(Skipper and Gilligan of the Reformation)

So I’m floundering* around this morning, totally without a hint of a clue of a direction for the Post to begin to start in… so I start with sermons, i.e. templates for writing sermons.  There are quite a few sites with resources for preachers needing help writing sermons, read a few and I must say, coming to the aid of their fellows in the Ministry there was some pretty good shit.  This one guy he say, “Remember that the subject is not the purpose and the purpose is definitely not the subject.” (Walton Marsh).  Walton, dude!  Thanks for the directionalization.  So I moved from there to free sermons…ideas basic biblical licks.  I wish I had gone to these sites back in the day when I was trying to learn to sell stuff.  This one guy, Glenn Davis does a real fine job outlining “outlines” for sermons.  The one I liked the most was:
1. What?
2. So what?
3. Now what? 

We certainly hope he does not mind us ‘paraphrasing’ one of the suggestions on his blog.  But is a help for me going forward, trying to write these Posties. 

But that is not what I ended up with, instead I was reading some preacher guys list of free sermon topics (Craig Webb) who cites a guy (Steve Andrews) who gives us a bunch of stuff to sermonize about, but one of them he tells this story about, no, let’s let him tell us where today’s Doctrine Post originated from, (steve?) 

…”the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany where Martin Luther nailed the historic 95 theses to the church door.  Inside the church, I was surprised to find two burial plots in the church floor located between the front pew and the altar.  One tombstone was Luther’s.  The other grave was for Phillip Melancthon.  I knew Luther.  He was the hero of the Reformation.  Luther was a fiery preacher and scholar who inspired a national revolt against the abuses of the Catholic Church. 

Who was this other man?  Melancthon, I later learned, was a powerful force of the Reformation.  He served behind the scenes.  Melancthon was a frail, short man, and he stuttered when he spoke.  He was Luther’s closest friend.  He provided tremendous scholarship and assistance for Luther’s New Testament translation.  When Luther died, Melancthon delivered the funeral message.  A few years later, the soft-spoken scholar was buried beside the famous hero of the Reformation.” 

 (…I know!…I know the topic!!…) So something about this little story struck me and I (…a clark! he was a clark!! ) yes, Miss Sullivan, you are correct.  Would you care to continue for the Readers?  Maybe I will not be given quite as much jail time if I can claim that my virtual (…virtually perfect!… lol) student was the one who used the information I found ‘out there’… 

(…well it is quite the story…everyone knows about Luther and the Reformation…no, Jimmy…I mean Martin Luther…anyway he was totally famous but it seems he had a clark, feeding him the good lines, organising things…so you know what that makes Luther?…yes he was!!.. so following is some quick notes about this clark who sounds like that Steve Buscemi guy but back in the Middle Ages…) 

The German scholar and humanist Philip Melancthon (1497-1560) was the chief systematic theologian of the early Reformation and principal author of the famous Augsburg Confession of 1530  

In 1530 Melancthon took on the task of answering the growing Catholic criticism of the increasingly fragmented Protestant sects.  Keeping before him the idea of eventually reconciling all Christians, Melancthon presented a statement of Protestant doctrine to the emperor Charles V at Augsburg in 1530 (…the Augsberg Confessions) in which he attempted to unite all Christians in a series of fundamental beliefs.  Melancthon was bitterly answered by Eck, and his later efforts to reconcile Catholics and Protestants were rendered futile by Protestant sectarianism and Catholic intransigence. In 1529, however, he mediated between Luther and Huldreich Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy and, in 1536, between Luther and Martin Bucer in formulating the Wittenberg Concord. “If I could purchase union by my own death,” Melancthon said, “I would gladly sacrifice my life.”
…But he was not qualified to play the part of a leader amid the turmoil of a troublous period.  The life which he was fitted for was the quiet existence of the scholar.  He was always of a retiring and timid disposition, temperate, prudent, and peace-loving….his limitations first became apparent when, during Luther’s stay on the Wartburg, 1521, he found himself in Wittenberg confronted with the task of maintaining order against the Zwickau fanatics… What Luther accomplished in a few days on his return had proved impossible to Melancthon.
…Melancthon died on April 19, 1560, his hopes for reconciliation of the Christian Churches not fulfilled to this day. 

WTF?

Sorry, I just sort of stepped back and read this here Post here?  My oh my!  are we drifting somewhere?  But, unfortunately my time is running out…time to go and earn money to support my little blog jones.

So the Wakefield Doctrine lesson today is (to) look in the background and you will find the clarks… screw that!  here is the real message:
“…hey clarks…forget about it…it will not help…give up any/all hope of working around your problem..of trying to get acceptance through other people..never has worked, never will work…who in this “room” right now  (not counting clarks or professionally religious rogers) ever heard of Phil? Damn, I didn’t think so…”

All this just makes it more necessary that we get the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) in front of  more people.  There are so many lives that are being wasted, so much effort and creativity…wasted.  Must not waste lives trying to ‘work around’ a world that you (clarks) think that you are not a part of…

Music? oh yes…music…

*(1590s, perhaps an alteration of founder(q.v.), influenced by Du. flodderen “to flop about,” or native verbs in fl- expressing clumsy motion. Related: Floundered; floundering)