Each month seniors from my AP Lit class meet with my wife's 2nd grade students from St. Peter, Macomb to read and write books. During one of our recent meetings, students read Eric Carle books and then wrote and illustrated their own Eric Carle-esque creations.
Another event that does not involve reading, but lots of fun and laughter is Buddy Basketball Night. My students invite their reading buddies to a girls' basketball game. They sit with each other, eat lots of snacks and at halftime participate in the always intense uniform relay race.
Galloping out of the corral for this year's Buddy Basketball night was Lutheran North's mascot, Marty the Mustang. Marty cheered for the buddies and then posed for buddy pictures preserving a fantastic night.
A unique dimension to this year's Reading Buddies is that twelve of the second grade parents are Lutheran North alumni. It's a unique blessing to see my former students return to Lutheran North with their families and walk the hallways of their old high school.
It's even more important that all of these parents have selected Lutheran schools to help nurture their children's mind and more importantly, through the power of the Holy Spirit, their faith.
In his Large Catechism explanation to the Fourth Commandment, Dr. Martin Luther explains the important role parents have in their children's education:
- For if we wish to have excellent and able persons both for civil and Church leadership, we must spare no diligence, time, or cost in teaching and educating our children, so that they may serve God and the world. We must not think only about how we may amass money and possessions for them. God can indeed support and make them rich without us, as He daily does. But for this purpose He has given us children and issued this command: we should train and govern them according to His will...Therefore, let everyone know that it is his duty, on peril of losing the divine favor, to bring up his children in the fear and knowledge of God above all things (Proverbs 1:7) LC I 172
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Or do you not know that the unrighteous[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,[c] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ---I Corinthians 6:9-10
If you are an LCMS Lutheran, how often have you heard an LCMS pastor's sermon, or read an LCMS pastor's blog article, on the sin of Divorce (divorce other than for infidelity), the sin of Adultery, the sin of Fornication, or the sin of being a Drunkard?
Now compare the number of times that you have heard or read an LCMS pastor preach from his pulpit or from his blog on the damning sins of Divorce, Adultery, Fornication, and Drunkenness with the number of times you have heard the same LCMS pastor preach about the sin of Homosexuality from his pulpit and blog. I will bet that the number of sermons condemning Homosexuality will exceed the total of all the other sins combined.
But, not only is the sin of Homosexuality preached against (attacked) more frequently from the pulpits and blogs of LCMS pastors, but the name calling against the perpetrators of this particular sin far exceeds the name calling against divorcees, adulterers, fornicators, and drunkards. "Sodomites", "Perverts" "Boy Sodomizers", "Degenerates" are perfectly acceptable terms for the perpetrators of the sin of Homosexuality, but the cute, little cashier at the corner market who has shacked-up with her boyfriend for the last two years is not referred to as "that Fornicator", nor is the drunkard standing in front of the LCMS altar, pronouncing the Words of Institution, referred to as a "vile and evil Drunk". No. The good pastors of the LCMS have decided that just one of the sins in the above Bible verse, and the perpetrators of that one sin in the above Bible verse, deserve their greatest attention, condemnation, and vilification.
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod...officially...will tell you that LCMS Lutheran Christians hate Homosexuality but love the people "afflicted" by the sin of Homosexuality. In other words, the official position of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is: "Hate the sin, but love the sinner."
But the reality is, that a very significant percentage of pastors in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod hate homosexuals. They really, really hate homosexuals! Homosexuals make their skin crawl and their stomachs squeemish. Yes, you read that previous sentence correctly. A significant percentage of LCMS pastors hate gays and lesbians.
Don't believe me? Look at the evidence for yourself.
I challenge you to go onto the blogs of some of the most popular LCMS pastors' blogs and do a topic search on "homosexuality". Read the articles, but more importantly, read the comments below the articles. In the comment section, you will find some of the most vile, vicious, anti-gay hate speech, most often written by the pastor's gay-bashing, gay-hating, God-fearing conservative Christian readers---such as the infamous "Carl Vehse", otherwise known (without his white robe and hood) as Richard Strickert of Austin, Texas---all written without any censoring or rebuke from the LCMS pastor/blog owner/moderator...and... sometimes you will even catch one of these Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod "men of God" spewing this vitriolic hate speech himself.
Conclusion: A significant percentage of pastors in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod are gay-bashing Peddlers of Hate, and for this reason the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod must be placed on the Hate Watch lists of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, and every other human rights organization in the United States---until the leadership/hierarchy of this Christian denomination finally develops the backbone and intestinal fortitude to put an end to this hateful, un-American, disgraceful behavior.
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