Remarks at 175^th parish anniversary banquet; 22 January 2012

The Rev. Eric R. Andræ

Good afternoon.  I am Pastor Eric Andræ, the campus pastor here at First Trinity.  I would like to open my remarks with Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple, from 2 Chronicles 6:

“[Solomon] said: “LORD God of Israel, there is no God in heaven or on earth like You, who keep Your covenant and mercy with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts. You have kept what You promised Your servant David my father; You have both spoken with Your mouth and fulfilled it with Your hand, as it is this day. Therefore, LORD God of Israel, now keep what You promised Your servant David my father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man sit before Me on the throne of Israel, only if your sons take heed to their way, that they walk in My law as you have walked before Me.’ And now, O LORD God of Israel, let Your word come true, which You have spoken to Your servant David.

“But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!  Yet regard the prayer of Your servant and his supplication, O LORD my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which Your servant is praying before You: that Your eyes may be open toward this temple day and night, toward the place where You said You would put Your name, that You may hear the prayer which Your servant makes toward this place. And may You hear the supplications of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and when You hear, forgive” (2 Chron. 6:14-21).

Indeed, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain God.

YET, today we celebrate his dwelling with us, the First German Evangelical-Lutheran congregation of Pittsburgh, for 175 years; and his dwelling in this specific place, Trinity Church, for 85 years.  How can this be?  How can he whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, how can he dwell in Pittsburgh, dwell here at First Trinity?  How can God dwell with men on the earth? How can he dwell in water, in word, in bread and wine?  How?

As true God and true man, that’s how.  In Jesus Christ, God of God, incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, made man–in Jesus Christ, God dwells with man as Immanuel, God with us, so that WE then are blessed to DWELL in HIS HOUSE, WITH HIM!

By his preaching-and-absolving mouth, by his baptizing-and-name-putting hand, by his hearing-and-forgiving ears he dwells with men on the earth, dwells with us.

God Almighty, our Heavenly Lord, in mercy and love and grace, condescends to dwell with us here at First Trinity, and all places great and small, stunning and plain on the earth where his Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according the same Gospel.

Being a campus pastor is a joy; being a campus pastor at First Trinity for 11 years has been a great joy.  One of the happy aspects of our ministry here is the unique context in which we serve not one, not two, but several universities in the area and region: today alone we have students in attendance from CMU, Pitt, Chatham, La Roche, Geneva, and Duquesne; we also have active students from Point Park University, who could not make it today.

But along with the joy there is also pain, especially the pain of saying good-bye to so many dearly beloved students every single year.  My prayer, my certain hope is that – as they have contributed to this place – they also have received from First Trinity and carry some of this congregation – its people, its teaching and preaching, its Lord – into the varied corners of this nation and this world to immeasurable good for them and others.  Let me give just one example, a very current one.  With us for the very first time, today, is my brother in Christ, Athanase.  He has just arrived from the Ivory Coast in West Africa.  Before coming to the U.S. he and his bishop looked at the web-sites of various Pittsburgh churches and his bishop said, “You should go to this one.  To First Trinity.”

All the students through the years are a part of us; we are a part of them.   Because God is with them, God with us, God with us all:  for 85 years, for 175 years; here, out there; yesterday, today, and forever!

“A DAY in Thy courts: is better than a thousand elsewhere.”

In the midst of a constantly transitioning and chaotic world, liturgical form provides stability, safety, and security; the historic liturgy is a cornerstone for all.  In order “‘to be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal.’ The liturgy, as it bears the Word of God, keeps us relevant by speaking into our ears words that are eternal” (Pless).  Otherwise, if the Church marries the spirit of the age, she will soon be a widow.

But here, in her worship, the Church is alive and well.  We thus encourage especially those of you for whom this style of worship is at first new and challenging to find here a renewing refuge and a steadfast haven; to live within the mysteries of the Body of Christ; to be joined together with your brothers and sisters, and to be lifted up by them beyond self; and, of course, to ask questions, to learn, to grow with us all.  It may take weeks or even months for you to find yourself at home with the liturgy and ceremonies of the historic Lutheran church, but many before you have found it well worth the journey.  Welcome home!

THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF
THE HAMMER OF GOD

with a day focused on Bo Giertz’s beloved and influential novel, which appeared in English for the first time in 1960

The Rev. Hans O. Andræ on “Tyranny and the Gospel: Freedom from Temporal and Spiritual Bondage in The Hammer of God”
Pastor H. Andræ translated the final chapter of The Hammer of God for the 2005 edition, for which he also provided a historical and biographical introduction. While a pastor in Sweden, Andræ worked with Bishop Giertz in Kyrklig Samling. He was a parish pastor in the U.S.A. 1979-2007. His translation of Giertz’s first book, Christ’s Church (Kristi Kyrka, 1939) will be published in early 2011 by Wipf & Stock.

The Rev. Eric R. Andræ on “‘The best treatment of the proper distinction of law and gospel in the history of Lutheran theology:’ A Historical and Systematic Overview”
Pastor E. Andræ completed his S.T.M. thesis on Giertz’s use of the ordo salutis in 2003 (Concordia, St. Louis). He has had several essays on Giertz published in journals and books in the U.S. and in his native Sweden; has translated numerous short pieces, as well as the booklet Life by Drowning: Enlightenment through Law and Gospel (2008, from Kyrkofromhet); and is the general editor of Bo Giertz: A Hammer for God (Lutheran Legacy, 2010). He is the founder and president of the International Giertz Society.

Tuesday, 14 September 2010
9:00 a.m. — Noon Continental Breakfast, Matins (9:30), Lectures (10:00)
Noon — 1:30 p.m. Lunch Break (lunch is not provided)
1:30 — 4:00 Screening of The Hammer of God — the brand-new feature length FILM based on the entire first novella, with final wrap-up

First Trinity Lutheran Church
535 N. Neville St.
Pittsburgh, Penn. 15213 U.S.A.
There is no cost, but you must register:
412-683-4121 x2;   EricAndrae@gmail.com

Note: Life By Drowning is available in pdf format here.

Study Weekend 2010 – “Vocation:  God makes Good Use of YOU!” -  9 – 11 April 2010

Please register ASAP by emailing Pastor Andrae. Cost is only $5; $1 per single session.  If expense is a problem, please let me know as there are grants available!

STUDY WEEKEND DETAILS:

Our featured speaker will be Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto, former religious affairs editor of United Press International (UPI) in Washington, D.C.  Siemon-Netto is director of the Center for Lutheran Theology and Public Life (CLTPL)  and President of the League of Faithful Masks based in Irvine, California. He is also a regular contributor to leading English and German-language publications, notably The Atlantic Times and Rheinischer Merkur. Dr. Siemon-Netto, a native of Leipzig, has been an international journalist for 52 years, covering the construction of the Berlin Wall for The Associated Press, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War (five years), and the Six-Day War in the Middle East. Siemon-Netto taught at German journalism schools. In mid-career, Uwe Siemon-Netto turned to theology, earning his M.A. degree from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and his Ph.D. degree in theology and sociology of religion from Boston University. He spent a postdoctoral year as a resident scholar at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, N.J. In 2004, Concordia Seminary awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.). His published words include The Acquittal of God, A Theology for Vietnam Veterans, on Bonhoeffer; The Fabricated Luther, a refutation of the cliché that Luther was Hitler’s progenitor; and One Incarnate Truth, The Christian Answer to Postmodern Confusion.

His topics for us will include “Priests in the Voting Booths,” a look at Christians’ vocations as voters and elected officials, and “The Media: God’s Masks – or the Devil’s?,” a critique of journalism’s divine calling.

Siemon-Netto will also speak at Pitt’s Veritas Forum on Monday, April 12 at noon.

If you are coming from out of town and need lodging, please contact me.

Study Weekend Schedule (subject to minor changes):

Friday, April 9 -

6:15 p.m.  Prayer: Vespers
6:45 Dinner
7:45 Session I:  “God Sanctifies what He Creates (including You!),” Rev. Eric. R. Andrae

8:45 Prayer:  Compline
9:15 Social/free time

Saturday, April 10 -
9:30 a.m. Prayer:  Lauds
9:45 Continental Breakfast
10:00 Session II: “‘Allow Me to Introduce You to Yourself:’  Your Varied Callings,” Andrae
11:00 Break
11:15 Session III:  “Priests in the Voting Booths,” Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto 12:15 p.m. Prayer: Sext;  Lunch
1:30 Session IV: “God Contradicts Himself?! – God’s Rule through Two Different Realms,” Andrae
2:30 Break
2:45 Session V:  ”The Media: God’s Masks – or the Devil’s?,” Siemon-Netto
3:45 Break
4:00 Session VI:  Summary, Andrae and Siemon-Netto
4:30 Prayer:  Vespers 5:00 Social/free time [dinner on your own]

Sunday, April 11 -

Breakfast is on your own

8:30 a.m. Prayer: Matins
9:00 Private Confession & Absolution available with Pastor Andræ
9:45 Session VII:  ”Asking the Ultimate Question – Covering Religion Well,” Siemon-Netto

11:00 Divine Service: Pastor Andræ preaching

12:30 p.m. Lunch

Veritas Forum at the University of Pittsburgh

12 April 2010, MondayNoon – 1:30 p.m. Benedum G31

Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto, “Natural Law vs. the Me”

We are using a multi-media presentation on “How We Got the Bible.”  It is really helping us all to understand the history of the Bible, and why we can rely on it as an accurate source for our life and faith.  We Christians are often asked to defend the Bible, and this study is helping us to give us ever-more informed answers.  All students are welcome!

In addition to those on the list below, I would also add the following titles:
First, the obvious ones:
Luther’s Works, The Book of Concord, and The Bible (of which edition I would get The Lutheran Study Bible).
Also:

The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? – Bruce
To Live with Christ – Giertz
Treasury of Daily Prayer – CPH
Sacred Meditations – Gerhard
Crime and Punishment – Dostoevsky
The Hammer of God (Revised edition)- Giertz
Liturgy and Spiritual Awakening – Giertz
A Hammer for God – Andrae
Life Together – Bonhoeffer
Law and Gospel – Walther
Luther on Vocation – Wingren (OR God at Work – Veith)
Psalms: The Prayerbook of the Bible – Bonhoeffer
Loving God with All your Mind – Veith
The Defense Never Rests – Parton
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – Lewis
As for Me and My House – Wangerin, Jr.
The Fabricated Luther (2nd edition) – Siemon-Netto
Selected Sermons of Norman Nagel – Nagel

And, of course, you have to read at least one biography of Luther, if you haven’t already:

Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton
Luther the Reformer by James Kittelson
Martin Luther: A Life by James Nestingen
Luther: Biography of a Reformer by Frederick Noll
More in-depth bios of Luther include one by Schwiebert and a three-volume set by Brecht.

Let me know if you need help obtaining any of these works.

“When the Modern Library published its list of the top 100 novels of the century, critics complained that it was not inclusive enough of women and minorities, a mistake made up for when ML published its top 100 nonfiction titles. Then William F. Buckley’s National Review complained that the nonfiction list was not inclusive enough of conservatives, so NR published its own top 100. None of the lists, as might be expected, was particularly inclusive of Christian titles, so in the spirit of end-of-the-century listmaking, here’s WORLD’s offering. The top books of the last 100 years, as far as WORLD is concerned, are those that proclaimed or applied a Christian worldview in a hostile century. Not all of the books listed here are necessarily by Christians, though most are, but they all exerted not just an influence (as in the secular lists that hold up Marxist or Freudian or obscene titles only because they were influential), but a positive influence. Only one title per author is listed, though the author’s other books may be equally worthy of inclusion. Also, since this is a retrospective look at a century that is all but over, only authors who are dead are listed. The many excellent writers still living and writing may, if they stand the test of time, be listed a hundred years from now, since their influence will mainly be felt in the next century. Also, not too much should be made of the exact ordering, as if a book listed in the 20s were greatly superior to one listed in the 30s. Certain groupings, as well as rankings, will be apparent. Readers will no doubt note gaping holes and flagrant omissions. Notice that while most lists tend to come in 10s or 100s, WORLD’s list follows the radio format of giving a top 40. This allows room for additions. Readers are invited to nominate books they think are among the top books written over the last 100 years. 1. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1943). Modernists did not realize that Christianity made so much sense or was so exhilarating until they read Lewis, the century’s foremost defender of the faith. 2. T. S. Eliot, The Collected Poems (1963). The Modern Library made the wildly experimental Ulysses by James Joyce the No. 1 novel of the century, despite, or perhaps because of, its obscenity trial and the fact that it is nearly unreadable. Against this quintessential modernist novelist, we offer the quintessential modernist poet, who charted the spiritual wasteland of the 20th century, in the process becoming a conservative Christian. 3. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908). This exuberant, joyous, humorous journalist defended the faith with a razor logic and a razor wit. He also showed how Christianity can transfigure all of life. 4. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (1968). Schaeffer taught evangelicals to become engaged with culture, art, and the world of ideas. His worldview criticism became a catalyst for Christian activism. 5. The Fundamentals (1909-1915). This series of monographs by various authors battled the liberal theological modernism that would take over much of mainline Protestantism. Those who consider “fundamentalism” a synonym for narrow anti-intellectualism have never read these books, which, for the most part, remain strikingly relevant. 6. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (1974). By documenting and describing the evils of communism in his powerful and evocative style, Solzhenitsyn did much to pull down the Soviet Empire, showing that the pen really is mightier than the sword. 7. Whittaker Chambers, Witness (1952). The moving autobiography and reflective mediation of a communist spy who became a Christian and, to the scorn of the intellectual establishment, witnessed to God’s grace. Chambers didn’t know it, but he was on the winning side after all. 8. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923). This Princeton professor and Westminster Seminary founder showed that liberal theology actually constitutes a new non-Christian religion. This insight got him kicked out of his increasingly liberal denomination, but Machen was right-then and now. 9. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (1955). Although his attention to “presuppositions” rather than “evidence” in Christian apologetics continues to spark debates, Van Til remains the father of worldview criticism. 10. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-1956). The Oxford professor whose witnessing to C. S. Lewis helped bring him to Christ wrote the century’s grandest fantasy epic, a staggering work of self-contained imagination. 11. Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901). A freed slave at the beginning of the century laid out a strategy for pulling out of poverty, based on faith, hard work, and character. 12. Harold Lindsell, Battle for the Bible (1976). This book caused scandal, provoked fights, and split churches, but it arrested the slide of evangelicals toward a liberal view of the Bible, establishing instead the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. 13. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression (1965). A master preacher and evangelist, Lloyd-Jones here writes about why there are so many joyless Christians. Answer: We do not fully understand the grace of God. 14. Adolf Koeberle, The Quest for Holiness (1936). A classic of the spiritual life, exploring how sanctification and good works really do grow out of a rigorous, Lutheran understanding of justification by faith. 15. A. W. Tozier, The Pursuit of God (1949). Evangelicals do have a legacy of spiritual depth. 16. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937). Grace may be free, but it isn’t cheap, as this young theologian showed both in his words and in his martyr’s death at the hands of the Nazis. 17. Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (1941). Cut from the same cloth as C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers was an apologist, an imaginative writer, and a scholar whose essay on classical education has provided a model for the current renaissance in Christian education. This book shows how human creativity has its origins in nothing less than the Triune God. 18. Hans Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (1970). This friend of Francis Schaeffer showed evangelicals how to read art as a manifestation of the worldview of the artist and his times. It also encouraged Christians to find ways to express their biblical worldview. 19. Flannery O’Connor, The Violent Bear It Away (1960). The conflict between sin and grace, between the modernist and the Christian worldview, is pushed to shocking extremes in the fiction of this nice handicapped Southern lady. 20. Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory (1940). The melancholy Catholic novelist has written a masterpiece about a priest being hunted down by the anti-Christian socialists during the Mexican revolution. 21. George Orwell, 1984 (1944). The novel that alerted our imaginations to the encroachment of totalitarianism. Although 1984 came and went, the specter of Big Brother taking care of us, the technological violations of privacy, and the perversions of language were all predicted by Orwell. 22. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932). This novel is even more prophetic, predicting virtual reality, hallucinogenic drugs, entertainment-mad hedonism, and genetic engineering-all to keep the population happily in line, oblivious to its enslavement. 23. Charles Williams, The Descent into Hell (1937). C. S. Lewis’s friend was an odd, original, yet in the final analysis, orthodox theologian, who worked out his ideas in supernatural thrillers. 24. William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1955). This tale of schoolboys shipwrecked on a desert island, and how, without adult supervision, they revert to primitive violence is a good answer to those who do not believe in original sin. And it has a particular resonance in light of the recent killings in Littleton, Colo., and other schools across the nation. 25. Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos (1983). This combination of short stories, theoretical essays, and a mock self-help quiz is both an offbeat Christian apologetic and a devastating satire of America’s real religion, pop-psychology. 26. Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (1940). A novel about the Stalinist show trials that exposed the lies of Communism to many who once accepted them as gospel truth. 27. Michael Shaara, Killer Angels (1974). A pioneering historical novel, taking us inside the combatants at the Battle of Gettysburg. 28. Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered (1969). A witty but cynical curmudgeon, whose journalistic career put him at the center of many of the century’s most notable events, finds the Lord. 29. Anne Frank, The Diary of A Young Girl (1953). The magnitude of human sin expends itself against ordinary, sympathetic human beings, as this diary of a child hiding from the Nazis shows. 30. Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place (1983). The autobiographical account of a woman whose Christian faith led her to imprisonment in a concentration camp for helping the Jews. 31. Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1953). The godfather of cultural conservatism, Kirk inspired the revival of conservative thought in America. 32. Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (1947). Another catalyst of the conservative revival, this book provides a still relevant critique of modernist thinking and its catastrophic results. 33. F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944). Hayek showed how personal and political freedom was tied up with economic freedom. A prophet of the free enterprise system at a time when socialists and big-government Keynesians ruled the world of economics, he has been proven right every time. 34. Richard Crossman, ed., The God That Failed (1949). A collection of essays by ex-communists who woke up to the true nature of their false religion. This book contributed to the containment of the evil empire and portended its eventual collapse. 35. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). What she describes about the dynamics of fascism and communism needs to be heeded today. 36. Jacques Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word (1981). This continental Christian intellectual defended language and the Word of God against the image-worshippers of modern technological culture. 37. Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (1945-1961). In this tour de force of scholarship, Toynbee studies all of the world’s major civilizations through history, traces how they rise, and shows that the Aztecs and the Romans look a lot like us. 38. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962). Kuhn showed why Christians do not have to fear science anymore: It keeps changing. 39. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (1988). A devastating account of how today’s moral and intellectual relativism is stifling American education. 40. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1918). This book by a descendant of presidents, who could not summon up his ancestors’ gumption, offered a fine contrast between the pre-modern mind (symbolized by the “Virgin” of the great cathedrals) and the just-emerging modern century (symbolized by the industrial “dynamo”). The Modern Library listed it as the No. 1 nonfiction book of the 20th century. While it is a good book, it is not quite that good; but we will let it make the cut of the top 40.”
Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine
July 03, 1999, Vol. 14, No. 26

Source: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/2987