I noticed that Augsburg Fortress has a new children's book on St. Nicholas forthcoming. As I leafed through it, I got quite irritated because the references were to Nicholas who was "pastor" of Myra. Now, granted that it is not totally illigitimate to transliterate the early Church's sense of bishop into a more modern sense of pastor, but really, by the fourth century, bishops were bishops and Nicholas was one of them (although the story they related - the story of Nicholas throwing dowry money down the chimney - is sometimes - but not always - placed at a time before he was bishop, so again...I guess you could tell it that way). But still..the whole thing struck me as vaguely deceptive, and somewhat puzzling since Lutherans have bishops, so what's the big deal?

On the bright side of children's books, Eerdmans (one of the best publishers of any religious material out there) has a nice line for the fall, which you can peruse here.

Correction: It's not Augsburg, it's Concordia. Still Lutheran.