American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.
The Passover wasn’t just Israel’s story; it’s ours.
God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.

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A part of our series on Luther's, Heidelberg Disputation.
Would you go to the church on the corner knowing that the pastor is an ex-con?
Right now (and I would add, for quite some time) there has been a debate within Christianity about the whole issue of culture.
The following is adapted from Called to Defend written by Valerie Locklair (1517 Publishing, 2017).
True preaching arises when the Holy Spirit steeps the proclaimer in its own cycle of judgment and mercy.
Early in the church’s life, some Christians were dragged before the city authorities in Thessalonica and accused of “turning the world upside down,” (Acts 17:6). They were guilty as charged. They were turning the world upside down. Or, rather, they were putting the world right side up.
Prechers translate as a calling. Called by God, they are given a message, and for most of their hearers it is to one degree or another a message in a language from afar, with strange concepts, sometimes with a more familiar ring, sometimes with a strange sound.
The Confessions instead look forward and provide a critique of the world and of all my various religions and idolatries.
God preaches a concrete word to us in the present tense. We hear the Good News that Jesus is God’s mercy for us.
The church is a home for the family of God. It’s not a mall, a café, a coffee shop, or Amazon. It’s where we usually don’t get what we want, but what we need.
All other wonderful teachings of Holy Scripture from creation to Christ’s coming again are absolutely worthless without being understood in light of Jesus, death, and resurrection for sinners.
When we think God is doing something for us here or there or everywhere, we are simply fixing labels and putting value on what we imagine God is doing for us.