Thought experiment time.

Take a fresh look at the excerpt of a sermon I posted below. Do you read it differently if I tell you that our own David Petersen wrote it?

Do you read it differently if I told you that I actually wrote it?

What about if I told you that this sermon flunked LCMS Doctrinal Review?

How about if I told you it passed DR and has been published by CPH?

Would any of that matter to your interpretation of this sermon? We all like to think that we are objective - especially in our chosen field of study, theology. But I wonder. I didn't see anything in the sermon to find objectionable; others did. But I wonder if I was tainted by the fact that it's one of my favorite preachers who wrote it. I wonder if others were drawn into over analyzing and being overly critical because of the debate we have been having and assumed that it couldn't be right because it was posted by me in the context of this debate.

Well, for what it's worth, this sermon is from one of my favorite preachers and artists of the English language, Dr. Norman Nagel. It's the conclusion to his sermon for 14 Pentecost in the volume of his selected sermons from CPH. That's a book you should own.

+HRC