert the contrary,—to think or to speak, oped. Others, again, refer not only of Mr. Darwin, devotes a large part of as if the forces of nature were either in- matter and life, but mind also to the his book on "Natural Selection," to dependent of, or even separate from the act of the Creator; but with creation prove that the organs of plants and ani- Creator's power."[6] The Duke, howev- his agency ceases. He has no more to mals are formed by blind physical caus- er, in the general tenor of his book, do with the world, than a ship-builder es. Toward the close of the volume he does not differ from the common doc- has with the ship he has constructed, teaches that there are no such causes. He trine, except in one point. He does not when it is launched and far off upon asks the question, What is Matter? and deny the efficiency of physical causes, the ocean. According to all these answers, Nothing. We know, he says, or resolve them all into the efficiency views a creator is a mere Deus ex nothing but force; and as the only force of God; but he teaches that God, in this machina, an assumption to account of which we have any[Pg 24] immediate world at least, never acts except for the origin of the universe. knowledge is mind-force, the inference through those causes. He applies this Another general view of God's rela- is "that the whole universe is not merely doctrine even to miracles, which he re- tion to the world goes to the opposite dependent on, but actually is, the will of gards as effects produced by second extreme. Instead of God doing noth- higher intelligences, or of one Supreme causes of which we are ignorant, that ing, He does everything. Second caus- Intelligence."[5] This is a transition from is, by some higher law of nature. The es have no efficiency. The laws of na- virtual materialism to idealistic panthe- Scriptures, however, teach that God is ture are said to be the uniform modes ism. The effect of this admission on the not thus bound; that He operates of divine operation. Gravitation does part of Mr. Wallace on the theory of nat- through second causes, with them, or not flow from[Pg 23] the nature of ural selection, is what an explosion of its without them, as He sees fit. It is a matter, but is a mode of God's uni- boiler would be to a steamer in mid-o- purely arbitrary assumption, that when form efficiency. What are called cean, which should blow out its deck, Christ raised the dead, healed the lep- chemical affinities are not due to any- sides, and bottom. Nothing would re- ers, or gave sight to the blind, any sec- thing in different kinds of matter, but main above water. The Duke of Argyll ond cause intervened between the ef- God always acts in one way in con- seems at times inclined to lapse into the fect and the efficiency of his will. What nection with an acid, and in another same doctrine. "Science," he says, "in physical law, or uniformly acting force, way in connection with an alkali. If a the modern doctrine of conservation of operated to make the axe float at the man places a particle of salt or sugar energy and the convertibility of forces, command of the prophet? or, in[Pg on his tongue, the sensation which he is already getting a firm hold of the idea, 26] that greatest of all miracles, the experiences is not to be referred to the that all kinds of force are but forms of original creation of the world. salt or sugar, but to God's agency. manifestations of one central force issu- WHAT IS DARWINISM? (pages 23- When this theory is extended, as it ing from some one fountain-head of 26) generally is by its advocates, from the power. Sir John Herschel has not hesitat- BY CHARLES HODGE, external to the internal world, the uni- ed to say, 'that it is but reasonable to re- PRINCETON, N. J. verse of matter and mind, with all gard the force of gravitation as the direct NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, their phenomena, is a constant effect or indirect result of a consciousness or ARMSTRONG, AND COMPANY. of the omnipresent activity of God. will existing somewhere.' And even if 1874 A.D. The minds of some men, as remarked we cannot certainly identify force in all above, are so constituted that they can its forms with the direct energies of the

Trinity Lutheran Church 1207 West 45th Street Austin, TX 78756 512.453.3835 www.trinityaustin.com Trinity Te Deum is published bi-monthly. Deadline for all articles is the 15th of the odd months. All articles must be approved by Rev. Paul R. Harris. Articles with no author are written by him. June 2017

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