Þar sem ég fer á morgun til að greiða utankjörstaða um Icesave lögin, ákvað ég í gær að finna til nokkrar tölur sem setja Icesave skuldina í samhengi við hrunkostnað ríkisins.
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Matt Kruse shows his brilliance:

“I have to be willing, as a leader, to let God hold the differences that people bring when they come to worship,” said Kruse, whose home congregation is Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Jackson. “I guess I’m going to err on the side of love and welcoming also, and that’s also loving those I disagree with.”He said he was disappointed to see his church defined by the issue of homosexuality.

“From a Lutheran perspective, the only thing necessary for a church to happen is that the word of God be preached and that the sacraments be administered, and we’re free to disagree on lots of other things,” he said. “Ultimately I know there are plenty of people who were hurt by the decision in August, and the way we can respond to people’s hurt isn’t to leave but is to love.”

via A church divided: Area ELCA members weigh in on sexuality statement | Worthington Daily Globe | Worthington, Minnesota.

While I was in Haiti I wrote two short pieces for tru.is, a website of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Iceland.

• Postcard from Haiti – January 19, 2010
• Hope – January 15, 2010

Both of them are in Icelandic but perhaps Google Translate can be useful in translating them.

Also, for Martin Luther, the real church consisted of people who hear the Gospel and proclaim it, Croghan said. The institutional church arose to aid that mission, “but institutions are not the church.” And, when to ensure their continued existence, such institutions compromise Gospel truth, they can be readily shed, Croghan said.

“The ELCA is not the church, by Luther's definition,” Croghan said.

In an article about congregations in South Dakota leaving ELCA, I came across this quote about ecclesiology. The rest of the article is good too.

via Gay clergy vote splits South Dakota Lutheran churches | argusleader.com | Argus Leader.

I have made almost 8 minutes video with pictures and sounds to describe my experience and feelings in Haiti. In it I use pictures from my travel partners, music and sounds. It is no longer  accessible on the web. If you like to help there are many great organizations doing wonderful work in Haiti. One of them is Haiti Timoun Foundation.

Your Best Life Now, which has fueled a TV show that Osteen claims is now seen in 200 million homes worldwide, opens with a story of a man on vacation in Hawaii. He was “a good man who had achieved a modest measure of success, but he was coasting along, thinking that he’d already reached his limits.” While sightseeing, he and his wife admired a gorgeous house on a hill. “I can’t even imagine living in a place like that,” he said. For this bit of self-deprecation and modesty, Osteen pities the man: “His own thoughts and attitudes,” he writes, “were condemning him to mediocrity,” or what is known in the gospel as the “defeated life.”

via Did Christianity Cause the Crash? – The Atlantic (December 2009).