Thoughts of a Manger

Colleagues, On December 1, with arms full of greenery for the family Advent wreath, my sister-in-law Linda Schroeder was walking back across the street from the garden shop to get to her car. That’s all she can remember. Witnesses say she was struck by a hit-and-run driver (who a day later did “turn himself in.”) The orthopedic …

Christmas 2000 in Bethlehem

Colleagues, Two years ago a dozen or so of us Crossings folks celebrated Christmas in Bethlehem. Our “home” during those days was the guest-house of the Talitha Kumi school in nearby Beit Jala. It’s mentioned in the final paragraph below. So the people and places mentioned below are woven into our own biographies. I receive messages almost …

Reflections on the Message of the Advent Season

Colleagues, Here’s something for Advent. It’s the Pastor’s Piece in the December 2000 newsletter from Mt. Olive Evangelical Lutheran Church, Mukwonago, Wisconsin. That pastor, Steven Kuhl, also wears a couple of other hats. He represents the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the ELCA on the Council of Churches, does some teaching at nearby St. Francis Archdiocesan Seminary, is …

Roman Catholic – Eastern Orthodox Rapprochement

Colleagues, Paul Goetting, like me, is a retired ELCA pastor with LCMS roots. We were classmates in seminary days–class of ’55–and teaching colleagues at Seminex. Paul and wife Trudy (nursing instructor–specialty midwifery) have been short-term missionaries off and on for a number of years. Their venues of service include India, Afghanistan (in earlier days when that was …

The Enlightenment That Won’t Go Away: Modernity’s Crux

 Robert W. Bertram [Printed in Zygon, vol. 35, no. 4 (December 2000). Reprinted with permission from Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/zygo/35/4]   Abstract. The Critical Process unleashed by the Enlightenment and endlessly resharpening itself to this day has mortally wounded the God of Deism, maybe also of theism, even of Christianity. A temptation of Christian theology is to retreat …

Crossings Theology: Roots and Branches

Colleagues, The posting of 2 weeks ago, ThTh 127, linking the lectionary-appointed Gospel for Thanksgiving Day 2000 (in the USA) to theological instruction at Valparaiso University forty-plus years ago, elicited some responses. Here are three of them. You may remember that ThTh 127 reported on the “new curriculum” [New Testament Readings, aka NTR] at V.U. in the …

A Book Review on “Proclaiming the Scandal.”

Colleagues, Today’s offering, on Thanksgiving Day (USA), expresses my thanks for the gift Jerome Burce has given us with the book reviewed below. As you’ll divine beginning with my opening line, I commend it to you with no reservations. Peace & Joy! Ed Schroeder PROCLAIMING THE SCANDAL. REFLECTIONS ON POSTMODERN MINISTRY By Jerome E. Burce Christian Mission …

A Crossing for Thanksgiving Day 2000

Colleagues, By popular demand (well, actually one Crossings junkie explicitly asked for it) I’m composing a Crossings style text study of this year’s Gospel (Revised Standard Lectionary) appointed for the USA Day of Thanksgiving, a week hence on November 23, 2000. So substantively this Thursday Theology #127 belongs to the genre “Sabbatheology” (=text studies). But Thanksgiving in …

Being Threshed by a Real Comer (Luke 3:7-18)

Luke 3:7-18 (Advent 3) Analysis by Robert W. Bertram [A “Crossings” presented at the Sebring Seminar, Sebring, Cape Coral Florida, November 14, 2000.] John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin …

Bulldozed by Baptism: The Better to See You With

 Advent 2 (Luke 3:1-6) Robert W. Bertram [A “Crossings” presented at the Sebring Seminary, Cape Coral, Florida, November 14, 2000.] In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituracea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler …