Uncle

I cry Uncle. Let it never be said that the folks at CPH have no sense of humor. The new Walther commemorative medal is made out of "antique bronze." That's a win.

I am very much looking forward to Fr. Harrison's revised translation of Kirche und Amt. Those of us with subpar German, limited time, or both will benefit greatly from a faithful, scholarly translation of the work which is supposed to be the "voice of our church" on the topic that continues to plague contemporary Confessional Lutheranism. Word on the street is that the currently available translation is inaccurate - and beyond any doubt, a vast majority of the folks who pressed the "yes" button at the 1998 [correction: 2001] Convention hadn't read the thing anyway. (But that's how legislative bodies work these days - ever heard of the Patriot Act or Obamacare?) Therefore, Fr. Harrison's time is well spent in getting this into the hands of the Synod.

For my own part, I become more and more convinced that what we really need on the topic of Church and Ministry is a bold ad fontes back to the Confessions and the Confessional writers, their influences, their historical context, etc. My own study in this regard leads me to believe that there was a definite divide between Luther on the one hand and Chemnitz on the other when it came to Church and Ministry and that this divide at the beginning has reverberated down the centuries. Walther made a heroic attempt to reconcile these two strains of thought. I am not convinced that he succeeded - but hitherto I have been frustrated in making a thorough study of the question due to the lack of a scholarly edition/translation of Kirche und Amt. Bring it on!

+HRC