All Saints in Pasadena

There was a flurry of blogging several weeks back about the church in California that was being investigated by the IRS because its pastor had preached a sermon shortly before the election that questioned the values of the main candidates.

Part of the outrage stemmed from the clear hypocrisy of the IRS in going after a church that was reminding its citizens that they needed to worry about poverty, and its clear ignoring of all the right wing churches that were handing over membership lists to political parties. Whatever your feeling about the issue, the Journal of Lutheran Ethics has a neat set of pieces up this month that engage a variety of questions concerning the issues at stake. Definitely worth a read! (If you're finding this post after that set of issues is no longer on the front page of JLE, look for the "preaching portfolio article" by Kaari Reierson, or the December 2005 issue.)