Thrivent Halts Funding of Pro-Life Organizations: What Are You Going to Do About It?

ToddPeperkorn5 Comments

I have observed with increasing consternation the ongoing saga of Thrivent giving funding to various pro-abortion organizations, including but not limited to Planned Parenthood.

Here is a summary of events as I best understand them. I will happily provide corrections if I am in error in any way:

  • Thrivent, through its Thrivent Choice program, has given dollars to many, many pro-life organizations over the years. They have also, however, approved sending money to various entities of Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and others.
  • Thrivent has directly funded such organizations this through a similar employee matching program, called the Thrivent Financial Gift Multiplier program.
  • After receiving strong criticism from The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, and others, Thrivent “temporarily suspended” both pro-abortion AND pro-life organizations from receiving Choice Dollars. They have not done anything with the Gift Multiplier program, but are “investigating”.
  • Thrivent has also removed the ability to search Thrivent Choice organizations.

All of this is disturbing enough. But today they made matters far worse by revising their Financial Neutrality policy. They announced this HERE. Here is the policy:

Thrivent Financial is a membership organization of Christians and works with many different members who hold a variety of – and at times divergent – views and beliefs. It respects the differences of its members and does not independently or on behalf of its members, advisors or employees provide outreach funding or support to organizations and issues that distract, or have the potential to distract, from its common purpose, which is to guide its members and society to be wise with money and live generously.

Under this policy, certain organizations are not eligible to receive outreach support or funding. This includes, but is not limited to, organizations with a primary purpose of providing services for or advocating positions either supporting or opposing certain social, politically partisan, or health and human services causes and issues, such as abortion, sexual orientation, or guns. Decisions regarding the application of this policy and the eligibility of specific organizations to receive outreach funding or support are made at the sole discretion of Thrivent’s management team and are subject to change.

So what does this mean in English? It means this. As a Thrivent Member you can no longer designate Thrivent Choice dollars to pro-life organizations. Why? Because Thrivent will not allow certain “social, politically partisan, or health and human services causes and issues, such as abortion, sexual orientation, or guns.”

As a parish pastor and a longtime member of Thrivent, I am deeply concerned about this entire matter. Frankly, the fact that there is even a question about supporting Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations is itself troubling. But removing the support for these pro-life organizations (e.g. Lutherans for Life, WELS Lutherans for Life, various women’s shelters, pregnancy care centers, and all kinds of other groups), THAT is indefensible.

But here is an even more disturbing thought. I would consider my congregation an organization which has “a primary purpose” of supporting LIFE, and in opposing the murder of the unborn (abortion) and the terminally ill (euthanasia).

What’s more, I would be deeply offended if anyone suggested otherwise.

How long will it be until pro-life congregations are considered “divisive” and are no longer eligible? How long until The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod is considered too pro-life? Why isn’t it now?

Thrivent has done a lot of good over the years. Millions of dollars have gone to congregations and many, many worthy causes. I have been a Thrivent member for decades, and have no desire to rethink that decision.

Having said that, the “greater good” is not a justification for practices that directly lead to the taking of human life AND the denial of dollars to many good organizations that help preserve life. This entire matter needs to be cleared up quickly, and monies restored to the pro-life organizations that are now suffering as a result. Today’s decisions make that unlikely, but still possible.

This, however, will not happen by accident. I fear that after a few months of further “investigation,” this entire matter will be swept under the rug and things will continue as normal. The revised policy issued today is in essence the same as before.

Here is what I intend to do about it as a parish pastor and Thrivent member.

  1. I am going to try to bring this up at every winkel or pastor’s gathering I attend until it is resolved. This must stay in front of us in order to keep it from disappearing.
  2. I will be informing my congregation of where things stand on the matter, and will do so on a regular basis until it is resolved.
  3. I am considering writing an overture to our district convention next year regarding the support of organizations that fund abortions or that indirectly do so.
  4. I will also encourage Thrivent Members to contact their Thrivent representative and the Thrivent corporate headquarters to express their thoughts on this matter.

That’s what’s on my mind right now. What are you going to do?

In Christ,
Pastor Todd Peperkorn
Holy Cross Lutheran Church (LCMS)
Rocklin, California

ADDENDUM

Here are a few links that are worth your noting:

UPDATED LINKS February 7, 2014
The Real Cost of Thrivent’s Decision: $878,569 per year | Daring Lutheran

LCMS Initial Reaction to Thrivent’s Financial Neutrality Policy

2014-02-02 – Purification of Mary & Presentation of Our Lord – Sermon: “Up Into God” – Luke 2:22-32

ToddPeperkornNo Comments

Sermon 2-2-14.mp3

Presentation of Our Lord, (February 2, 2014)
Holy Cross Lutheran Church
Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn
(Luke 2:22–32)

TITLE: “Up into God”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today is the Gospel just read from St. Luke chapter two.

“Now I’ve seen everything!” You know the phrase. When some thing outrageous happens, when something so absurd and unbelievable happens, that’s the saying. “Now I’ve seen everything!”

Simeon had a “Now I’ve seen everything” moment that day. It was forty days after Christmas, after Jesus’ birth. Joseph and Mary had brought Jesus to the Temple to fulfill the Law. Every firstborn son was holy to the Lord, dedicated to Him. And so the people made a sacrifice, they literally redeemed their first born sons forty days after they are born. This is also the time when the women were ritually purified from the flow of blood that came with the birth of a child.

So here is Simeon, an old man, waiting for the consolation of Israel, as our text says. What does that mean? It means this. Israel had waited for centuries for the coming Messiah, promised all the way back in Genesis, and Isaiah, and throughout the Old Testament. They waited and waited and waited. But Simeon had had a dream that he would not die until He had seen the Lord’s Christ, the Lord’s Messiah.

But he was getting old. Would God keep His promise? Or must he continue to wait and wait and wait and wait?

We all suffer through those times of waiting. We all have moments and times when it doesn’t seem clear whether God is going to keep His promises or not. Why is this happening to me, Lord, becomes the cry of the one who suffers.

And we suffer because of our sin. Now I don’t mean that this specific sin led to this specific punishment. What I mean is that every time things are messed up and broken, that is the result of sin in the world. Death itself is the ultimate result of sin. “The wages of sin is death,” says St. Paul in Romans 6:23. That is the Law speaking to you, right now.

What’s more, because we know this, because we recognize instinctively that death just isn’t right, well, if we are honest with ourselves, we fear death. Why do we fear death? We fear death because the wages of sin is death, and so if I die, what’s going to happen to me? Will I go to heaven or hell? Will God keep his promises or not?

It is that fear which drives the love of God to send His Son into our own flesh and blood. Our Epistle in Hebrews puts it this way:

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Hebrews 2:14–15 ESV)

In other words, Jesus entered into the world as a son, as a human baby, so that His path to death and resurrection would be your path to death and resurrection. When you are baptized into Christ, you are baptized into His death, as we heard last week at the Baptism. Because you are baptized, you do not need to fear death. Because you are baptized, you are now free from the slavery of sin, death and the power of the devil. Because you are baptized, you are now free, free to be human, to love and to sacrifice and to give, because death has no more hold over you.

So all this is going on when Simeon takes the infant Jesus into His arms, blesses God and sings,

““Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”” (Luke 2:29–32 ESV)

Simeon is ready to depart in peace because He has seen the salvation of the whole world in that little babe so few days old. In other words, Simeon says, “Now I’ve seen everything!”

But what about you, beloved? You aren’t Simeon, sitting at the steps of the Temple so many thousands of years ago. You aren’t Anna, or one of the twelve disciples, or John the Baptist, or Mary or Joseph. You don’t see Jesus in the flesh, like all those who lived with Him in His earthly life. What comfort do you have? What is your consolation?

Your consolation is this. You are baptized. You are clothed with Christ. You have died with Christ in the waters of the font. And what that means is that You have been presented to God already, holy and pure, clean and perfect in every way. Oh I know. It sure doesn’t feel that way! But just because you can’t feel it doesn’t mean it is false. You can’t feel the atmosphere, but it is there. You can’t feel the sun when you’re in a building, but it is still there. You may not feel holy, but you are. Why? Because God says so in His Son.

So today you come to the Altar of God to partake of Jesus’ own body and blood. You don’t holy Jesus in your arms; you take His very body and blood in you. He is in you and you in Him. And God now looks at this Altar and sees nothing but holiness and perfection. He sees you clean and whole, without spot or blemish. As Isaiah said,

““Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18 ESV)

This is God’s promise to you. So now, you have seen everything, too. Like Simeon, you are ready to depart and be with Christ, whether it is today or tomorrow, ten years or a hundred years from now, it doesn’t matter. You are in Him and He in you. You can say and sing with Simeon and all the saints before and after:

“Now I’ve seen everything!”

Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

And now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith to life everlasting. Amen.

Things That Time Cannot Mend, But Jesus Can

ToddPeperkorn1 Comment

[Originally posted at I Trust When Dark My Road]

“How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep…that have taken hold.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”” (Revelation 21:4 ESV)

It is these two realities that I struggle with today. Today is the ninth anniversary of the death of my mother, Susan Peperkorn (nee Troy). There is nothing really new or different about this year. We are in California now, enjoying the gifts that God has given to us at this stage in our lives. My children are happy. My wife is, as usual, moving about three times faster than I am. It is sunny outside and warm. I have a wonderful, supportive congregation and staff. But I cannot get the feeling of stuckness out of my head, the overwhelming blanket of death which infects us all to one degree or another.

In the quotation from Tolkien above, Frodo is remembering the knife wound from the witch-king at Weathertop. It was an evil blade, and the would bothered him all the days of his life. Even though he was physically healed, the wound would remind him evert year that he was not whole, that in his journey there had been loss, and that time does not heal all wounds.

This is how it is for me and death. I feel sometimes that I could go from anniversary to anniversary. From death to death to death, and that Satan would drag me down until there is nothing left. Mom, Bruce, Nadia, Emmanuel, Grandpaw & Grandma,Uncle Bill, Grandma Ardis, Grandpa Wilbur. I can remember them all and more. And this does not include all those whom I have buried over the decades as a pastor. Signe and Margaret. Blackey and Ed. Anastasia and Gabriel. Sometimes it seems as though life is one big funeral, and that we simply go from one to the next without any break or even time to recover.

Time does not heal all wounds, but Jesus does. I do not mean this in a pious, syrupy way. What I mean is that Jesus heals all wounds in His resurrection. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. And in HIs death, all of our loved ones near and far were covered. They were covered with His blood, so that now as they arise in the waters of Baptism, their earthly deaths will have an end.

Only Jesus can heal the wounds of a broken soul. Only Jesus can heal the wounds of death which envelop us all. This side of the grave there are wounds that can never fully heal. But this side of the grave is not the end. Jesus breaks the bonds of death itself, so that there will come a time when there are no more tears, no more sorrow, no more morning. Indeed, there comes a time when death itself will be no more.

I, for one, cannot wait. My sadness will pass. The darkness will give rise to the dawn. I rest in Christ, just as all those who died in the faith rest in Him even now.

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever, and love me, I pray;
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care,
And take us to Heaven to live with Thee there.

2014-01-05 – Epiphany of Our Lord – Sermon: “The Coming Light” – Matthew 2:1-12

ToddPeperkornNo Comments

Epiphany, 2013 (January 5)
Holy Cross Lutheran Church
Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn
(Matthew 2:1–12)

TITLE: “The Coming Light”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today is the Gospel just read from St. Matthew chapter two.

Everybody loves a good mystery, don’t you think? It doesn’t matter whether you are talking about an Agatha Christie type who done it, or the mystery of who ate the last Christmas cookie, no matter how you cut it, we sons and daughters of Adam love a good mystery.

And this story has mystery to go around a plenty. A child is born in Bethlehem, with the claim of no human father. Angels appear in the skies, announcing the coming of the King of Kings. And then, sometime later you have these mysterious visitors from the East. We know very little about them, truth be told. They are called “magi,” from which we get the words “magic” and “mage”. The prophet Daniel had been called a mage, or wise-man, years before when he was in captivity. Do these wise men in our Lord’s story know of the prophecies of Daniel? We don’t know what drew them. We only know that they followed the star and landed in Herod’s court in Jerusalem. They got close, but not quite close enough.

Now I’d like to stop for a moment here and speak about how people come to Christ. Epiphany is really the season for evangelism or outreach. As a Christian congregation, we are about bringing people to Christ. But it is easy for us to try to box people in to a certain mold. How people come to Christ is almost as much a mystery as is Christ Himself.

There is no approved path. There is only the fact that many are lost and, like the magi of long ago, they may have some of the answers, but not all of them. How do they get from questions and uncertainties and unknowns to the revelation of Jesus Christ? When people walk through these doors, what they know and understand about their spiritual condition varies pretty wildly.

And truth be told, we all go through spiritual ups and downs, times of obvious faith and times of darkness and uncertainty. There may be moments when everything seems clear and obvious. But there are those other times when all you can see is the darkness, when uncertainty seems to hold sway, and when there are a lot more questions than there are answers.

So when the star seems to go out, the magi go to the most obvious place for a king to be born. They go to Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the city of peace. But they would find no peace there. Only a suspicious, jealous old man who wanted no part of this new-born king. When King Herod heard of their coming, He was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. When we hear the story of the newborn king, we think Christmas trees and bright lights, joy and family. But when Herod heard news of this king, there was only darkness. Death was in the air.

So it should not surprise us that when Herod sent them on their way to Bethlehem, his request drips with almost Disney-like villainy, ““Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”” (Matthew 2:8 ESV)

Like so many in our journey to Christ, there are bumps on the road, even roadblocks in our journey to Him. What seems obvious becomes unclear, and truth may be hiding out in the strangest of places. But they go to Bethlehem, even with Herod’s threatening request in their ears.

And when they arrive in Bethlehem, the star leads them to where the child was. We don’t actually know how old Jesus was at this point. Two years old, maybe? This certainly is not the same night He was born. But they go, and there find the child with Mary, his mother. They fall down and worship him.

Can you imagine the contrast they must have seen? They went from the king’s court in Jerusalem to a house in a backwater town, where shepherds felt at home, not exotic magicians from the East. This was no place for a king! And yet it was. For as we will see in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ reign as king is not like any other king’s reign. He rules not with tyranny and fear, but with forgiveness and kindness. And He does not rule from a faraway court, issuing laws and regulations to further oppress. No. He is Immanuel, God-with-us. He is right here, right now, in this very place.

The magi, upon seeing the child, bow down and worship Him. If you were a stranger to the Lutheran liturgy, one of the things that might strike you as odd is that there is a lot of bowing, even kneeling. Like the magi of old, we confess that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And where He is, there is God’s grace, His royal robe strewn about us, to cover us and our sin. So we bow. We bow to the altar, for here Christ’s body and blood are present under the bread and wine. That is truly Immanuel, God-with-us, for He is here, now. Even I, as your pastor, bow to you after the Lord’s Supper, because Christ now dwells in you. You are all kings and queens, for you are sons and daughters of the King of Kings.

But back to our magi. They bowed down and worshipped Him, and brought Him gifts of gold, of frankincense, and myrrh. They are gifts worthy of a king. Gold reminds us of the Tabernacle and Temple of old, the Ark of the Covenant where God dwelt upon the mercy seat. And frankincense and myrrh were both expensive spices, used especially for burial. Jesus would later be buried with such spices after He died on the cross.

So why is all of this here in the Bible, and why do we remember a day like Epiphany? The magi’s arrival is a constant reminder for us all that the Gospel is for everyone, not just a select few. It reminds us that not everyone takes the same path, but that in the end, it is the Word of God which draws all of us to Him and to His great salvation. It draws us to the simple, beautiful picture that God hides Himself in a lowly child so that everyone, everyone can know that they have a place in this family which is His Church. You are welcome here. This is your home, with the Christ-child. Come and continue to receive His gifts with saints and angels and magi and shepherds, with the Church of all times and all places. This is your home. He is here for you even now.

Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

And now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith to life everlasting. Amen.

On the Reason for Curmudgeonness

ToddPeperkorn2 Comments

Curmudgeon

I often wonder why I get so, uh, curmudgeonly during Christmas time. It is one of the two highest feast days of the Christian Church. The music and Scripture readings for the season are sublime. In every measurable way, it is a time of great joy and happiness. Family gather together. There is festiveness in the air. All in all, it is a good time.

But then I remember.

Nadia. Emmanuel. Mom. The many people whom I have buried over the years who are no longer with their families. The families who now are at a loss of what to do because of this emptiness.

To quote the hymn, “In the midst of earthly life, death has us surrounded.” Or to quote St. Paul, “the wages of sin is death.” Death has a way of messing up and just bringing down everything around us. Some years or season are greater reminders than this of others, but the sad reality is always there, always present, always trying so very hard to draw us into the pit of self-pity and despair.

That is why I get curmudgeonly.

But that is also why I don’t stay curmudgeonly.

Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, to defeat death by taking it into Himself, and to wipe away the tears of grief which wet our faces year after year.

One hymn, perhaps more than any other for me, encapsulates this reality. I hope it brings you joy this season.

Oh, rejoice, ye Christians, loudly,
For your joy hath now begun;
Wondrous things our God hath done.
Tell abroad His goodness proudly,
Who our race hath honored thus
That He deigns to dwell with us.

Refrain

Joy, O joy, beyond all gladness,
Christ hath done away with sadness!
Hence, all sorrow and repining,
For the Son of Grace is shining!

See, my soul, thy Savior chooses
Weakness here and poverty,
In such love He comes to thee
Nor the hardest couch refuses;
All He suffers for thy good,
To redeem thee by His blood.

Refrain

Lord, how shall I thank Thee rightly?
I acknowledge that from Thee
Every blessing flows to me..
Let me not forget it lightly
But to Thee through all things cleave
So shall heart and mind receive:

Refrain

Jesus, guard and guide Thy members,
Fill Thy brethren with Thy grace,
Hear their prayers in every place.
Quicken now life’s faintest embers,
Grant all Christians, far and near,
Holy peace, a glad new Year!

Refrain

God’s richest peace to you this season. Merry Christmas in Jesus’ Name.

Pastor Todd Peperkorn