Please Help Andrew Clover

Andrew Clover is a good and dear friend of mine who is trying to raise money to pay for a seminary education. He has been (in the past) a frequent commenter on Triablogue, and he was one of the writers (the first, in fact) who wrote with me at my Reformation500 blog.

He has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for this, and if you're inclined to do so, please help him out.

“This is my body” – thoughts on a “sacramental presence”

Andrew Clover

Andrew Clover provides some irenic commentary:

... Unfortunately there are certain important things that we have not historically agreed upon and we shouldn’t pretend those things don’t exist or don’t matter. They do matter and attempts to minimize the importance of certain doctrines will ultimately end in fruitlessness at best, or a sort a-doctrinal liberalism at worst. After all, true unity in the biblical sense can only exists around truth. And if we are not in agreement on what that truth is, then we don’t have unity in the full sense of the word….

When describing their view of the supper, Lutherans will almost invariably say something along the lines of “We take Christ at His word. When The Lord says ‘this is my body’ we acknowledge that it ‘is’ "His body.” It is a source of pride for the Lutheran, not pride in a sinful sense, that their theology doesn’t require them to change the words of institution or play logical and philosophical games or do mental gymnastics with the text. Often times the argument from a Lutheran is as simple as “Hey, is=is.” While I admire the approach to scripture that insists on letting the word speak and not making it say what it doesn’t, I believe that this claim to take Christ’s words literally while others do not is where the Lutheran argument falls on its own petard….

“Yes we can!” [go to hell]

Hell exists, and yes, some people will go there. That’s the not-so-happy conclusion of Andrew Clover, my new colleague over at my Reformation500 blog.

“We sin because we are sinners … We are guilty, all of us, of a cosmic mutiny; justice hangs over us like Damocles’ sword and we know it…”

“The true, biblical doctrine of Hell, and the correlating doctrines of our sinfulness and God’s righteousness and holiness, make the gospel shine with all the brightness and sweetness that it was meant to (Romans 9:22-23).”

This appears to be the first of a multi-part series on what he calls “an independent case for the biblical doctrine of Hell.”

In the not too distant past, I’ve mentioned Andrew’s Lutheran and Reformed Discussion Group on Facebook. Apparently, though, the Lutherans became too raucous for him, and he [the founder] dropped out of the group!

As Steve has said, it’s all about talent recruitment. So when Andrew told me he was leaving that group, I asked him if he would join me, discussing (I hope) the history and pre-history of the Reformation, and some of the ways that the various Protestant groups can be of service to one another and to the cause of Christ as we bring to mind some of the “500th” anniversaries that will be coming up over the next several years.

Andrew has been a good friend of mine for several years. He explored Roman Catholicism, and has ended up being a conservative Lutheran. Maybe over time he’ll tell us more about his journey and why he created, then left that Lutheran discussion group!