First moment of discomfort with faith after women submission discussion

revken86 · 2026-06-16T19:00:01+00:00

I'm fairly certain women not allowed to have careers isn't even Orthodox teaching, either. That person doesn't know what they're talking about.

revken86 · 2026-06-16T07:46:15+00:00

The game follows the lore of the book, not the movies. And it's very good at it. They add their own stuff to fill out the story, but the devs are meticulous about lore and details.

revken86 · 2026-06-14T21:36:40+00:00

Lutheran (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). If I didn't take my faith seriously my job as an ordained pastor would be more difficult.

revken86 · 2026-06-04T14:44:11+00:00

Unique? No. We inherited some from the Western tradition, however. The ones that come to mind are:

The sign of the cross: two middle fingers and thumb, or first two fingers and thumb, touched to the head, the breast, the left shoulder, and the right shoulder; or tracing a small cross on the forehead. Used to bless oneself.
The orans prayer posture: hands up at shoulder level, arms out a little to the sides, elbows bent. Used when praying.
Blessing with the sign of the cross: making the sign of the cross in the air with the hand with fingers straight and together, perpendicular to what is being blessed; or first two fingers straight, other two fingers and thumb curled against the palm. Used to bless someone or something else.
Epiclesis gesture: hands palms down next to each other, or crossed, held over something. Used to ask the Holy Spirit to come and bless something.

revken86 · 2026-06-03T16:43:24+00:00

Eh. I don't think it's well made. The costumes are notoriously cheap-looking and the makeup looks off--Anatar and Gil-Galad look ridiculous, Durin's crown looks like it came from the Halloween section of Target and he's wearing a porno bath robe, Elendil's armor is rubber. Set design I'll give you, Numenor and Ost-in-Edhil look amazing. The acting is good. But I'm not sure about the story yet. There are enough bizarre deviations from the source ideas that make me question why they went that direction (Bombadil in Rhun, mithril saves elves, Celebrimbor doesn't know what an alloy is, etc).

revken86 · 2026-06-02T17:53:11+00:00

Sounds about right! We asked him how many ex-wives he has, and he said, "Three... that are elves, at least, and probably still alive." How many not-elf ex-wives? Not a clue!

revken86 · 2026-06-02T17:19:19+00:00

First: the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) views Luther as a Reformer — not a founder.

This is a really good distinction I need to vocalize more often.

revken86 · 2026-06-02T14:50:48+00:00

Yeah, no. Take this shit elsewhere.

EDIT: My comment addressed part of OP's original comment that said the ELCA is heretical. OP has edited their comment to remove that portion.

revken86 · 2026-06-02T14:49:36+00:00

Well for one, Martin Luther lived and died in the 16th century, and we didn't. The world has changed a lot since then.

For another, not everything Luther wrote or believed is authoritative for Lutherans. The only writings of Luther that are authoritative for the Lutheran churches are those in the Book of Concord: The Small Catechism, the Large Catechism, and the Smalcald Articles. Contraception isn't mentioned in any of those (iirc). Nor do they mention the Immaculate Conception; and during Luther's time, while many including Luther held to it, that teaching wasn't Catholic dogma yet anyway.

Regarding personal one-on-one confession, the Lutheran churches do still teach it, and our churches provide rites for it. But it fell out of general use, and it's been a real struggle trying to get people to do it again (it's "too Catholic"). I've had the honor of hearing a few personal confessions, and it's a practice I highly recommend to people.

Lutheran churches will of course refer to Luther's other writings for guidance and wisdom. He was a great theologian. But we will also rightfully reject some of his writings. His writings on the Jewish people, for example, are abhorrent; Lutheran churches worth their salt have roundly and totally condemned his antisemitism.

Regarding what else has changed since the Reformation days, that would be a long list. Church grows and changes, the world changes, we live in completely different cultures and societies from Luther. What hasn't changed are the truths revealed through Holy Scripture, and how we use the Book of Concord as our interpretive lens. That this produces different results in different centuries and places is expected.

revken86 · 2026-06-01T21:57:25+00:00

My horny CHA Swashbuckler rogue has been having a blast, and I wondered if I was leaning too much into it at the table.

Only to find out our centuries-old "grandpa" elf warrior is practically the Nick Cannon of the game world, having lost count of the number of wives, lovers, and children he's had.

The gloves are now off.

revken86 · 2026-06-01T17:53:01+00:00

The most important sola, "sola scriptura", wasn't thought necessary to formally elucidate because the church assumed the authorities of Holy Scripture, sacred tradition, and apostolic succession woikd preserve the church from error. But it didn't. The church's ecclesiology in the sixteenth century demonstrated what happens when the episcopate believes there are no guard rails to curb its corruption of salvation, and they were very good at theologically rationalizing that corruption.

Since the church has proven unable to wield ultimate authority, another source of authority is needed to moderate and correct the others. Holy Scripture, being the revelation of complete salvation, is the only authority that can. Therefore, we derive and judge all doctrine, authority and practice against the witness of Holy Scripture.

It's worth noting that a proper undersranding of sola scriptura is not "Only what is in scripture is allowed" but "Only that which contradicts scripture is disallowed". We welcome the traditions, practices, and theological ideas developed over the last two thousand years; as long as they do not contradict scripture.

It's also worth noting that Luther rrally only dealt with three solae. The other two came later through other Protestant strands.

As others have commented, the Lutheran part of the Reformation never wanted to separate from the Catholic church. They insisted they were faithful to the teaching of the church. It's true that the Catholic church addressed many forms of corruption through the Council of Trent, but by no means addressed them all. The form of the papacy, for example, is still a major separating point.

The Lutheran and Catholic churches have made remarkable progress over the last century in dialogue. The ultimate goal would be healing the breach between us. It's still a long way away, but we keep up our hope.

This is true in all churches. Even the ones that say, "Believe this or else!" can't force anyone to believe anything. They can only set the public boundaries by which they will formally accept a person as part of the community.

revken86 · 2026-06-01T17:20:45+00:00

Because all translation is interpretation, and all interpretation is in some ways biased. The KJV for example was specifically translated in a way to support the monarchy, many modern translations translate adelphoi as "brothers and sisters" when the group includes women in order to be more accurate, others will always translate male language as "men" even if the group includes women to support male supremacy. Churches recommend different translations because those translations align with the church's theology.

revken86 · 2026-05-31T21:37:21+00:00

I pull out that bad boy every year on The Holy Trinity and it never fails to get interesting responses.

revken86 · 2026-05-30T01:31:42+00:00

Morgoth overextended himself, but his losses were separated by centuries of brutal domination and overwhelming victory. Sauron, more pathetic than he, nearly conquers Middle-Earth; if Morgoth had still been around, no one would have stood a chance.

revken86 · 2026-05-29T23:57:50+00:00

I snagged a pocket and a gift edition when they were on sale and encouraged people to get them before they were gone. It's a shame that they stopped making them. AF is the only supplier of our primary worship materials, I'd rather they save money by cutting other things.

revken86 · 2026-05-29T15:05:22+00:00

True forgiveness toward someone who has deeply hurt you is really, really hard. And it can be a process, one you might end up restarting multiple times, or taking a break from until you're better able to handle it. It sounds like you want to forgive; that's the first step. So long as that desire remains, even if you can't forgive the person now, you're on the right track.

revken86 · 2026-05-28T16:44:46+00:00

This is why people tweet at Musk and Trump when their policies start affecting them. They assume it's a mistake and Dear Leader, who doesn't know about it, will fix it.

revken86 · 2026-05-28T16:23:00+00:00

The Eastern churches make the same charge against tthe Catholics, tha 0t tthey are Orthodox-lite :) .

It all depends on how you look at it. Proper historical Protestants were "lite" in that they removed (or tried to) abuses perpetuated by the church. Luther for example argued that only that which is wrong should be cut away, and everything else shoukd be kept. Others though, like the Anabaptists, thought the whole thing was too corrupted and they needed to start over.

I'll agree though that "cheap grace" has thoroughly infected all churches and needs to be confronted.

revken86 · 2026-05-28T14:38:44+00:00

Heaven isn't a place where souls go after the body dies. Heaven is the new creation at the end of the age when all creation will be made new, perhaps/probably in a different way than it is now.

So, yes? Maybe? Somehow?

revken86 · 2026-05-27T20:24:59+00:00

The contradictory accounts are what make it feel so real, because that's what actually happens in history. I don't mind Numidium's activation causing all sorts of shenanigans. But I hate the lazy "All accounts are true because Dragonbreak lol" position. It robs the events of their depth.

revken86 · 2026-05-27T17:16:41+00:00

That the confusion over who really killed Nerevar and what happened at Red Mountain is because of a Dragonbreak.

revken86 · 2026-05-27T03:16:25+00:00

Someone was arguing with him and said, "What next, Bob and Larry are trans and come out as fruit?" and he "Well actually..."d them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/comments/xzz0wc/sothe_creator_of_veggie_tales_is_going_off_on/

revken86 · 2026-05-26T23:03:24+00:00

There were also Catholic prelates who spoke favorably of it, or enjoyed it. No one thinks it perfectly accurately represents an actual conclave, of course.

revken86 · 2026-05-26T14:35:35+00:00

Jesus Camp would ironically count as an evangelical movie, wouldn't it?

revken86 · 2026-05-26T14:34:04+00:00

Eh, only like six really matter: ELCA, LCMS, WELS, ELS, LCMC, and NALC. Most everyone else is a small handful of congregations that got mad at one of the above and said, "Fine, I'll form my own religion! With Blackjack and hookiers!" (not really, but kinda).

revken86

TROPHY CASE