Post Archive by Year

It was February a year ago that Bob Sugden irrupted in our Fairbanks Text Study. For almost 25 years now, a group of deacons, pastors and priests have met on Wednesday mornings at 9:00 AM to study the texts for the rising Sunday. It is an eclectic group – but for the most part leaning toward the left …

Colleagues, At last fall’s Crossings conference, keynote speaker Mary Sue Dreier argued for the affirmative on the topic sentence above. Because of schedule crunch, there was little time for discussion, and what did ensue didn’t get to the issue that rankled Phillip Kuehnert. Before Mary Sue’s presentation Phil had done a “small-group” session where he was in effect …

[A PRE-SCRIPT. God willing, Marie and I will be travelling to Augsburg, Germany, this coming Monday (3.23) for a week-long conference sponsored by the Lutheran World Federation. Its theme is “Theology in the Life of Lutheran Churches: Transfomative Perspectives and Practices Today.” My contribution–you’ve heard it before–is titled: “LUTHERANISM’S CRYING NEED: A MISSION THEOLOGY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. …

Colleagues, Episcopalian and ELCA Lutheran pastors in Cleveland, Ohio, get together now and then for liturgy, listening and learning. Last week I was the Lutherans’ “offering” to their Episcopal colleagues for this spring’s “Lutepisc” gathering at Messiah Lutheran in the west-Cleveland suburb of Fairview Park. My assigned topic: “Our Common Conundrum: Reading the Bible in Mission to the …

Colleagues, Chris Repp, ELCA pastor in Carbondale, Illinois, and former theology professor at the Lutheran Seminary in St. Petersburg, Russia, keeps sending me stuff. To my delight. Here’s another one that is too good to keep just for myself. So it comes to you as this week’s ThTh post. Peace and joy! Ed Schroeder Review of David Rhoads, …

Colleagues, The current bishop of Rome stirred things up with his recent attempt to welcome a prodigal son back home. And he elicited response. National Catholic Reporter: “Another example of the danger of treating the lunatic fringe as lost sheep.” Then there was this exchange between Daniel Schorr, 92-year-old anchor on NPR, and Scott Simon–both of them Jewish–on …

Colleagues, Thirty-five years ago today, February 19, 1974, Seminex was born in St. Louis. [That date is also my brother Ted’s birthday. He was there too. We celebrate the two birthdays together ever since.] That “time for confessing” in Missouri, so says Bob Bertram in his book by that name, which led to an exile-seminary, was really about …

Colleagues, In this week’s ThTh offering, Crossings colleague Steve Krueger reviews a book by Ernest Werner. Ernest and I were together as students at Concordia Seminary in the early 1950s. I helped him get into trouble by publishing his article “Orthodoxy Against Itself” in the SEMINARIAN, our student theological journal at the sem. It was the last issue …

Colleagues, This may sound like a shaggy dog story, but don’t give up. There’s gold at the end of the tale. Richard Parsons (M.D.) and wife Rosalie (R.N.) enrolled in one of the earliest Crossings semester-long courses we offered. Must have been in the 1980s. Its title was “Bringing God’s Peace to Earth.” The Grounding text was Luke’s …