Cyberstones-A Lutheran Blog

Comments...

• Dec 08, 2005 10:17:54 Re: A Touchstone Spanking - Madre
  Pr. Fickel is absolutely correct. When we remain silent over IVF, this sort of conclusion is inevitable. Inspired by this mess, I have blogged about assisted reproductive technology and my opinions regarding IVF in particular.
  
  http://blog.higher...e/article/895.html
• Dec 08, 2005 08:51:51 Re: A Touchstone Spanking - Todd Wilken
  Pastor Petersen:
  
  We deserve more than a spanking. How can we say that we "give the embryo the benefit of the doubt," when there IS NO doubt about the embryo?
  
  Was our savior a doubtful human being before he implanted in Mary's womb? NO. That settles the question. Whatever doubt we assign to any embryo, we must assign to Jesus at that stage of development.
  
  Touchstone, SWING AWAY!
  
  TW
  • Dec 08, 2005 09:11:15 Re: A Touchstone Spanking - Petersen
    Before alerting readers to the Touchstone rebuke, I posted this on their site:
    
    "I am horrified as well. But unlike the other commentators I also embarrassed. Being a member of the LCMS brings frequent embarassmentthese days, but that seems never so much the case as when Theology is left to elected committees (or worse elected officials.) There are good men on this committee. They are striving to speak the truth with clarity. But at the end of the day this is a committee with a great deal of institutional loyalty and fear. That drives the CTCR to always consider politics. And its opinions, even when are mostly good, are short of what needs to be said. Also there nearly always ends up being a minority report. In the old days we had seminary faculties do this work, but we discovered they were too dogmatic, so we invited a committee. Such is life in the LCMS."
    
    So I agree. I welcome the "spanking." We deserve it in full. I also plan on writing a letter to the CTCr raising the exact concerns that you raise.
• Dec 07, 2005 16:14:12 Re: A Touchstone Spanking - Pr. Fickel
  We've been headed this way. We lost the argument over IVF, when we couldn't resist the language of mercy. From that point forward, we have as an institution kept two categories of human life -- those implanted in the womb and those sitting in petri dishes or freezers. It was too hard to tell childless women that IVF was not future's hope but satan's lie. We swallowed it.
  
  Now, confronted with the end of the game, we are trapped in our previous sophistry. There is no escape. Unless our Lord intervenes in mercy, we will find medical or scientific evidence in the coming decades to distinguies completely between human-life, implanted in the uterine wall, and non-human life resting in a lab dish.
  
  Contraception separated sex from its consequences, and we went along with it. IVF separated pro-creation or reproduction from its cause, and we followed in line. Embryonic stem cell research separates bodies, no matter how small, from souls. May we, by God's grace, not be punished for it.
  
  -Fickel
• Dec 07, 2005 15:21:42 Re: A Touchstone Spanking - Stiegemeyer
  And here is the comment I posted there:
  
  [I, like Rev. Petersen who comments above, am a pastor in the LCMS. And I too am very frustrated by the way our synod tries to do theology and address such topics these days. Many of our leadership seem to want to be known as "conservative" but lack the firm conviction of their stated beliefs. Nowadays, we like to make statements that say little. I think we used to talk softly carrying a big stick, but now we just talk softly./i]