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Jerry Shoots a Possum
Abstract: And the Sleeping Giant takes a fork in the road on the way to Houston.
On March 30, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) President Rev. Dr. Gerald Kieschnick spoke about, read excerpts from and signed readers' copies of his new book Waking the Sleeping Giant at the Concordia Historical Museum at the LCMS International Center in St. Louis Missouri.
In Waking the Sleeping Giant President Kieschnick shares "what is on my mind and in my heart as I consider the past and look toward the future, specifically of our church body, but in a general way also of Christendom as whole."
The sleeping giant metaphor doesn't get much beyond the chapter titles, but we think that The Sleeping Giant Chooses a Fork in the Road is worth the price of admission alone. (We do not know at this time if Yogi Bera collaborated with President Kieschnick on the book.)
The book appeared in January and critical reception has been mixed. Some reviewers take exception to President Kieschnick's claim that the LCMS can be unified on matters of doctrine in the absence of uniform practices in worship and the administration of the sacraments.
Our readers will be particularly interested in Chapter 7 (The Giant Matures and Leads - Leadership, Especially in Difficult Times) in which President Kieschnick recounts an anecdote from his youth (pp. 179-182). Arriving home from mid-week Lenten services, the family encounters a possum settled in on top of the President's mother's new washing machine in the garage. Jerry's father tells the 12-year-old Jerry first to retrieve his .22 and then to shoot the possum without damaging the washing machine. Jerry shot the possum. It's not clear who removed the carcass.
