Lutheran Essentials meets in the undercroft of the church on Wednesday evenings at 7pm. You can reach the undercroft by going around to the back parking lot of the church and descending the staircase to the kitchen. Knock on the door if it is closed and some one will let you in. Our current study is on “In Christ All Things Hold Together”. If you do not have a hard copy of the book we are providing it for free, as well as copies of the Book of Concord and the Lutheran Service Book.
This week’s psalm is Psalm 78. The Small Catechism lesson is the Second Commandment.
We will be reading Chapter 2: Historical Context (pg. 52-71). We will read the Introduction (pg. 52-53) and will briefly talk about Aristotle’s four causes (for those who do not know much about Western Philosophy we have a primer here). We will then read about the attack on final causes and the decline of natural theology (pg. 53-59). We will then discuss the rise of autonomous reason (pg. 59-62) followed by the concept of the Newtonian world machine (pg. 62-64). We will then read about the rise of Naturalism (pg. 64-68) and science as a profession (pg. 68-69). We will finish up with discovering the roots of moralistic therapeutic deism (pg. 69-70) and concluding the chapter (pg. 71). We will close with the hymn “These Things Did Thomas Count as Real” (LSB 472).
As always new people are always welcome to this study at any point during the class. Please talk to the Pastor, Elders or Paul Edmon if you have any questions.
