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Even More Korby Gems
Jul 17, 2006 07:11:23
| Even More Korby Gems | |
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Petersen Posted on: Jul 17, 2006 07:11:23 |
Rev. Tom Fast writes: "Kenneth Korby was the finest pastor and pastoral theologian I have ever heard. We have lost a great voice for evangelical catholic practice." He also provided more qems. Here they are. A quote found in my notes from a class on Holy Absolution I took at CSL back in the summer of '92. This is the shortest, and the sweetest, definition of pietism I have ever encountered. "Pietism----the shift of authority from the Word of God to the experience of the Word of God." ++++ Some miscellaneous quotes from Korby's paper on Confession and Absolution delivered in 1966 to the English District Pastoral Conference of Greater Detroit: "How often the lives of Christian people are twisted by fear, infected with falsehood and deceit, sapped of all energy and joy because the constant failures, the continual lapses, pile up a burden grevious to be borne. Guilt is at work---whether we are conscious of it or not. Like barnacles on a ship it works its drag. It shoulders its way into every act and thought and word, distorting the relationships with God and people, and beclouding a true view of ourselves. Only God can smash through and liberate us. He has done this in His Son Jesus Christ---once and for all. To the Holy Congregation on earth God has given power to overcome sin and to liberate people from its debilitating effects. He makes the Church rich in its gifts so that the life of the Christian might overflow with joy, praises, and worship of Him, as the new people of God encourage and admonish each other. And yet how often these weapons of God are not properly used by us, and how much more often do those committed with the care of souls fail to use these gifts on the poor sinners they are authorized to serve! Instead, a whimpering loneliness, driving men to foolish longing to be in the inner-ring; a dull, gray and drab life, full of quiet desperation and indifference, all hold their fortified portion of the man's soul." - - - "We could go on at great lengths to give illustrations of the demands upon us if we are going to care for the souls of our people. I want to point out, however, enough only to show how people are to be trained to need private absolution for this soul-care. We must show our people how guilt breeds false values and fosters confusion as shown in the self-destructive drive for success, the abuse of sex, and drunkenness. Those of you who use confession, or have heard confession, can vouch for the intense distortion that mars the lives of surprisingly large numbers of people because of adultery and immorality. Wherever the flesh of man is, there is also the incessant activitiy of self-justification. Works-rightoeousness is the most native activity of the sinner, and you can't deal with this at long range. Private absolution, under the discipline and care of a pastor, gives the Church of the Augsburg Confessoin opportunity to deal realistically with this most deadly problem. Bitterness and disappointment also take a heavy toll in peoples' lives, homes, and marriages. Its pressures cause enmity and irritability, severity and laxity, self-abuse in terms of self-accusation, and an atmosphere very hostile to the growth of faith and love. The soul clutched in the demands for vengeance is the one that needs the care of the liberating word spoken in pastoral care. And how many people both live in pain and cause pain by their loose tongue and indecision. Guilt drives them to excessive jabbering, sharp and bitter words which corrode and destroy mutual confidence as they lash out in foolishness, or as they are driven to a silence which in turn causes the guilt and resentment." - - - "The beginning must be made with the pastor himself. He must return to the use of private absolution because he feels the need of it and sees its benefits as gifts God desires to give him. Pride over knowledge, despair over failure, envy and the lust for success as defined by the world and the Statistical yearbook, shame because he knows he has said things in the pulpit that he would not say privately, duplicity and hypocrisy which have made him one kind of man to his own wife and children and another kind to his parishoners and Sunday School children, gossip and back-biting against the brethren, resentment at the low salary and abuse by his parish, injustice at the hands of others, lust and greed, discontent and grumbling, all these plus his laziness in prayer and study, shoddiness in work habits and preparation---give him an array of enemies that burden, twist and seek to destroy him. How shall the pastor be set free---just to be a Christian, and then as a pastor to carry the burdens of others? He needs the repeated deliverance of absolution; he needs the salutary discipline of father confessor." ++++ Below is a quote from a paper Korby delivered to pastors back in 1975 to the Northern Illinois District Central Regional Pastoral Conference (the title is "The Key To The Renewal Of The Church Is The Office Of The Keys"). It sounds as if it needs to be delivered to the district and synodical conventions in the 21st century! "Currently we are engaged in a great deal of discussion about the church in mission. Concurrently there is discussion of the Christian life conceived under the title 'discipleship.' ....The 19th Century German pastor Wilhelm Loehe stated the nature of mission perhaps as well as it has ever been said, when he said, "Mission is nothing else but the one church of God in motion." The definition does not force us to choose between the church's outreach to non-Christians and the activity which has to do with her interior life. Rather, the definition affirms the fundamental union of both these activities. There is an unbroken link between worship as the interior activity of the church and evangelism conceived as its exterior outreach. My thesis is: 'The key to renewal of the church is the Office of the Keys." With this thesis we maintain both the sentness of the church and the discipline of the Christian community as a rescuing organism of love. We unite the work of the edification and nurture inseparably with the work of outreach to the non-Christians." ++++ One last quote. I cannot find the document this comes from. I hope I am not putting words into Korby's mouth, but these words have been stuck in my mind for many years. The quote may not seem too significant at first, but there's alot to be learned from it---at least for me. "Man's problem is not ignorance, but sin." |
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