Colleagues,Pastors both in the LCMS and ELCA who consider themselves conservative are rallying around Robert Gagnon as their theological guru to fight the liberals in both churches on the hot potato of homosexuality. And Gagnon isn’t even a Lutheran. Even more amazing is that his lenses for reading the Bible are anti-Luther. But he knows that God abominates …
Some Reverie Brought on by Renate Bethge’s Bonhoeffer Book
Colleagues,Reviewing Renate Bethge’s book last week got old tapes turning. Here’s some anecdotage to go along with my dotage. Reverie #1 Renate is a personal friend. We met her and her late husband Eberhard when they visited Seminex a quarter century ago. Both of them were guest lecturers. Eberhard, as you may know, catalyzed the Bonhoeffer boom with …
Renate’s Bethge’s Book on Bonhoeffer – A Review
Colleagues:Here’s a new Bonhoeffer book for summer reading–or for any other season. Renate Bethge. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER. A BRIEF LIFE. Transl. K.C.Hanson. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004. 88 pp. Hardcover. $12.00. [German original: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Eine Skizze seines Lebens. Guetersloh Verlaghaus GmbH. 2004] It’s short. It’s different. For one thing the author, Renate Bethge (nee Schleicher), is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s niece. …
Deconstructing Missio Dei “in the Light of the Gospel.”
Edward H. Schroeder [Presentation given at the International Association for Mission Studies Conference, Balaton, Hungary, August, 2004] 1. Deconstruction is not destruction. I shall use the term as follows to 1) take apart a construct- -Missio Dei–to see how it is put together, 2) seek to identify the theology that is the “mortar” which holds the construct …
Is There a Hole in the Net of the “Word Alone Network?”
Colleagues, Is there a hole in the net of the “Word Alone Network?” Seems so to me. Evidence for that are the front and back pages of the recent “Network News” of May-June 2004. Back page is WAN’s Mission Statement; front page is WAN’s April convention resolution on “sexual life.”The texts on these two pages are in …
Faith in EXTREME Daily Life
In Thursday Theology #310 I invited you to send in a slice of life for us to “cross” as Ed and I had done with a slice of Faith Place life. One person took us up on that offer, Deaconess Patty Silva. Here’s her slice of life and my response.Robin Morgan Okay, Robin and Ed—what about this? …
Closure on Singapore–Well, Not Quite
Colleagues, This week’s posting is the report Marie and I recently sent to the Division for Global Mission of the ELCA on our work in Singapore in March, April, May this year. We served under the “Global Mission Volunteers” program of the DGM. A number of you on the Crossings listserve also “volunteered” to help pay for …
Two Conflicting Texts on the Fourth of July
Colleagues,Two contradictory texts got hyped in public in the USA on the Fourth of July. I noticed that out loud to Marie and she said: “Oh, Oh, I see a Curmudgeon Column coming for this week’s Thursday Theology.” Well, maybe. America’s Independence Day was on Sunday this year. Of the two “public” texts that got hyped that day …
Singapore Postscript II — Vietnam and Myanmar (once Burma)
Colleagues, Why try to re-invent the wheel? Marie keeps a journal on all our mission volunteer junkets. Here’s a scaled-down version of her 15 pages on our last two weeks in SE Asia, our visits to Vietnam and Myanmar. For both countries former students, all now pastors, had invited us to come and visit so they could …
Singapore Postscript I
Colleagues,We’ve been back home for six days. Jet-lag’s almost gone. Seems longer this time coping with the eleven-time-zones shift from Singapore to St. Louis. We must be getting old. Re-entry to the United States is a jolt–even for life-long citizens like Marie and me, now seventy-somethings, and after only 4 months away. It’s not just the politics. E.g., …