Blog Mirror: Luther Classical College of Casper breaks ground on Casper’s first Lutheran college

 

Luther Classical College of Casper breaks ground on Casper’s first Lutheran college

A new development in Casper.

Lex Anteinternet: May 9, 1921 (and May 9, 1921). Resistance, murder and secret victories.

Lex Anteinternet: May 9, 1921 (and May 9, 1921). Resistance, murde...: 

May 9, 1921 (and May 9, 1921). Resistance, murder and secret victories.

Fr. Józef Cebula

In Poland, by this point in the war, the Germans were engaged in full scale repression of the Catholic Church, having banned adherence to it, including the administration of the Sacraments.  Fr. Józef Cebula outright ignored the ban, as many other Polish priests did, and was arrested and incarcerated in a concentration camp as a result.  There he continued to minister to the sick.  On this day he was tortured and shot.  He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1999.

While certainly understood by historians, the level of repression meted out to the Poles during the war, by the occupying Germans, was at an almost unimaginable scale.  Unlike the occupied lands to the south and west of Germany, the Germans didn't recognize Polish sovereignty after the defeat of the Polish army and ran the territory in a fashion that was effectively genocidal.  Post war many Germans would make the claim that they were unaware of the Holocaust, a claim that is dubious at best given the scale upon which it was conducted, but when combined with German official killings within the Reich and the murderous occupation of Germany's neighbor Poland, what Nazi Germany stood for couldn't be ignored except by somebody wishing to ignore it.

Somebody not ignoring it was German Sophie Scholl, who at this point in her short life was in a nursing training program, having not yet entered the University of Munich.  On this day, Scholl turned 20 years old.

Scholl, of course, had only two years to live as she'd shortly enter the University there which would take her on to be one of the founding members of the White Rose movement.  The movement has been celebrated as one of the few (although there are others) German resistance movements that formed during the war. Scholl was a devout Lutheran but there's a connection to the item above in that the movement's origins were sparked by Hans Scholl, her brother, having changed the focus of his studies from medicine to philosophy and theology due to the influence of Catholic men of letters, Otl Aicher and Carl Muth, whom he encountered at the university.  This openly drew Hans Scholl towards Catholicism and it also caused him to be drawn towards Aicher and Muth's anti Nazi views, which were based on their religious convictions. Hans Scholl would be instrumental in forming the group. While the group was not all Catholic by any means, and included one member who was Russian Orthodox, the Catholic religious themes were prominent.  The group took its name from a sermon by Bishop Von Galen, which addressed the evils of euthanasia.

Aicher survived the war and in 1952 married Inge Scholl, a sister of Sophie and Hans.  He is remembered for designing the lead graphic designer for the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Also on this day the British took an Enigma from the U110.

The captured U110.

Today in World War II History—May 9, 1941

Enigma machine captured

This meant that in the space of just two days the British had taken an Enigma machine and the codes for July.  They knew exactly what they had and indeed had been targeting German naval assets for this purpose.

On the same day, as can be read about above, the Franco Thai War ended in the Thai's favor, in a peace brokered by Imperial Japan, or perhaps effectively forced by it.

This too oddly has a 1921 connection as on this day in 1921 Crown Prince Hirohito, who of course would go on to become the Emperor, set foot in the United Kingdom, the first member of the Imperial Japanese family to do so.  He was touring Europe.

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Glenrock Wyoming

This photograph is a side view of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Glenrock, Wyoming.  This Missouri Synod Lutheran Church is obviously of modern architecture but I don't know its date.

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming

This is another Lutheran Church, this one from a different branch of the Lutheran faith, in east Casper, Wyoming.  The church is a modern architectural structure.  I'm unaware of when it was built, but it was likely in the 1960s.

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming.

This is Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Casper, Wyoming which is a North American Lutheran Church member.  This church is fairly modern, although I don't know the date of its construction.  Occupying a hill in east Casper, the church has an attractive external appearance.

Covenant Lutheran Church, Wheatland Wyoming

This is Covenant Lutheran Church in Wheatland Wyoming.

This church is a modified modern style church, featuring some traditional elements that recall Prairie Gothic style architecture, but which also is updated to a modern look contemporary for when it was built.  When that was, I'm not exactly certain of.

Grace Lutheran, Worland Wyoming

This is Grace Lutheran in Worland Wyoming.  Other than the name and the location, I'm afraid I can't provide any other details about this particular church.

St. Peter's Lutheran Church. Belfield North Dakota.

There are at least two Lutheran churches in tiny Belfield Montana, including this Prairie Gothic church.

First Lutheran Church, Watford City, North Dakota.

This Gothic style church is the First Lutheran Church in Watford City, North Dakota. The church was originally built in 1915, expanded in 1939, but destroyed in a fire in 1945.  The church was rebuilt in 1950.

St. Andrew's Lutheran Church and Campus Center, Laramie Wyoming

This is the Lutheran St. Andrew's Church and Campus Center in Laramie.  It's actually not very far away from another Lutheran church in Laramie, but presumably was built here to service the needs of Lutheran students at UW.

Christ Lutheran Church, Rawlins Wyoming

This is Christ Lutheran Church in Rawlins, Wyoming.

I don't know any of the details of this church, other than it rather obviously has modern architecture.

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Denver Colorado

The purpose of this blog is really to depict churches, not to comment on any one religion or church.   However, whenever you post photographs of varying churches, you are going to sooner or later end up getting into some sort of comment or controversy.

This is a photograph I took quite awhile back, 2012 in fact, and I never completed the post.  The reason is that I don't like to have a hand in creating confusion.  Whenever I post a photograph I always try to look the church up before I post the photo.  In doing that, I found St. Paul's entry to be very confusion at that time, 2012. 

What I found was that the church was Lutheran, and very obviously in the "liberal" Lutheran camp, but it offered a service that mirrored Catholic services.  It was pretty clearly angling for disaffected Catholics who had some reason that they were separating themselves from the Church but who missed what the Mass looked like.  That made me a bit queasy, well more than a bit queasy.

In finding this old photograph, I looked them back up and its more confusing than ever.  They have a Catholic Priest who is offering a Mass on Saturday nights while the Lutheran service is on Sunday.  The website claims that the community at the Church is Catholic and Lutheran and the website suggests, whether it means to or not, that there's no prohibition to the two faiths commingling without restriction.

Well, there certainly is, and neither the Lutheran or the Catholic Church take that position.

Rather, what the site cites to is a declaration by Pope Benedict some years ago that one of Martin Luther's statements was not inconsistent with Catholic belief, if properly understood.  

This gets into an entire really long area of discussion which I'm not going to go down. Rather, however, I'm noting this as this is a pretty old church, but frankly it fits into a certain "liberal" Christian set of beliefs that does not define either faith in the main.  And this stands to be deceptive, particularly for people who are travelers.  If a Church stands in opposition to the main body of its faith, or if it is on the fringe of it, it ought to just flat out state that.  After all, even the two very close "lungs" of the Apostolic Churches, the Catholics and the Orthodox, do not seek to hide their differences from each other.  The "Anglican Catholis", who use the Catholic name as part of their identify, are very blunt on their websites and statements that they are not in union with Rome and do not purport to be Roman Catholic Churches. 

I'm not saying that deception is intentionally being engaged in here, and I'm not commenting on the licitly of the Masses (about which I know nothing), but I am saying that when people take a view that's out of the mainstream on things, they'd do well to note that, least they create problems for others.  In matters of religion, for the Faithful, this is not a small matter.

I'm going to go ahead and post the photo of this church here.  But in doing so, I'm frankly going to note that there's another Catholic Church that's clearly in the Catholic mainstream, right downtown, just a couple of blocks away.  That church, Holy Ghost, is unquestionably Catholic and,  like this Lutheran Church, it also has a very well known social mission, that being to the poor.  I don't know where the nearest Lutheran church is, but I'd note it if I did.

Seward Memorial Methodist Church (and Resurrection Lutheran church), Seward Alaska

This is a Methodist Church in Seward Alaska.  Other than that, I can't relate anything else about it including age, etc.  Resurrection Lutheran Church, which I didn't otherwise photograph, is visible immediately behind it.

Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming

Our Savior's Lutheran Church is on the same block as the First Baptist Church, also pictured on this blog. This is the smallest of the downtown churches, with an interior area that is relatively small in this traditionally styled church.

The church was built in 1950, one year after the First Baptist Church on the same block. This construction is late compared to other downtown Casper churches.

In 2014 this church added a sculpture, as part of a Boy Scout Eagle Scout project which is a Maltese Cross if viewed from the side, but is the Ichthys symbol if viewed straight on. Very nice addition.

Many years ago I defended a lawsuit in which a bicyclist was injured when the cap came off of his mountain bike shocks while riding down the stairs that are on the back of this church. The defendant was a bicycle shop, not the church.

Updated:  December 7, 2014.

Zion Lutheran Church, Laramie Wyoming

This is Zion Lutheran Church in Laramie Wyoming.

St. Paul's United Church of Christ, Laramie Wyoming.

This is St. Paul's United Church of Christ in Laramie, Wyoming, which was originally founded in 1886 as Deutsche Evangelische Lutherische St. Paulus Gemeinde.  It was originally a German speaking Lutheran Church, as the name indicates. It went through a series of denominational changes since its founding, and the last German language service was offered in 1932.

Lord of Lords Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming.

This is, admittedly, a terrible photograph, and I took it only because I happened to be walking by and got this odd view of this particular church.  Normally, given the modern architecture, I probably would not have taken this photograph of this south Casper Lutheran Church, which is in a neighborhood which is about to overtake its previously rural setting.

The photograph really doesn't do it justice, as this is not the normal view of this church.

St. Philip's Catholic Church & ELCA Peace Lutheran Fellowship, Basin Wyoming

A few photographs below I had a photo of a combined Presbyterian and Methodist congregation in Thermopolis Wyoming, and here we have an example of a Church that serves, or at least at one time served, both Lutheran and Catholic congregations.  This is St. Philip's Catholic Church in Basin.  Dual congregations like this are unusual, but not completely unprecedented. St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Casper, for example, at one time also served the Greek Orthodox community there prior the Greek Orthodox Church in Casper being built.  This one is a bit more unusual as it served Catholic and Protestant congregations.  Apparently right now no Catholic masses are being offered here, however, and the Catholic community is being served by the nearby church in Greybull. 

Sometimes churches are extraordinarily hard to photograph because of external features, and this one fits that category.  The very large pine trees in the front make photographing this church a difficult task and this photograph is not the best.

Immanuel Lutheran Church, Sheridan Wyoming

Grace Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming

This modern architecture Lutheran church arguably is outside of the architectural focus of this blog, but as the church is located on the edge of Casper's downtown district it is included for completeness.

This small church replaced an older, more traditionally styled church, several decades ago. I know very little about the church other than that I've been inside of it once to attend a wedding and it's surprisingly small. A class room type building adjoins it, and takes up much of the lot on which it sits.