Colleagues, This week’s post is a book review by Dean Lueking, who (surprise! surprise!) is also pictured on the graduating class photo of Concordia Seminary 1954 where I show up too. He’s now retired after a long term of service as pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, River Forest, Illinois. Dean has been involved in “world” Lutheranism for most …
Confessing the Faith on Confirmation Day
Colleagues, A few weeks ago we were out of town for the confirmation ceremony of 24 eighth-graders, one of them from the Schroeder clan. The congregation’s practice is to ask each confirmand to offer a personal confession of faith to the assembly in a Friday evening service before Confirmation Sunday. Each confirmand has an adult congregation member as …
Islamization and the Christian Gospel.
Colleagues, Jochen Teuffel, Lutheran pastor in Bavaria, Germany, has appeared before in ThTh postings. Most recent was earlier this year in ThTh 658 https://crossings.org/thursday/2011/thur012011.shtml Today’s ThTh post picks up a sticky wicket in German church life today. But also elsewhere in the “Christian” world. It appeared April 18 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. [FAZ is the NYT of Germany.] …
“All Done.” The Homily on the Occasion of George Hoyer’s Funeral
Colleagues, Last week Thursday (May 5) Marie and I were in Worcester, Massachusetts for the funeral liturgy of her brother George Hoyer. His two sons, pastors Peter and Christopher, conducted the liturgy as celebrant and homilist, respectively. For a number of you on this listserv George was teacher snd/or colleague. I have Chris’s permission to pass his proclamation …
Law-Gospel Theology and Family Life.
Colleagues, Instead of more mining in Werner Elert’s monograph LAW AND GOSPEL (hinted at in last week’s post), here’s a “crossing” of that law/gospel theology with a slice of life today. Well, not quite today, but 17 years ago (1994), when graduate student Graham Harms and guest lecturer Ed Schroeder were in the same place at the same …
Calvin/Luther conference at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, Minnesota)
Colleagues, Funny thing happened at the very end of the Luther-and-Calvin conference at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month. [If you want to see the full program, google Calvin Studies Society, and click on “colloquium.” Also to find out who the scholar is mentioned in the next sentence.] In the final session the speaker (the …
Baptismal Identity
Colleagues, Gloria Austerberry is a member of Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska. Today’s ThTh posting is her homily delivered there at last week’s midweek Lenten service. When she was baptized, the name given her was Gloria Lohrmann. Yes, her brother is Marcus Lohrmann, Lutheran bishop in Ohio, the author of last week’s ThTh 670. Good gospel theology …
The Bible and Me. A Bishop’s Tale.
Colleagues, Marcus Lohrmann is bishop of the ELCA’s Northwestern Ohio Synod. We’ve known each other since his seminary days in the 1970s. Later on he asked me to be involved in his doctoral degree program. Later still the two of us shared the high adventure of team-teaching in Hong Kong back in 1988. We worked with students at …
Anticipating Easter in a Eulogy during Lent
Colleagues, M. Douglas Meeks is a dear friend. In the days of Seminex he was teaching at Eden Seminary (UCC) here in town. Eden opened its doors to us when the doors shut at Concordia Seminary. We partnered in projects. Once during that time, when Doug was on sabbatical leave, Eden asked me to teach “his” course in …
The Crossings Curriculum of 1983-93 (Continued) with a Spinoff on Atonement Theories!
Colleagues, In response to last week’s show-and-tell about the Crossings courses of ancient days some of you (not a groundswell, but one did come from Mexico!) think the Crossings board should think about making some of these courses available online. Crossings prez Steve Kuhl says it’s on the agenda. That got me snooping through the one file-cabinet drawer …