September 3, 2025 • 63 mins
In this episode of Christendom and the World, Pastor Andrew Preus sits down with Hans Preus to reflect on theology, history, and personal experience. The conversation explores Protestantism as an American religion, the role of conscience in Lutheran thought, and the challenges posed by higher criticism. They examine the Seminex controversy and its lasting impact on the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, while also considering parallels in other denominations.
Alongside history, Hans shares his perspective as a missionary kid navigating identity and heritage, as well as his future aspirations in theological studies. Together, they address the influence of pietism, the enduring importance of Walther’s Law and Gospel, and why doctrinal certainty remains essential for a clear conscience and a confident faith.
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(00:00):
those that are predominantly Roman Catholic, and I would wonder if this is the case inthose countries or regions where they're predominantly Greek or Eastern Orthodox, Russian
Orthodox or whatever kind of Orthodox, that Protestantism is seen as a kind of Americanreligion.
(00:25):
Yeah.
Like there was, remember talking to this pastor from the Philippines and he's a Lutheranpastor and he was saying he grew up Catholic, but like the Protestantism around his neck
of the woods, it's just, it's basically just American.
So you have kind of the individual, you know, pull yourself up from your bootstraps sortof ethos.
(00:54):
that drives people and, you know, an individual freedom, a kind of freedom of thought.
So a lot of times Protestantism is conflated with the enlightenment and the kind of valuesof individual liberty.
There's obviously, you know, there is some connection there, obviously.
uh
(01:16):
But like when Luther talks about the freedom of the conscience, he's not speaking in theway that we would hear it today.
Usually today it's almost like whatever you feel, whatever your conscience says, youshould be able to just go with it.
And Luther would have had a much more, I would say, sophisticated understanding of theconscience than that.
(01:41):
uh Your conscience actually needs to be informed.
uh
by what's true, and your conscience can be misled.
uh With that said then, the conscience is a very precious thing, and while it needs to beinformed and led, it can't be constrained apart from, it can't be constrained in a way
(02:06):
where it's forced to do what it is.
determined not to do because then what you have there is just hypocrisy.
So when Luther says, you know, my conscience is ruled by the scriptures, right?
Here I stand, I can do no other.
(02:28):
You know, he...
he's not promoting some free-thinking spirit where you just sort of follow your heart.
um But that is often how it is taken.
And I've noticed Roman Catholic apologists will...
will...
They love to go after that kind of straw man of Luther, of Protestantism, that, well, youknow, he's just saying, follow your conscience.
(02:58):
But that's not...
uh You know, even Luther, uh even in the Reformation, uh they didn't respect theconsciences of like the monks, for example, who were in their regions.
They shut down monasteries and stuff like that.
And so, uh
But at any rate
I suppose when he's talking about following your conscience, he's talking about followinga conscience that's shaped by the scriptures, not just whatever emotions come up in
(03:31):
your...
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and he would have an understanding of natural law as well.
So reason as it is informed uh by God's word, but also through experience.
uh yeah, yeah, exactly.
mean, it isn't just...
You don't find the light of truth within you, even though you might have some naturalknowledge of what's true, as Paul says in
(04:02):
in Romans 2 that the Gentiles prove that the law is written on their conscience, on theirheart, and their conscience bears witness to it.
But the way that they bear witness to it is by doing that which is actually required inthe law, right?
And also then accusing and excusing themselves so they have a certain standard.
(04:23):
uh so there's an objectivity to it even as there is something that's very subjective,right?
Luther is able to uh appreciate uh the importance of being sensitive to the kind ofpersonal conscience without forcing, he makes it clear that you can't force someone to
(04:50):
believe.
At the same time though, he also would be all in favor of curbing with the kind of firstuse of the law.
curbing outward blasphemy against the truth.
you oh
(05:11):
is another installment of Christendom and the World with your host, Pastor Andrew Preuss.
And I'm here with my nephew, Hans Preuss.
And Hans has been hanging out here in New Haven for the last few months, working here atuh Christian News, but not for Christian News.
(05:34):
Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you've been doing, Hans?
uh
Okay, yeah, I'm working for the Concordia Historical Institute.
Basically, here at the Christian News Office, are a bunch of...
Yeah, here at the Christian News Office, there are a bunch of...
(05:57):
That's fine.
Files.
And I'm basically just sorting through all these files and making...
Looking for anything that has to do with Seminex or anything that's like related to thetime period of Seminex Things happening in the church at that time And then the issues
(06:20):
that were being discussed during that time.
So right now I'm going through a bunch of stuff on the inerrancy of Scripture, okay andIt's not I don't I've read through some of it and it doesn't seem like it's
All of it isn't directly pertaining to 7x because some of it's written like the 80s andIt's quite a bit after it actually happened so you see you're
(06:49):
you're pulling, these are like letters or correspondence that are written to Christiannews um or from Herman Otten or to Herman Otten spanning from the late 50s all the way to
through the...
Yeah, through the 80s.
so you kind of have after Seminex is 1974 and then after the walkout in 1974, you stillhave residual effects of the controversies surrounding Seminex, specifically on the
(07:24):
inerrancy of scripture.
So tell us a little bit about what you have recently been looking at.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I started out a bunch of stuff on Martin Charlemagne and about the case with himwith kind of unclear situation uh about what controversy whether about whether he was
(07:51):
denying the uh inerrancy of scripture and the know the facts This is your functionality.
Yeah
let's let's review real quick who Martin Charlemagne was.
So he was a professor at the seminary in St.
Louis.
Yeah.
And I don't know when he started.
(08:12):
Do you remember when he started?
No.
No.
OK.
So but he he had written an essay sometime in the was it in early 60s or so?
I think so.
Yeah.
That that was.
that was defending the use of the higher critical method.
And then he eventually ended up rescinding it and kind of taking it away from discussion,right?
(08:40):
Like he withdrew it from.
Yeah, I don't think he ever said that what he was saying was wrong.
I think even though a lot of people um asserted that what he was writing was wrong, thatit was going directly against scripture.
But he did say that it was like it was unhelpful.
(09:03):
It was unhelpful, And so by the time Seminax happens, with the walkout in 1974, MartinCharlemagne is squarely on the conservative side and in fact becomes the acting president
of the seminary for a while.
(09:25):
And he and your great grandfather, my grandfather, along with a few other guys were knownas the Faithful
who did not walk off.
ah And so now, so you started off with some correspondence, some letters by him or somearticles that he had written?
Yeah, a lot of our letters written to him and to other people that have been like copiedand sent to uh Herman Aten and and two letters written directly to Herman Aten and back
(09:58):
and forth and then I just his essays a lot of the essays that he wrote or some of theessays he wrote I think I've printed or did copied like several duplicates, okay, cuz
He just, uh Herman Otten just had multiple copies of it.
Some of them were just in better condition than others.
(10:19):
uh I'll just copy them all.
Yeah, yeah.
And so this is being made available then for, so the Concordia Historical Institute thenis, what you're doing is you're taking these files, you're digitizing them, you're
copying, scanning them so that they can be on file for the Concordia Historical Instituteso people can have more access to these files to be able to do more uh historical
(10:44):
research.
So then back to what you were saying before then, you recently have been looking at stufffrom the 1980s.
Yeah, yeah, and uh that's just been in the past uh few days actually but I think some ofthis stuff is on uh has been written by some of these articles Written in the 80s are
(11:06):
written by like more reformed people.
Okay as well as Lutherans, okay
Because yeah, because interestingly, uh in the 80s is when the Southern Baptist Conventionhad their battle.
I just saw some of that today about the Southern Baptist.
Yeah, so you have this kind of uh sequel or continuation of this debate.
(11:32):
at any rate, you've noticed that you have a combination of evangelical, reformed writersas well as Lutherans.
Yeah, and I when you read this uh this these articles written by evangelical reformedpeople you can tell that they've Probably been paying attention to what was happening in
(11:55):
the Missouri Synod because there was one article that I read last week that was sayingthat even like secular like atheist
scholars of religion during that time were uh focused, they were really tuned in to whatwas happening during the battle for the Bible.
(12:19):
So they would even schedule their conferences at the same time as the Misery SynodConvention.
interesting.
Yeah, well what was so intriguing about the Missouri Synod was it was a major church body,I mean we'd call it a synod, a collection of congregations, but it was a major church body
(12:46):
that was going down the path of higher criticism and then backed out.
And it was the first major one to do that.
And the Southern Baptist Convention had then a similar kind of battle about a decadelater, and they had a similar outcome.
(13:09):
And it's really uh an incredible thing to observe, even from the standpoint of a secularobserver.
Because just as a social phenomenon, in academic circles,
seeing the Bible as the inerrant word of God, uh it was simply not feasible in the 20thcentury.
(13:40):
I mean, so when you consider like by the 1970s, higher criticism, the historicalcriticism, the idea that we gotta get behind the text of scripture to see what it actually
means.
that method had become just the orthodoxy of the academy in theological uh educationthroughout the world, uh in the mainstream at least.
(14:10):
And uh so the Missouri Synod is...
were, they were actually kind of late to the game on, the whole, on the whole matter.
Um, I was just recently, just reading some of Francis Peeper and his dogmatics.
And, know, this is, you know, in the earlier parts of the 20th century, he's, he's writinghis dogmatics and it's, it's amazing how, how orthodox he is, how he, how he just asserts
(14:40):
the
biblical inerrancy uh and how foreign this is to the way that uh a modern reader ofscripture.
is going to see the Bible.
And it's enough even to make a conservative like me, to be honest, who believes in theinerrancy of scripture to be like, whoa, that's really, that's quite the assertion.
(15:07):
We know this is true because the Bible says so.
And of course, I believe that, but it's so foreign to the way that academics is.
uh so,
It's helpful then to read this stuff, to have this stuff available, to see that thisbattle continued to kind of loom, continued to be fought, and it continues to be fought
(15:36):
even to this day.
So let's switch gears a little bit.
uh So you are the oldest son of my brother David and my sister-in-law Jenny.
uh
And you have been, let's see, you have been, you've been living abroad for the last, what,10 years?
(16:01):
Almost 10 years.
And your dad was in the Dominican Republic for a while as a missionary.
then he's, and then now the last three years or so, three or four, three and a half years,he's been in Romania.
And so,
So I grew up a pastor's kid, but you grew up, you've grown up at least half of yourchildhood was as a missionary kid.
(16:33):
So what's that like?
Yeah, well, it's definitely different.
think in a lot of ways, I would compare it a lot to being a pastor's kid.
OK.
A pastor's kid.
I think when you're a pastor's kid, you if someone asks you, where are you from?
(16:56):
And you're like, well, my parents are from.
Minnesota yeah, but I never lived in Minnesota.
Yeah, so I guess culturally I'm more minnesotan.
Yeah, but Since I've never lived there.
I can't really say I'm from there, so I guess like Missouri or Montana since those arewhere uh
(17:18):
My dad was a pastor when we lived in the United States.
And then once we went on the mission field, then it gets even more difficult, becauseyou're living in a place that's not even your country.
And so you can't really say that you're from there, but then that's kind of your home too,in a certain sense.
(17:41):
So...
You either have multiple homes or you have no home.
How do you really?
Yeah, yeah, when people ask me where I'm from, it depends on what I want to, how I'mfeeling, I guess.
I could say, well, I'm from Wisconsin.
I'm from Minnesota.
I could say I'm from Iowa.
(18:02):
And I could say I'm from Missouri, since that's where I live now.
So yeah, I what you're talking about there.
But even more so, though, as a missionary kid, mean, how old were you when you guys movedto the Dominican?
about 12.
You're about 12 and you guys were in St.
Louis for about a year before that.
Right.
Yeah.
And then, okay.
(18:23):
You were born in Fort Wayne.
Okay.
Okay.
That's right.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so, so there's that, there there's that, that detail that you don't really have, uh, adeeply rooted land that you're from.
oh
(18:44):
And so what do you say, what do you tell people when someone asks you where you're from?
Do you just say, I'm a citizen of the world?
No, no, no, no way uh I say I'm American and I I usually just probably say Missouribecause That's where I lived the longest.
(19:10):
Okay, I was in the u.s like probably if if I like the sum of all the years that I lived inAmerica I think I lived in Missouri for probably a total of
five or six years.
Yeah, that makes sense.
think it was one of Pastor May's sons.
(19:30):
um He was asked, we're all introducing ourselves.
We were in Africa and his mom is from Finland.
And his dad is American and he's basically grown up in Africa.
So we were all introducing ourselves and he described himself as a Finnish AfricanAmerican.
(19:53):
That's it.
so so I suppose you could you could maybe call yourself a uh Latino Eastern EuropeanAmerican or something like that
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
And so now you have, uh you've just finished college.
uh You studied at the school that your mom teaches at.
(20:18):
She teaches online for Purdue, right?
And so you just finished there at Purdue this past spring, right?
Right.
And with a bachelor's degree.
And so what are your plans now?
I know you're staying here, you're working for the Concordia Historical Institute here atthe Christian News Office.
Yeah.
And then eventually...
(20:38):
Hopefully you have some other plans.
Yeah, so, okay, I'm Being here in New Haven.
I'm kind of That's kind of what I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to what I want todo In the future.
I have kind of like uh a rough outline of what I want to do um But as far as like the timeframe goes I'm not
(21:04):
sure exactly how things are going to line up.
So, yeah, I just started.
just finished college.
I'm working now.
And I've been like studying a few things like Walther's law and gospel.
I've been studying that.
then I've been I read like I recently read like a biography on Luther, just trying to likebrush up and like.
(21:30):
deepen my knowledge on uh scripture and history.
And then I've also been studying Norwegian language because there's this uh opportunity Iwas offered like six, seven months ago to go to...
um
go to school up north in the northern part of Norway.
(21:55):
So I recently applied there, actually like uh yesterday I applied and uh we'll see.
mean I don't know if that's...
I got accepted this morning.
I did not get accepted yet.
So we'll see.
uh If that doesn't work out, then that's cool.
I'll just know Norwegian and that'll be great.
(22:16):
But uh if I can go there, then that's like that's another opportunity to like study thescriptures.
And it's more of like a kind of a pietistic school.
But uh it it'll I hope I mean, if it works out, then I can use that.
Yeah, yeah.
future.
you're Yeah, so mean, it's more of a more of a pietistic school.
(22:38):
And this is so that you kind of going back to your to your roots.
I mean, I know that your mom is not Norwegian.
So she's from Minnesota.
So she basically
Minnesota is kind of Norwegian.
Yeah.
she's as nice as the Norwegians, but probably not quite as guilt-ridden as the Norwegians.
(22:59):
ah But your dad is half Norwegian.
I always say that I have uh a much closer...
uh
struggle by nature with pietism because of my Norwegian heritage.
Even though uh my ancestors, I had your grandpa, my father on a few months back, and wetalked about this Norwegian heritage coming to the United States.
(23:27):
there was, our ancestors were more of the confessional Lutheran crowd that were...
that we're very aware of pietism and its dangers.
uh So when you say that, you know, they're more pietistic up there, which shouldn't reallybe a surprise to anyone who knows of Scandinavia.
(23:51):
What do you mean by that?
What are some things that would stick out as far as?
Yeah, I okay.
Well for one thing they're They're just probably not gonna be as Dogmatic on certainissues.
Okay, I when I was reading through uh one of these uh thing There there are like termsmm-hmm that they put on their website oh I think there's
(24:24):
maybe some stuff about teaching women to teach and stuff.
Yeah, sure.
Because they wanna make sure that they're not discriminating and stuff like that.
I think there's some stuff about taking care of the environment and stuff, but it's moreof being stewards of God's creation, be focused on that.
(24:48):
So there might be a little bit of stuff there.
Yeah.
So in other words, so you say they're not as dogmatic, so they're not as focused on theLutheran confessions and maintaining the actual doctrine uh that we teach.
It's more of kind of guide people into their Christian spiritual life.
(25:14):
I think so.
And so this is why I find this interesting that that pietists and liberals become
kind of bedfellows in a way, ah because the liberals don't care about the word of God.
They're just gonna say, well, that's just mythology anyway.
The pietists are gonna say that the scriptures are the word of God, but what reallymatters is this inner spiritual life.
(25:40):
And so when it comes to something like, especially like women pastors or women publiclyteaching in the church, the...
The liberals are gonna say, well, yeah, of course they should be able to do that becausethey're just gonna follow what the culture wants and they don't care what the Bible says
and Paul was a misogynist anyway, right?
uh Whereas the pietists are gonna say, well, if she's being guided by the spirit, then sheshould be able to do that.
(26:07):
And so they're not going to take seriously what the scriptures actually teach about theorders of creation, that women are not too...
preacher have authority over men in the church as Paul clearly teaches in 1 Timothy 2, 12,1 Corinthians 14, 34, and as Scripture also teaches about the roles of husbands and wives
(26:31):
and stuff like that.
So there's gonna be a little bit of a disconnect there.
So now you mentioned then that you are in preparation for all of this besides readingScripture, which I know I see you reading Scripture all the time at home, which is great
to see that you...
you've been looking at Walter's Law and Gospel.
that's a really good thing to read, especially when you consider pietism, um becauseWalter was coming out of that himself.
(27:02):
And I remember when I was a little younger than you, and I was still trying to wrap myhead around what is pietism?
When I was in college, I thought, well, pietism, they're just kind of killjoys.
Like they just don't, they don't drink or smoke or chew.
They don't go with girls who do, you know, that kind of stuff.
um They think everything's a sin that isn't necessarily a sin, but that's not really,those might be certain symptoms of pietism.
(27:30):
um But those are just external things.
just because someone doesn't smoke, for example, doesn't mean that he's a pietist.
And just because he does smoke,
doesn't mean he isn't a pietist, right?
And I remember talking to your dad when I was in college and asking him and your uncleJohn, and they explained to me their explanation to me of what is pietism, what is a
(28:02):
pietist, is a pietist determines what is true more than
uh rather than determining what is true doctrinally upon the clear teaching of scripture,he's going to put more weight than...
(28:23):
Instead, he's going to put more weight upon how it makes his conscience feel.
So how does it affect his conscience?
How does his conscience feel about it?
And therefore, that's going to be really the main thing that...
uh
that drives whether it's true.
(28:44):
um so, for example, if you say, you know, Susie can't be a pastor, well, that can make youfeel bad to tell Susie that she can't be a pastor because that might, you know, that
sounds mean, that sounds like you don't really appreciate Susie's spiritual contributionto the body of Christ or something like that.
(29:10):
And so ultimately,
Suzy, even though you know the Bible says that women shouldn't be preaching, you know,Suzy, I don't want to make Suzy feel bad, and it makes me feel bad, and it makes me feel
guilty to, you know, to tell Suzy that she shouldn't be preaching.
(29:31):
And so ultimately, you end up just coming down on that, Suzy should be able to lead, youknow, to share her spiritual gifts in that way.
And so, they'll kind of skirt around whether women should actually be ordained and thatends up becoming irrelevant to them, what the scriptures actually say.
(29:53):
And what really ends up winning out is how their conscience feels about it.
And so, your dad and your uncle John explained that to me and...
I thought, okay, okay, so basically determines doctrinal truth or theological truth orspiritual truth upon what their conscience feels rather than upon what scripture clearly
(30:21):
says.
And then I remember a year or two later, your uncle David, my friend, David Regals, soyour mom's brother, asked me what a biotist was.
And so I gave him that definition that you determine
what is doctrinally true or theologically true based upon what your conscience feelsrather than upon what the scriptures clearly teach.
(30:47):
And then his response was, well, aren't we all pietists then?
It's like, yeah, yeah, we kind of are all pietists, right?
We really are.
We all by nature have that.
uh And we were talking earlier, uh
in our discussion about the conscience and how the conscience is very important, that youcan't just ignore the conscience.
(31:10):
can't ignore how the conscience feels.
The conscience should be well-grounded.
ah But it needs to be grounded on the truth.
It needs to be grounded on what is clearly revealed.
And so, with all that said, you've been reading Walther's Law and Gospel.
How is what you have read so far in Walter's Law and Gospel, how is that helping youaddress that issue of determining what is true and not relying on your conscience while
(31:46):
also being sensitive to the needs of your conscience?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think just kind of learning how the law and the gospel, how they must be properlydistinguished um helps to make
(32:17):
helps you to think theologically in a more clear way.
You're not as confused, I think.
And I know that there's like, in Lutheran church today, you got people who say, it's notall about law and gospel.
Well, okay, maybe there's some truth to that.
(32:40):
maybe that's more to it just-
there's law and then there's gospel.
Yeah, there's other things to talk about, like what is the doctrine of creation, doctrineof repent and stuff like that.
and they might not like the way Walther seems to just reduce it all to law and gospel.
(33:02):
But I think Walther...
uh
What he's doing is, I think he's trying to make it simpler to actually understand theBible.
And it's not in a reductionist way at all.
Not even remotely.
(33:23):
think it's, you get down to these core principles of law and gospel, because these are thetwo main teachings of the Bible.
And when you actually come to understand
that the law is uh that it shows you your sin and that it's meant as a guide and that youcan't fulfill the whole law by yourself and yet it's still a command from God.
(33:53):
And then the gospel is what teaches you about your savior and how you're not condemned tohell because Christ has uh atoned for your sins.
When you come to, like when this,
these truths become ingrained in your head, then you then become uh more equipped toactually delve into these theological topics more and uh kind of, it shapes your
(34:25):
conscience in a more Lutheran way.
Yeah, yeah, in a more political way.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, it reminds me of Psalm 119, I think it's verse three where he says, or versefive, something like that.
The beginning of Psalm 119, he says, oh, that my ways were directed, that I may keep yourstatutes, then I would not be ashamed when I look into your commandments.
(34:47):
And so, yeah, mean, he's not at all reducing doctrine to just a simple law word, thengospel word.
caricature of Walther's law and gospel for sure.
But no, that's well put that when you have this simple distinction down, uh that the lawis there, it informs your conscience, guides you, it shows you your sin, you know that you
(35:14):
can't fulfill it and yet it still makes its demands on you.
And the gospel...
uh
it gives you the consolation, oh the freedom from sin and the atonement of Christ, thefree forgiveness.
uh That allows you then to dive into the rest of Scripture and the rest of the doctrineand not look at the doctrine as some obstacle, uh but that which actually gives you a good
(35:44):
direction and confidence uh in what you confess.
So this gets to, there's two kinds of certainty that we can talk about when we talktheology.
The first and most important type of certainty is what?
What's the most important certainty that you need?
Christ.
(36:04):
Yeah.
Salvation.
salvation, that's right, certainty of your salvation, then there's another kind ofcertainty that flows out of that and builds on that, and that is doctrinal certainty.
that is incredibly important because it's the certainty that you have in your everydaylife of confessing the Word of God.
(36:32):
of saying, like if you, so for example, if you say, yeah, I'm certain that I'm saved, I'mcertain that my sins are forgiven, but then you never have certainty on whether a man is a
man, right?
Or you never have certainty on whether God actually created the world as scripture says.
You don't have, or you have no certainty of whether the Bible is actually inerrant.
(36:58):
ah Or you don't have certainty that baptism saves.
then you really get into the nitty-gritty.
Or you don't have certainty on whether the bread and wine and the Lord's Supper are thetrue Body and Blood of Jesus.
Or you don't, or let's say you're a pastor and you don't have certainty on whether youwere actually called by God to preach the Gospel ah in the stead and by the command of
(37:24):
Christ to forgive sins.
ah or your father and you don't have certainty that God has actually established this.
So doctrinal certainty is not at the same level, but it flows out of that same importanceof...
(37:44):
of the certainty of salvation because it gives you uh a sound ground, a solid ground for asound conscience so that you can actually confess the truth.
And when you don't have that doctrinal certainty, then you're just at sea.
And then that central certainty of salvation ends up being very vulnerable.
(38:06):
Right?
Because then it...
Okay, so if I can't have certainty uh that God has said X about, you know, let's stickwith the issue of like the roles of men and women, the orders of creation, and I can't
have certainty on what the scriptures clearly teach about husbands and wives, uh children,you know, and parents, know, table of duty stuff, uh then...
(38:34):
the devil's going to use that uncertainty to get at that central certainty of the gospel,that are my sins actually forgiven.
And if you're always weighing whether something is true based upon how your consciencefeels about it, ultimately, you're gonna weigh whether you are saved.
(39:00):
whether you are secure in Christ based upon how your conscience feels about it.
And that is destructive.
And so that certainty of doctrine is vitally important as you build on that foundation ofChrist and you learn to confess the Word of God, not be put to shame when you peer into
(39:23):
all of His commandments, all of His doctrine.
uh
And that's the thing too, I've been talking about this a lot, that there's apresupposition about doctrine that people have, and they assume that doctrine is just a
bunch of rules.
And so what we need to do then is we need to sort of like tame it down so that we don't gotoo far with doctrine.
(39:46):
You doctrine's important, right?
But let's dial it back a little bit.
Let's not get too carried away with doctrine.
But the assumption there is that doctrine is just a law and that doctrine is just
things that we hold to, things that we, you know, rationally assent to, rather than thatwhich God has revealed for our life and our salvation, and to keep us in that life and
(40:20):
salvation.
This is something that uh the natural man is always going to do.
He's always going to take God's Word and turn it into
a list of principles that we follow and then when you're really strict about a principle,eventually you soften up and lighten up.
(40:49):
you know, kind of like a dad who maybe started off as kind of a cold and uh strict, andthen he gets older and realizes, well, maybe I was a little too hard on my kids.
uh If that's how we look at doctrine, then we're looking at it all the wrong way.
But if we can approach doctrine, as you're saying, with that distinction between law andgospel, then we end up coming away with a better grasp and confidence.
(41:19):
in the doctrine itself.
So we're not just like children who are tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
Yeah, and that's that reminds me That the why the uh doctrine of inerrancy is so importantbecause You know when you're looking at all this Seminex stuff well everything that was
(41:48):
going on during that time You kind of start to think that it's uh Really it's just kind ofridiculous almost to think that
that this was such a huge issue at that time.
But then you actually, you delve into the historical context and everything and everythingstarts making sense.
(42:10):
yeah, it is important that you make these distinctions because once you deny the fact,even little things like, the...
The facts, historical facts.
okay, what's an example?
Jonah.
Yeah, like did Jonah actually get swallowed by a fish or a whale or whatever?
(42:34):
I don't know, maybe that's a bad example.
Yeah, no, that's the one that they used.
Yeah.
And that seems like one that's easy enough to just kind of dismiss like, OK, that's onestory among many.
Man, seems a little bit out there.
Yeah.
Did that really happen?
Yeah.
Or did like did the did the sun actually, like freeze in place?
(42:57):
When Joshua was fighting that was at the Amorites or the.
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
did the sun really stand still?
Yeah, yeah, like what does that mean?
I don't know what that means, but the Sun was up for A very long time.
Yeah, who knows what was it actually standing still?
Yeah, I mean God could make that happen.
(43:20):
Mm-hmm.
mean, yeah, who am I to deny that?
Well, and that shows that God is, uh that God, one, that God answers prayers.
Yeah.
uh
That's what the text says there then that no other time uh was a man able to pray to Godand have that happen.
(43:44):
Similar to when Elijah prays to God that it would not rain for three years.
And then he prayed to God and it rained.
so that bears witness to the power of prayer and God's promise to hear the prayers of
righteous, that is those who are righteous through faith in His name, in His Son.
(44:07):
ah But yeah, I mean, if you take away that stuff, if you say, well, that seems a littlebit far-fetched, maybe that didn't really happen, uh you're assuming then that this is
just a detail.
These are just tidbits.
And
And then it becomes, rather than it becoming that which is revealed to us for our comfort,for our warning, for our instruction, it rather becomes some kind of like tail to
(44:48):
reinforce some kind of principle that we're holding to.
then it ends up becoming made in our own image.
And so then the issue of whether you believe that the Bible is true eventually becomessort of not really relevant, you know?
Like, do you believe...
It's like, do you believe that George Washington chopped down the cherry tree?
(45:16):
Well, does it really matter?
whether he did or not.
Doesn't matter whether that story is true or not.
If that's simply a story that attaches itself to some kind of like moral uh lesson, youknow?
uh But if this is attached, if the story, if the account of Joshua praying to God that thesun would sit still or of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish,
(45:47):
if those accounts have to do with what God Himself reveals to us for our instruction andultimately for our salvation, then we see them as much greater than just stories.
(46:12):
You this reminds me of when I was in seminary, I was...
I went to this, I went to seminary in St.
Catharines, Ontario, and I went to, I went out for lunch after, after church one day inNiagara on the lake.
And there was this place called, uh, the shepherd's inn.
think it was the name of the place.
Very nice little restaurant.
(46:33):
And, uh, I went there and I saw this guy wearing a collar and I thought, there's a guywearing a collar.
I'm going to go talk to him and see what kind of minister he is.
And he was an Anglican because in Canada, they don't have Episcopalians.
oh They're Anglicans.
And he was some liberal.
(46:55):
Yeah, they're they're from the Commonwealth.
Right.
So ah and so I went up to him and talked to him.
I told him I was a STEM student and he asked me something about.
I can't remember.
I think I introduced myself.
He recognized my last name and he recognized Jack.
Jack Preuss and was, you could tell from his reaction that he just loathed Jack Preuss.
(47:24):
And he was a big proponent of higher criticism.
And I think that that day at church, the gospel lesson was, I think maybe the gospellesson was like John six or something, the feeding of the 5,000.
So I just asked him, what about the feed of the 5,000?
(47:46):
And, and, and, and he said, uh, oh, well, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter whether that happened.
Cause the point of the story is that we are all to share that we should all share what wehave with one another.
And the whole moral of that story is that all the multitude shared bread and fishtogether.
(48:08):
But what's the real point of that story?
that he provided food for 5,000 people.
Yeah, so who is Jesus?
That He's God, that's the point.
If you say, did that really happen?
What about the resurrection?
That's the greatest miracle there ever was.
(48:29):
What's the point of the resurrection?
You can't say, did God actually rise from the dead?
No, because the whole point is that God rose from the dead.
And the whole point of the resurrection is that he would declare us righteous, eternallife, and promise us the resurrection.
So what this guy was doing was he reframed that parable and really the entire scripturesinto simply a moral lesson.
(49:02):
So it's a moral lesson that we should share with one another, we should try to livetogether in a, you know,
in a humanitarian way or whatever.
So now what you've done is you've taken all of the scriptures and made the main point ofthe scriptures a matter of law, right?
Because that's the law that says you should share what you have.
(49:25):
And that's true, the scriptures do teach that.
And certainly I'm not opposed to, you know, if you're teaching on the Feeding of the 5,000that, hey, yeah, as these people ate together...
receiving from their Lord what He provided.
So we should receive from our Lord what He provides and share it with one another too.
(49:47):
That's not a bad message to apply to that.
But if that's the main message or the only real message, then the only message ofScripture is the law.
And so this shows...
So this guy who's an example of...
This guy wasn't a pietist, although he was...
He probably had certain pietistic tendencies, he, I mean, this guy was a straight uprationalist, did not believe in miracles.
(50:16):
And yet what he really is at the core is he's a moralist, he's a legalist, but he thinksthat he's more evangelical because he has taken his legalism and kind of checked it and
reduced it down a little bit and made it so that it's not so strict.
And then he's going to project onto us who want to insist that this actually is true, thatthis actually happened the way that it was recorded.
(50:43):
And you can't deny, you're not allowed to deny that it happened the way that it wasrecorded, that he's going to then project onto us that kind of legalism and say, well, you
guys are the ones being legalistic.
When the main point that he wants to get across is simply law.
And this is why the distinction between law and gospel
(51:05):
is so vitally important to deal with all of the theological issues.
Because as you said, it allows us then to dive into the rest of scripture and learn therest of doctrine and take the rest of it seriously and actually be able to be confident in
it and not then wobble when we get to a story that seems to be sort of obscure or easilyignored.
(51:35):
you know, like, well, this or that miracle we can kind of do away with because the mainthing is that we just love each other or that we care for each other.
But when you come in with like, hold on, no, that's the law.
But what is the gospel?
The gospel is that temple made without hands, right?
(51:56):
The gospel is the circumcision made without hands.
The gospel is not by the might of man, but by the power.
by the Spirit of God.
That's the gospel.
The gospel is that God sent His Son into the world to save sinners.
And if you're going to turn everything, every extraordinary event of Scripture or everyseemingly obscure detail of Scripture into something that's just optional, well then what
(52:30):
do you lose?
You lose the gospel.
And what the gospel turns into then is your own pious exercise.
then it ends up becoming dependent upon how your conscience feels about it.
(52:50):
And so you're standing on sinking sand and you inevitably uh sink into that totaluncertainty.
Not just in the things that you confess, but then ultimately in the heart of it all,whether you stand before God.
(53:12):
And this is not some kind of like formula that we come up with.
I think this is maybe another caricature of law and gospel, like, now we've got it.
We've figured out the way to keep ourselves orthodox, to keep ourselves right.
uh
(53:33):
No, it's about receiving from God what He has revealed and uh allowing His law to standand to do what He says it does, to guide us, to show us our sin, right, to curb bad
behavior and wickedness, um but that it doesn't give us life and it's not meant to give uslife and to allow His gospel then to stick.
(54:03):
and be that only source of comfort and certainty that we have.
And therefore, we have our consciences are able to rest first on that salvation, thatsecurity that we have in Christ, but then actively as we confess the truth.
And in that way, you can see how doctrine, the whole body of doctrine is actually a meansof grace.
(54:30):
It's not just some
program for us to follow.
Because if it's a program for you to follow, then if you have any compassion at all,you're going to lighten up on the program, you know, or you're going to, or if you have
any sense at all, you're going to update the program.
And so it becomes, uh so doctrine becomes just simply another philosophy.
(54:58):
And so, so yeah, well that's, uh
That's good that you're...so you're in the middle of reading Walther's Law and Gospel, anduh you've been reading Scripture.
And are you...now, you've already told me this, but are you thinking about going toseminary someday?
(55:18):
Yeah, I think I don't know when but I figure well
It's kind of what I know.
I mean, I don't want to just say I'm going to be a pastor because everyone in my family isa pastor.
But when you're raised in that kind of context, it kind of becomes something that you'reconstantly thinking about.
(55:47):
You're always thinking about in theological terms.
Yeah, and I've had that thought too.
I grew up as a pastor's kid and I've had those thoughts like, well, maybe there's nothingelse that I could do.
um I didn't learn how to do anything else.
ah But that's...
First of all, that's not really true.
(56:09):
mean, you're taught a whole bunch of other things.
You're taught how to...
I mean, you can read and write, right?
And you need to be able to do that stuff anyway as a pastor, but those are valuable skillsfor anything else.
But those kinds of thoughts though can easily become very vain um because then it's justall about you.
(56:30):
mean, if you've been given that heritage of thinking theologically and talking theologyand wanting to be able to communicate the gospel and the full counsel of God, ah you've
been given that...
(56:51):
that heritage from listening to your parents talk growing up and both your grandpas anduncles and relatives.
That's a great heritage to have.
That's just the heritage of a Christian.
Yeah, exactly.
Any Christian should have something like that.
(57:13):
Yeah.
And that's a wonderful gift.
And if that's what you want to pursue, that's a godly pursuit.
And we shouldn't feel bad about that at all.
We shouldn't feel inadequate.
ah because our adequacy is in Christ.
Even if God calls you to do something else, your adequacy is always in Him.
(57:40):
And that's something that I try to press on these kids who come to our camp, these boyswho come to the camp, is that most of you maybe won't be pastors, but my hope for you boys
is that you would grow to...
to love God's Word and speak it to your households.
(58:03):
uh that should drive our conscience and our hearts and our minds in everything that we douh so that we would be standing secure on that solid rock of God's Word.
So...
So now you're the oldest.
(58:26):
I'm gonna just ask you a little bit more about your family.
Now you're the oldest of course in your family.
Then you got sisters and you got brothers.
But got one of your siblings is in the United States right now too, right?
Yep.
Rolf, uh he's in Denver right now, Denver color.
(58:47):
He's in Denver and he is planning on going to seminary too someday, He's not entirelysure.
and I are a little similar in a similar boat.
uh We want to, but we just don't know.
We love the Bible, we love the scriptures, and I'd love nothing more than to teach that toother people, and he agrees, he's of the same mind.
(59:13):
uh But yeah, we're just kind of at a transition point in our lives right now.
um
um I think he is uh like of the mind that he'd want to teach and be a pastor one day too.
Yeah.
Right now he's interested in like he told me like a couple weeks ago he's interested inlike getting an electrician's apprenticeship or something so he might try to learn some of
(59:44):
those practical handyman skills.
Yeah.
Which would be great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so this is it.
It's interesting to hear this stuff from you, because like when I was when I was young,just with my brothers and me, most of us just kind of went right into in the seminary.
You know, we knew what we wanted to do, at least by the time we finished college.
(01:00:07):
A couple of us were, I think, like your uncle Paul was.
doing other stuff in graduate school and stuff before you went into...
And then, of course, Uncle Daniel didn't go into the seminary and he's raising a familyand raising them in the true Christian faith and making feed, is really good work.
(01:00:34):
And so, but of those of us who did go into seminary, was kind of like, it seemed for themost part, kind of like a straight line, but that's why I've been intrigued with talking
with you and Rolf, that you guys are just more kind of like, well, you know, we'll justkind of see where things go, and you've just kind of taken your time, and I think there's
something good about that, uh that you're able to...
(01:00:58):
you're able to uh just take it easy and not be in such a rush.
um And I've noticed that maybe with your generation, um that uh there is a kind of, a lotof you guys are able to just sort of sit back and, you
(01:01:22):
you're very motivated.
mean, you're learning Norwegian and uh you're interested in theology and yet you're ableto just kind of explore your options and not have to uh make a quick decision right now.
So anyway, well, um I just thought it would be fun to have you on and talk a little bitabout where you're at.
(01:01:49):
uh
And we hope that those who are listening to this uh are edified by our conversation andwe'll have to have you on another time.
uh
I watched the podcast.
I've watched several episodes of this podcast, so it's it's kind of cool to like, one ofthe cool guys.
(01:02:15):
Cool guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, who is the last cool guy we had on here?
A pastor of Will Susan.
Yeah.
He's the coolest.
Yeah.
need to see that Michael Knowles response that you did.
yeah, yeah, yeah, about about whether we are justified by by faith and works, whetherwhether you should want to go to heaven, which of course you should want to go to heaven,
(01:02:42):
but your good works don't get you to heaven.
it should be pretty basic stuff.
So, yeah.
Well, thanks for being on today, Hans.
And it's been nice having you around and.
We'll we'll have maybe we'll have you on in the future and uh Maybe dive a little bitdeeper into some of the stuff that that you've been reading and researching on and and
(01:03:06):
Yeah, that'll be fun.
Yeah So thanks for listening to Christendom and the world.
I am your host pastor Andrew price Please like and subscribe and share this content if youare willing and join us next time for another episode of Christendom and the world
those that are predominantly Roman Catholic, and I would wonder if this is the case inthose countries or regions where they're predominantly Greek or Eastern Orthodox, Russian
Orthodox or whatever kind of Orthodox, that Protestantism is seen as a kind of Americanreligion.
(00:25):
Yeah.
Like there was, remember talking to this pastor from the Philippines and he's a Lutheranpastor and he was saying he grew up Catholic, but like the Protestantism around his neck
of the woods, it's just, it's basically just American.
So you have kind of the individual, you know, pull yourself up from your bootstraps sortof ethos.
(00:54):
that drives people and, you know, an individual freedom, a kind of freedom of thought.
So a lot of times Protestantism is conflated with the enlightenment and the kind of valuesof individual liberty.
There's obviously, you know, there is some connection there, obviously.
uh
(01:16):
But like when Luther talks about the freedom of the conscience, he's not speaking in theway that we would hear it today.
Usually today it's almost like whatever you feel, whatever your conscience says, youshould be able to just go with it.
And Luther would have had a much more, I would say, sophisticated understanding of theconscience than that.
(01:41):
uh Your conscience actually needs to be informed.
uh
by what's true, and your conscience can be misled.
uh With that said then, the conscience is a very precious thing, and while it needs to beinformed and led, it can't be constrained apart from, it can't be constrained in a way
(02:06):
where it's forced to do what it is.
determined not to do because then what you have there is just hypocrisy.
So when Luther says, you know, my conscience is ruled by the scriptures, right?
Here I stand, I can do no other.
(02:28):
You know, he...
he's not promoting some free-thinking spirit where you just sort of follow your heart.
um But that is often how it is taken.
And I've noticed Roman Catholic apologists will...
will...
They love to go after that kind of straw man of Luther, of Protestantism, that, well, youknow, he's just saying, follow your conscience.
(02:58):
But that's not...
uh You know, even Luther, uh even in the Reformation, uh they didn't respect theconsciences of like the monks, for example, who were in their regions.
They shut down monasteries and stuff like that.
And so, uh
But at any rate
I suppose when he's talking about following your conscience, he's talking about followinga conscience that's shaped by the scriptures, not just whatever emotions come up in
(03:31):
your...
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and he would have an understanding of natural law as well.
So reason as it is informed uh by God's word, but also through experience.
uh yeah, yeah, exactly.
mean, it isn't just...
You don't find the light of truth within you, even though you might have some naturalknowledge of what's true, as Paul says in
(04:02):
in Romans 2 that the Gentiles prove that the law is written on their conscience, on theirheart, and their conscience bears witness to it.
But the way that they bear witness to it is by doing that which is actually required inthe law, right?
And also then accusing and excusing themselves so they have a certain standard.
(04:23):
uh so there's an objectivity to it even as there is something that's very subjective,right?
Luther is able to uh appreciate uh the importance of being sensitive to the kind ofpersonal conscience without forcing, he makes it clear that you can't force someone to
(04:50):
believe.
At the same time though, he also would be all in favor of curbing with the kind of firstuse of the law.
curbing outward blasphemy against the truth.
you oh
(05:11):
is another installment of Christendom and the World with your host, Pastor Andrew Preuss.
And I'm here with my nephew, Hans Preuss.
And Hans has been hanging out here in New Haven for the last few months, working here atuh Christian News, but not for Christian News.
(05:34):
Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you've been doing, Hans?
uh
Okay, yeah, I'm working for the Concordia Historical Institute.
Basically, here at the Christian News Office, are a bunch of...
Yeah, here at the Christian News Office, there are a bunch of...
(05:57):
That's fine.
Files.
And I'm basically just sorting through all these files and making...
Looking for anything that has to do with Seminex or anything that's like related to thetime period of Seminex Things happening in the church at that time And then the issues
(06:20):
that were being discussed during that time.
So right now I'm going through a bunch of stuff on the inerrancy of Scripture, okay andIt's not I don't I've read through some of it and it doesn't seem like it's
All of it isn't directly pertaining to 7x because some of it's written like the 80s andIt's quite a bit after it actually happened so you see you're
(06:49):
you're pulling, these are like letters or correspondence that are written to Christiannews um or from Herman Otten or to Herman Otten spanning from the late 50s all the way to
through the...
Yeah, through the 80s.
so you kind of have after Seminex is 1974 and then after the walkout in 1974, you stillhave residual effects of the controversies surrounding Seminex, specifically on the
(07:24):
inerrancy of scripture.
So tell us a little bit about what you have recently been looking at.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I started out a bunch of stuff on Martin Charlemagne and about the case with himwith kind of unclear situation uh about what controversy whether about whether he was
(07:51):
denying the uh inerrancy of scripture and the know the facts This is your functionality.
Yeah
let's let's review real quick who Martin Charlemagne was.
So he was a professor at the seminary in St.
Louis.
Yeah.
And I don't know when he started.
(08:12):
Do you remember when he started?
No.
No.
OK.
So but he he had written an essay sometime in the was it in early 60s or so?
I think so.
Yeah.
That that was.
that was defending the use of the higher critical method.
And then he eventually ended up rescinding it and kind of taking it away from discussion,right?
(08:40):
Like he withdrew it from.
Yeah, I don't think he ever said that what he was saying was wrong.
I think even though a lot of people um asserted that what he was writing was wrong, thatit was going directly against scripture.
But he did say that it was like it was unhelpful.
(09:03):
It was unhelpful, And so by the time Seminax happens, with the walkout in 1974, MartinCharlemagne is squarely on the conservative side and in fact becomes the acting president
of the seminary for a while.
(09:25):
And he and your great grandfather, my grandfather, along with a few other guys were knownas the Faithful
who did not walk off.
ah And so now, so you started off with some correspondence, some letters by him or somearticles that he had written?
Yeah, a lot of our letters written to him and to other people that have been like copiedand sent to uh Herman Aten and and two letters written directly to Herman Aten and back
(09:58):
and forth and then I just his essays a lot of the essays that he wrote or some of theessays he wrote I think I've printed or did copied like several duplicates, okay, cuz
He just, uh Herman Otten just had multiple copies of it.
Some of them were just in better condition than others.
(10:19):
uh I'll just copy them all.
Yeah, yeah.
And so this is being made available then for, so the Concordia Historical Institute thenis, what you're doing is you're taking these files, you're digitizing them, you're
copying, scanning them so that they can be on file for the Concordia Historical Instituteso people can have more access to these files to be able to do more uh historical
(10:44):
research.
So then back to what you were saying before then, you recently have been looking at stufffrom the 1980s.
Yeah, yeah, and uh that's just been in the past uh few days actually but I think some ofthis stuff is on uh has been written by some of these articles Written in the 80s are
(11:06):
written by like more reformed people.
Okay as well as Lutherans, okay
Because yeah, because interestingly, uh in the 80s is when the Southern Baptist Conventionhad their battle.
I just saw some of that today about the Southern Baptist.
Yeah, so you have this kind of uh sequel or continuation of this debate.
(11:32):
at any rate, you've noticed that you have a combination of evangelical, reformed writersas well as Lutherans.
Yeah, and I when you read this uh this these articles written by evangelical reformedpeople you can tell that they've Probably been paying attention to what was happening in
(11:55):
the Missouri Synod because there was one article that I read last week that was sayingthat even like secular like atheist
scholars of religion during that time were uh focused, they were really tuned in to whatwas happening during the battle for the Bible.
(12:19):
So they would even schedule their conferences at the same time as the Misery SynodConvention.
interesting.
Yeah, well what was so intriguing about the Missouri Synod was it was a major church body,I mean we'd call it a synod, a collection of congregations, but it was a major church body
(12:46):
that was going down the path of higher criticism and then backed out.
And it was the first major one to do that.
And the Southern Baptist Convention had then a similar kind of battle about a decadelater, and they had a similar outcome.
(13:09):
And it's really uh an incredible thing to observe, even from the standpoint of a secularobserver.
Because just as a social phenomenon, in academic circles,
seeing the Bible as the inerrant word of God, uh it was simply not feasible in the 20thcentury.
(13:40):
I mean, so when you consider like by the 1970s, higher criticism, the historicalcriticism, the idea that we gotta get behind the text of scripture to see what it actually
means.
that method had become just the orthodoxy of the academy in theological uh educationthroughout the world, uh in the mainstream at least.
(14:10):
And uh so the Missouri Synod is...
were, they were actually kind of late to the game on, the whole, on the whole matter.
Um, I was just recently, just reading some of Francis Peeper and his dogmatics.
And, know, this is, you know, in the earlier parts of the 20th century, he's, he's writinghis dogmatics and it's, it's amazing how, how orthodox he is, how he, how he just asserts
(14:40):
the
biblical inerrancy uh and how foreign this is to the way that uh a modern reader ofscripture.
is going to see the Bible.
And it's enough even to make a conservative like me, to be honest, who believes in theinerrancy of scripture to be like, whoa, that's really, that's quite the assertion.
(15:07):
We know this is true because the Bible says so.
And of course, I believe that, but it's so foreign to the way that academics is.
uh so,
It's helpful then to read this stuff, to have this stuff available, to see that thisbattle continued to kind of loom, continued to be fought, and it continues to be fought
(15:36):
even to this day.
So let's switch gears a little bit.
uh So you are the oldest son of my brother David and my sister-in-law Jenny.
uh
And you have been, let's see, you have been, you've been living abroad for the last, what,10 years?
(16:01):
Almost 10 years.
And your dad was in the Dominican Republic for a while as a missionary.
then he's, and then now the last three years or so, three or four, three and a half years,he's been in Romania.
And so,
So I grew up a pastor's kid, but you grew up, you've grown up at least half of yourchildhood was as a missionary kid.
(16:33):
So what's that like?
Yeah, well, it's definitely different.
think in a lot of ways, I would compare it a lot to being a pastor's kid.
OK.
A pastor's kid.
I think when you're a pastor's kid, you if someone asks you, where are you from?
(16:56):
And you're like, well, my parents are from.
Minnesota yeah, but I never lived in Minnesota.
Yeah, so I guess culturally I'm more minnesotan.
Yeah, but Since I've never lived there.
I can't really say I'm from there, so I guess like Missouri or Montana since those arewhere uh
(17:18):
My dad was a pastor when we lived in the United States.
And then once we went on the mission field, then it gets even more difficult, becauseyou're living in a place that's not even your country.
And so you can't really say that you're from there, but then that's kind of your home too,in a certain sense.
(17:41):
So...
You either have multiple homes or you have no home.
How do you really?
Yeah, yeah, when people ask me where I'm from, it depends on what I want to, how I'mfeeling, I guess.
I could say, well, I'm from Wisconsin.
I'm from Minnesota.
I could say I'm from Iowa.
(18:02):
And I could say I'm from Missouri, since that's where I live now.
So yeah, I what you're talking about there.
But even more so, though, as a missionary kid, mean, how old were you when you guys movedto the Dominican?
about 12.
You're about 12 and you guys were in St.
Louis for about a year before that.
Right.
Yeah.
And then, okay.
(18:23):
You were born in Fort Wayne.
Okay.
Okay.
That's right.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so, so there's that, there there's that, that detail that you don't really have, uh, adeeply rooted land that you're from.
oh
(18:44):
And so what do you say, what do you tell people when someone asks you where you're from?
Do you just say, I'm a citizen of the world?
No, no, no, no way uh I say I'm American and I I usually just probably say Missouribecause That's where I lived the longest.
(19:10):
Okay, I was in the u.s like probably if if I like the sum of all the years that I lived inAmerica I think I lived in Missouri for probably a total of
five or six years.
Yeah, that makes sense.
think it was one of Pastor May's sons.
(19:30):
um He was asked, we're all introducing ourselves.
We were in Africa and his mom is from Finland.
And his dad is American and he's basically grown up in Africa.
So we were all introducing ourselves and he described himself as a Finnish AfricanAmerican.
(19:53):
That's it.
so so I suppose you could you could maybe call yourself a uh Latino Eastern EuropeanAmerican or something like that
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
And so now you have, uh you've just finished college.
uh You studied at the school that your mom teaches at.
(20:18):
She teaches online for Purdue, right?
And so you just finished there at Purdue this past spring, right?
Right.
And with a bachelor's degree.
And so what are your plans now?
I know you're staying here, you're working for the Concordia Historical Institute here atthe Christian News Office.
Yeah.
And then eventually...
(20:38):
Hopefully you have some other plans.
Yeah, so, okay, I'm Being here in New Haven.
I'm kind of That's kind of what I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to what I want todo In the future.
I have kind of like uh a rough outline of what I want to do um But as far as like the timeframe goes I'm not
(21:04):
sure exactly how things are going to line up.
So, yeah, I just started.
just finished college.
I'm working now.
And I've been like studying a few things like Walther's law and gospel.
I've been studying that.
then I've been I read like I recently read like a biography on Luther, just trying to likebrush up and like.
(21:30):
deepen my knowledge on uh scripture and history.
And then I've also been studying Norwegian language because there's this uh opportunity Iwas offered like six, seven months ago to go to...
um
go to school up north in the northern part of Norway.
(21:55):
So I recently applied there, actually like uh yesterday I applied and uh we'll see.
mean I don't know if that's...
I got accepted this morning.
I did not get accepted yet.
So we'll see.
uh If that doesn't work out, then that's cool.
I'll just know Norwegian and that'll be great.
(22:16):
But uh if I can go there, then that's like that's another opportunity to like study thescriptures.
And it's more of like a kind of a pietistic school.
But uh it it'll I hope I mean, if it works out, then I can use that.
Yeah, yeah.
future.
you're Yeah, so mean, it's more of a more of a pietistic school.
(22:38):
And this is so that you kind of going back to your to your roots.
I mean, I know that your mom is not Norwegian.
So she's from Minnesota.
So she basically
Minnesota is kind of Norwegian.
Yeah.
she's as nice as the Norwegians, but probably not quite as guilt-ridden as the Norwegians.
(22:59):
ah But your dad is half Norwegian.
I always say that I have uh a much closer...
uh
struggle by nature with pietism because of my Norwegian heritage.
Even though uh my ancestors, I had your grandpa, my father on a few months back, and wetalked about this Norwegian heritage coming to the United States.
(23:27):
there was, our ancestors were more of the confessional Lutheran crowd that were...
that we're very aware of pietism and its dangers.
uh So when you say that, you know, they're more pietistic up there, which shouldn't reallybe a surprise to anyone who knows of Scandinavia.
(23:51):
What do you mean by that?
What are some things that would stick out as far as?
Yeah, I okay.
Well for one thing they're They're just probably not gonna be as Dogmatic on certainissues.
Okay, I when I was reading through uh one of these uh thing There there are like termsmm-hmm that they put on their website oh I think there's
(24:24):
maybe some stuff about teaching women to teach and stuff.
Yeah, sure.
Because they wanna make sure that they're not discriminating and stuff like that.
I think there's some stuff about taking care of the environment and stuff, but it's moreof being stewards of God's creation, be focused on that.
(24:48):
So there might be a little bit of stuff there.
Yeah.
So in other words, so you say they're not as dogmatic, so they're not as focused on theLutheran confessions and maintaining the actual doctrine uh that we teach.
It's more of kind of guide people into their Christian spiritual life.
(25:14):
I think so.
And so this is why I find this interesting that that pietists and liberals become
kind of bedfellows in a way, ah because the liberals don't care about the word of God.
They're just gonna say, well, that's just mythology anyway.
The pietists are gonna say that the scriptures are the word of God, but what reallymatters is this inner spiritual life.
(25:40):
And so when it comes to something like, especially like women pastors or women publiclyteaching in the church, the...
The liberals are gonna say, well, yeah, of course they should be able to do that becausethey're just gonna follow what the culture wants and they don't care what the Bible says
and Paul was a misogynist anyway, right?
uh Whereas the pietists are gonna say, well, if she's being guided by the spirit, then sheshould be able to do that.
(26:07):
And so they're not going to take seriously what the scriptures actually teach about theorders of creation, that women are not too...
preacher have authority over men in the church as Paul clearly teaches in 1 Timothy 2, 12,1 Corinthians 14, 34, and as Scripture also teaches about the roles of husbands and wives
(26:31):
and stuff like that.
So there's gonna be a little bit of a disconnect there.
So now you mentioned then that you are in preparation for all of this besides readingScripture, which I know I see you reading Scripture all the time at home, which is great
to see that you...
you've been looking at Walter's Law and Gospel.
that's a really good thing to read, especially when you consider pietism, um becauseWalter was coming out of that himself.
(27:02):
And I remember when I was a little younger than you, and I was still trying to wrap myhead around what is pietism?
When I was in college, I thought, well, pietism, they're just kind of killjoys.
Like they just don't, they don't drink or smoke or chew.
They don't go with girls who do, you know, that kind of stuff.
um They think everything's a sin that isn't necessarily a sin, but that's not really,those might be certain symptoms of pietism.
(27:30):
um But those are just external things.
just because someone doesn't smoke, for example, doesn't mean that he's a pietist.
And just because he does smoke,
doesn't mean he isn't a pietist, right?
And I remember talking to your dad when I was in college and asking him and your uncleJohn, and they explained to me their explanation to me of what is pietism, what is a
(28:02):
pietist, is a pietist determines what is true more than
uh rather than determining what is true doctrinally upon the clear teaching of scripture,he's going to put more weight than...
(28:23):
Instead, he's going to put more weight upon how it makes his conscience feel.
So how does it affect his conscience?
How does his conscience feel about it?
And therefore, that's going to be really the main thing that...
uh
that drives whether it's true.
(28:44):
um so, for example, if you say, you know, Susie can't be a pastor, well, that can make youfeel bad to tell Susie that she can't be a pastor because that might, you know, that
sounds mean, that sounds like you don't really appreciate Susie's spiritual contributionto the body of Christ or something like that.
(29:10):
And so ultimately,
Suzy, even though you know the Bible says that women shouldn't be preaching, you know,Suzy, I don't want to make Suzy feel bad, and it makes me feel bad, and it makes me feel
guilty to, you know, to tell Suzy that she shouldn't be preaching.
(29:31):
And so ultimately, you end up just coming down on that, Suzy should be able to lead, youknow, to share her spiritual gifts in that way.
And so, they'll kind of skirt around whether women should actually be ordained and thatends up becoming irrelevant to them, what the scriptures actually say.
(29:53):
And what really ends up winning out is how their conscience feels about it.
And so, your dad and your uncle John explained that to me and...
I thought, okay, okay, so basically determines doctrinal truth or theological truth orspiritual truth upon what their conscience feels rather than upon what scripture clearly
(30:21):
says.
And then I remember a year or two later, your uncle David, my friend, David Regals, soyour mom's brother, asked me what a biotist was.
And so I gave him that definition that you determine
what is doctrinally true or theologically true based upon what your conscience feelsrather than upon what the scriptures clearly teach.
(30:47):
And then his response was, well, aren't we all pietists then?
It's like, yeah, yeah, we kind of are all pietists, right?
We really are.
We all by nature have that.
uh And we were talking earlier, uh
in our discussion about the conscience and how the conscience is very important, that youcan't just ignore the conscience.
(31:10):
can't ignore how the conscience feels.
The conscience should be well-grounded.
ah But it needs to be grounded on the truth.
It needs to be grounded on what is clearly revealed.
And so, with all that said, you've been reading Walther's Law and Gospel.
How is what you have read so far in Walter's Law and Gospel, how is that helping youaddress that issue of determining what is true and not relying on your conscience while
(31:46):
also being sensitive to the needs of your conscience?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think just kind of learning how the law and the gospel, how they must be properlydistinguished um helps to make
(32:17):
helps you to think theologically in a more clear way.
You're not as confused, I think.
And I know that there's like, in Lutheran church today, you got people who say, it's notall about law and gospel.
Well, okay, maybe there's some truth to that.
(32:40):
maybe that's more to it just-
there's law and then there's gospel.
Yeah, there's other things to talk about, like what is the doctrine of creation, doctrineof repent and stuff like that.
and they might not like the way Walther seems to just reduce it all to law and gospel.
(33:02):
But I think Walther...
uh
What he's doing is, I think he's trying to make it simpler to actually understand theBible.
And it's not in a reductionist way at all.
Not even remotely.
(33:23):
think it's, you get down to these core principles of law and gospel, because these are thetwo main teachings of the Bible.
And when you actually come to understand
that the law is uh that it shows you your sin and that it's meant as a guide and that youcan't fulfill the whole law by yourself and yet it's still a command from God.
(33:53):
And then the gospel is what teaches you about your savior and how you're not condemned tohell because Christ has uh atoned for your sins.
When you come to, like when this,
these truths become ingrained in your head, then you then become uh more equipped toactually delve into these theological topics more and uh kind of, it shapes your
(34:25):
conscience in a more Lutheran way.
Yeah, yeah, in a more political way.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, it reminds me of Psalm 119, I think it's verse three where he says, or versefive, something like that.
The beginning of Psalm 119, he says, oh, that my ways were directed, that I may keep yourstatutes, then I would not be ashamed when I look into your commandments.
(34:47):
And so, yeah, mean, he's not at all reducing doctrine to just a simple law word, thengospel word.
caricature of Walther's law and gospel for sure.
But no, that's well put that when you have this simple distinction down, uh that the lawis there, it informs your conscience, guides you, it shows you your sin, you know that you
(35:14):
can't fulfill it and yet it still makes its demands on you.
And the gospel...
uh
it gives you the consolation, oh the freedom from sin and the atonement of Christ, thefree forgiveness.
uh That allows you then to dive into the rest of Scripture and the rest of the doctrineand not look at the doctrine as some obstacle, uh but that which actually gives you a good
(35:44):
direction and confidence uh in what you confess.
So this gets to, there's two kinds of certainty that we can talk about when we talktheology.
The first and most important type of certainty is what?
What's the most important certainty that you need?
Christ.
(36:04):
Yeah.
Salvation.
salvation, that's right, certainty of your salvation, then there's another kind ofcertainty that flows out of that and builds on that, and that is doctrinal certainty.
that is incredibly important because it's the certainty that you have in your everydaylife of confessing the Word of God.
(36:32):
of saying, like if you, so for example, if you say, yeah, I'm certain that I'm saved, I'mcertain that my sins are forgiven, but then you never have certainty on whether a man is a
man, right?
Or you never have certainty on whether God actually created the world as scripture says.
You don't have, or you have no certainty of whether the Bible is actually inerrant.
(36:58):
ah Or you don't have certainty that baptism saves.
then you really get into the nitty-gritty.
Or you don't have certainty on whether the bread and wine and the Lord's Supper are thetrue Body and Blood of Jesus.
Or you don't, or let's say you're a pastor and you don't have certainty on whether youwere actually called by God to preach the Gospel ah in the stead and by the command of
(37:24):
Christ to forgive sins.
ah or your father and you don't have certainty that God has actually established this.
So doctrinal certainty is not at the same level, but it flows out of that same importanceof...
(37:44):
of the certainty of salvation because it gives you uh a sound ground, a solid ground for asound conscience so that you can actually confess the truth.
And when you don't have that doctrinal certainty, then you're just at sea.
And then that central certainty of salvation ends up being very vulnerable.
(38:06):
Right?
Because then it...
Okay, so if I can't have certainty uh that God has said X about, you know, let's stickwith the issue of like the roles of men and women, the orders of creation, and I can't
have certainty on what the scriptures clearly teach about husbands and wives, uh children,you know, and parents, know, table of duty stuff, uh then...
(38:34):
the devil's going to use that uncertainty to get at that central certainty of the gospel,that are my sins actually forgiven.
And if you're always weighing whether something is true based upon how your consciencefeels about it, ultimately, you're gonna weigh whether you are saved.
(39:00):
whether you are secure in Christ based upon how your conscience feels about it.
And that is destructive.
And so that certainty of doctrine is vitally important as you build on that foundation ofChrist and you learn to confess the Word of God, not be put to shame when you peer into
(39:23):
all of His commandments, all of His doctrine.
uh
And that's the thing too, I've been talking about this a lot, that there's apresupposition about doctrine that people have, and they assume that doctrine is just a
bunch of rules.
And so what we need to do then is we need to sort of like tame it down so that we don't gotoo far with doctrine.
(39:46):
You doctrine's important, right?
But let's dial it back a little bit.
Let's not get too carried away with doctrine.
But the assumption there is that doctrine is just a law and that doctrine is just
things that we hold to, things that we, you know, rationally assent to, rather than thatwhich God has revealed for our life and our salvation, and to keep us in that life and
(40:20):
salvation.
This is something that uh the natural man is always going to do.
He's always going to take God's Word and turn it into
a list of principles that we follow and then when you're really strict about a principle,eventually you soften up and lighten up.
(40:49):
you know, kind of like a dad who maybe started off as kind of a cold and uh strict, andthen he gets older and realizes, well, maybe I was a little too hard on my kids.
uh If that's how we look at doctrine, then we're looking at it all the wrong way.
But if we can approach doctrine, as you're saying, with that distinction between law andgospel, then we end up coming away with a better grasp and confidence.
(41:19):
in the doctrine itself.
So we're not just like children who are tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
Yeah, and that's that reminds me That the why the uh doctrine of inerrancy is so importantbecause You know when you're looking at all this Seminex stuff well everything that was
(41:48):
going on during that time You kind of start to think that it's uh Really it's just kind ofridiculous almost to think that
that this was such a huge issue at that time.
But then you actually, you delve into the historical context and everything and everythingstarts making sense.
(42:10):
yeah, it is important that you make these distinctions because once you deny the fact,even little things like, the...
The facts, historical facts.
okay, what's an example?
Jonah.
Yeah, like did Jonah actually get swallowed by a fish or a whale or whatever?
(42:34):
I don't know, maybe that's a bad example.
Yeah, no, that's the one that they used.
Yeah.
And that seems like one that's easy enough to just kind of dismiss like, OK, that's onestory among many.
Man, seems a little bit out there.
Yeah.
Did that really happen?
Yeah.
Or did like did the did the sun actually, like freeze in place?
(42:57):
When Joshua was fighting that was at the Amorites or the.
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
did the sun really stand still?
Yeah, yeah, like what does that mean?
I don't know what that means, but the Sun was up for A very long time.
Yeah, who knows what was it actually standing still?
Yeah, I mean God could make that happen.
(43:20):
Mm-hmm.
mean, yeah, who am I to deny that?
Well, and that shows that God is, uh that God, one, that God answers prayers.
Yeah.
uh
That's what the text says there then that no other time uh was a man able to pray to Godand have that happen.
(43:44):
Similar to when Elijah prays to God that it would not rain for three years.
And then he prayed to God and it rained.
so that bears witness to the power of prayer and God's promise to hear the prayers of
righteous, that is those who are righteous through faith in His name, in His Son.
(44:07):
ah But yeah, I mean, if you take away that stuff, if you say, well, that seems a littlebit far-fetched, maybe that didn't really happen, uh you're assuming then that this is
just a detail.
These are just tidbits.
And
And then it becomes, rather than it becoming that which is revealed to us for our comfort,for our warning, for our instruction, it rather becomes some kind of like tail to
(44:48):
reinforce some kind of principle that we're holding to.
then it ends up becoming made in our own image.
And so then the issue of whether you believe that the Bible is true eventually becomessort of not really relevant, you know?
Like, do you believe...
It's like, do you believe that George Washington chopped down the cherry tree?
(45:16):
Well, does it really matter?
whether he did or not.
Doesn't matter whether that story is true or not.
If that's simply a story that attaches itself to some kind of like moral uh lesson, youknow?
uh But if this is attached, if the story, if the account of Joshua praying to God that thesun would sit still or of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish,
(45:47):
if those accounts have to do with what God Himself reveals to us for our instruction andultimately for our salvation, then we see them as much greater than just stories.
(46:12):
You this reminds me of when I was in seminary, I was...
I went to this, I went to seminary in St.
Catharines, Ontario, and I went to, I went out for lunch after, after church one day inNiagara on the lake.
And there was this place called, uh, the shepherd's inn.
think it was the name of the place.
Very nice little restaurant.
(46:33):
And, uh, I went there and I saw this guy wearing a collar and I thought, there's a guywearing a collar.
I'm going to go talk to him and see what kind of minister he is.
And he was an Anglican because in Canada, they don't have Episcopalians.
oh They're Anglicans.
And he was some liberal.
(46:55):
Yeah, they're they're from the Commonwealth.
Right.
So ah and so I went up to him and talked to him.
I told him I was a STEM student and he asked me something about.
I can't remember.
I think I introduced myself.
He recognized my last name and he recognized Jack.
Jack Preuss and was, you could tell from his reaction that he just loathed Jack Preuss.
(47:24):
And he was a big proponent of higher criticism.
And I think that that day at church, the gospel lesson was, I think maybe the gospellesson was like John six or something, the feeding of the 5,000.
So I just asked him, what about the feed of the 5,000?
(47:46):
And, and, and, and he said, uh, oh, well, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter whether that happened.
Cause the point of the story is that we are all to share that we should all share what wehave with one another.
And the whole moral of that story is that all the multitude shared bread and fishtogether.
(48:08):
But what's the real point of that story?
that he provided food for 5,000 people.
Yeah, so who is Jesus?
That He's God, that's the point.
If you say, did that really happen?
What about the resurrection?
That's the greatest miracle there ever was.
(48:29):
What's the point of the resurrection?
You can't say, did God actually rise from the dead?
No, because the whole point is that God rose from the dead.
And the whole point of the resurrection is that he would declare us righteous, eternallife, and promise us the resurrection.
So what this guy was doing was he reframed that parable and really the entire scripturesinto simply a moral lesson.
(49:02):
So it's a moral lesson that we should share with one another, we should try to livetogether in a, you know,
in a humanitarian way or whatever.
So now what you've done is you've taken all of the scriptures and made the main point ofthe scriptures a matter of law, right?
Because that's the law that says you should share what you have.
(49:25):
And that's true, the scriptures do teach that.
And certainly I'm not opposed to, you know, if you're teaching on the Feeding of the 5,000that, hey, yeah, as these people ate together...
receiving from their Lord what He provided.
So we should receive from our Lord what He provides and share it with one another too.
(49:47):
That's not a bad message to apply to that.
But if that's the main message or the only real message, then the only message ofScripture is the law.
And so this shows...
So this guy who's an example of...
This guy wasn't a pietist, although he was...
He probably had certain pietistic tendencies, he, I mean, this guy was a straight uprationalist, did not believe in miracles.
(50:16):
And yet what he really is at the core is he's a moralist, he's a legalist, but he thinksthat he's more evangelical because he has taken his legalism and kind of checked it and
reduced it down a little bit and made it so that it's not so strict.
And then he's going to project onto us who want to insist that this actually is true, thatthis actually happened the way that it was recorded.
(50:43):
And you can't deny, you're not allowed to deny that it happened the way that it wasrecorded, that he's going to then project onto us that kind of legalism and say, well, you
guys are the ones being legalistic.
When the main point that he wants to get across is simply law.
And this is why the distinction between law and gospel
(51:05):
is so vitally important to deal with all of the theological issues.
Because as you said, it allows us then to dive into the rest of scripture and learn therest of doctrine and take the rest of it seriously and actually be able to be confident in
it and not then wobble when we get to a story that seems to be sort of obscure or easilyignored.
(51:35):
you know, like, well, this or that miracle we can kind of do away with because the mainthing is that we just love each other or that we care for each other.
But when you come in with like, hold on, no, that's the law.
But what is the gospel?
The gospel is that temple made without hands, right?
(51:56):
The gospel is the circumcision made without hands.
The gospel is not by the might of man, but by the power.
by the Spirit of God.
That's the gospel.
The gospel is that God sent His Son into the world to save sinners.
And if you're going to turn everything, every extraordinary event of Scripture or everyseemingly obscure detail of Scripture into something that's just optional, well then what
(52:30):
do you lose?
You lose the gospel.
And what the gospel turns into then is your own pious exercise.
then it ends up becoming dependent upon how your conscience feels about it.
(52:50):
And so you're standing on sinking sand and you inevitably uh sink into that totaluncertainty.
Not just in the things that you confess, but then ultimately in the heart of it all,whether you stand before God.
(53:12):
And this is not some kind of like formula that we come up with.
I think this is maybe another caricature of law and gospel, like, now we've got it.
We've figured out the way to keep ourselves orthodox, to keep ourselves right.
uh
(53:33):
No, it's about receiving from God what He has revealed and uh allowing His law to standand to do what He says it does, to guide us, to show us our sin, right, to curb bad
behavior and wickedness, um but that it doesn't give us life and it's not meant to give uslife and to allow His gospel then to stick.
(54:03):
and be that only source of comfort and certainty that we have.
And therefore, we have our consciences are able to rest first on that salvation, thatsecurity that we have in Christ, but then actively as we confess the truth.
And in that way, you can see how doctrine, the whole body of doctrine is actually a meansof grace.
(54:30):
It's not just some
program for us to follow.
Because if it's a program for you to follow, then if you have any compassion at all,you're going to lighten up on the program, you know, or you're going to, or if you have
any sense at all, you're going to update the program.
And so it becomes, uh so doctrine becomes just simply another philosophy.
(54:58):
And so, so yeah, well that's, uh
That's good that you're...so you're in the middle of reading Walther's Law and Gospel, anduh you've been reading Scripture.
And are you...now, you've already told me this, but are you thinking about going toseminary someday?
(55:18):
Yeah, I think I don't know when but I figure well
It's kind of what I know.
I mean, I don't want to just say I'm going to be a pastor because everyone in my family isa pastor.
But when you're raised in that kind of context, it kind of becomes something that you'reconstantly thinking about.
(55:47):
You're always thinking about in theological terms.
Yeah, and I've had that thought too.
I grew up as a pastor's kid and I've had those thoughts like, well, maybe there's nothingelse that I could do.
um I didn't learn how to do anything else.
ah But that's...
First of all, that's not really true.
(56:09):
mean, you're taught a whole bunch of other things.
You're taught how to...
I mean, you can read and write, right?
And you need to be able to do that stuff anyway as a pastor, but those are valuable skillsfor anything else.
But those kinds of thoughts though can easily become very vain um because then it's justall about you.
(56:30):
mean, if you've been given that heritage of thinking theologically and talking theologyand wanting to be able to communicate the gospel and the full counsel of God, ah you've
been given that...
(56:51):
that heritage from listening to your parents talk growing up and both your grandpas anduncles and relatives.
That's a great heritage to have.
That's just the heritage of a Christian.
Yeah, exactly.
Any Christian should have something like that.
(57:13):
Yeah.
And that's a wonderful gift.
And if that's what you want to pursue, that's a godly pursuit.
And we shouldn't feel bad about that at all.
We shouldn't feel inadequate.
ah because our adequacy is in Christ.
Even if God calls you to do something else, your adequacy is always in Him.
(57:40):
And that's something that I try to press on these kids who come to our camp, these boyswho come to the camp, is that most of you maybe won't be pastors, but my hope for you boys
is that you would grow to...
to love God's Word and speak it to your households.
(58:03):
uh that should drive our conscience and our hearts and our minds in everything that we douh so that we would be standing secure on that solid rock of God's Word.
So...
So now you're the oldest.
(58:26):
I'm gonna just ask you a little bit more about your family.
Now you're the oldest of course in your family.
Then you got sisters and you got brothers.
But got one of your siblings is in the United States right now too, right?
Yep.
Rolf, uh he's in Denver right now, Denver color.
(58:47):
He's in Denver and he is planning on going to seminary too someday, He's not entirelysure.
and I are a little similar in a similar boat.
uh We want to, but we just don't know.
We love the Bible, we love the scriptures, and I'd love nothing more than to teach that toother people, and he agrees, he's of the same mind.
(59:13):
uh But yeah, we're just kind of at a transition point in our lives right now.
um
um I think he is uh like of the mind that he'd want to teach and be a pastor one day too.
Yeah.
Right now he's interested in like he told me like a couple weeks ago he's interested inlike getting an electrician's apprenticeship or something so he might try to learn some of
(59:44):
those practical handyman skills.
Yeah.
Which would be great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so this is it.
It's interesting to hear this stuff from you, because like when I was when I was young,just with my brothers and me, most of us just kind of went right into in the seminary.
You know, we knew what we wanted to do, at least by the time we finished college.
(01:00:07):
A couple of us were, I think, like your uncle Paul was.
doing other stuff in graduate school and stuff before you went into...
And then, of course, Uncle Daniel didn't go into the seminary and he's raising a familyand raising them in the true Christian faith and making feed, is really good work.
(01:00:34):
And so, but of those of us who did go into seminary, was kind of like, it seemed for themost part, kind of like a straight line, but that's why I've been intrigued with talking
with you and Rolf, that you guys are just more kind of like, well, you know, we'll justkind of see where things go, and you've just kind of taken your time, and I think there's
something good about that, uh that you're able to...
(01:00:58):
you're able to uh just take it easy and not be in such a rush.
um And I've noticed that maybe with your generation, um that uh there is a kind of, a lotof you guys are able to just sort of sit back and, you
(01:01:22):
you're very motivated.
mean, you're learning Norwegian and uh you're interested in theology and yet you're ableto just kind of explore your options and not have to uh make a quick decision right now.
So anyway, well, um I just thought it would be fun to have you on and talk a little bitabout where you're at.
(01:01:49):
uh
And we hope that those who are listening to this uh are edified by our conversation andwe'll have to have you on another time.
uh
I watched the podcast.
I've watched several episodes of this podcast, so it's it's kind of cool to like, one ofthe cool guys.
(01:02:15):
Cool guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, who is the last cool guy we had on here?
A pastor of Will Susan.
Yeah.
He's the coolest.
Yeah.
need to see that Michael Knowles response that you did.
yeah, yeah, yeah, about about whether we are justified by by faith and works, whetherwhether you should want to go to heaven, which of course you should want to go to heaven,
(01:02:42):
but your good works don't get you to heaven.
it should be pretty basic stuff.
So, yeah.
Well, thanks for being on today, Hans.
And it's been nice having you around and.
We'll we'll have maybe we'll have you on in the future and uh Maybe dive a little bitdeeper into some of the stuff that that you've been reading and researching on and and
(01:03:06):
Yeah, that'll be fun.
Yeah So thanks for listening to Christendom and the world.
I am your host pastor Andrew price Please like and subscribe and share this content if youare willing and join us next time for another episode of Christendom and the world
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