Colleagues, Pastors all around the world are beset at the moment with the heaviest preaching burden of the year. The great majority of them have a minimum of three key messages to deliver, one today on Maundy Thursday, the next tomorrow on Good Friday, the third on Easter Sunday. Each is different in character. Each cuts to the …
Lenten Disciplines
In today’s Thursday Theology, Jerry Burce muses on recent trends in Lutheran approaches to Lent, contrasting them with old approaches to the season. Peace and Joy, Carol Braun, for the editorial team Colleagues: I wrote last week that I was going to pass along some thoughts about the habit, now current among the Lutherans I know, of encouraging …
The “Heart Disease” of Self-Referential Faith
Colleagues, I was planning to write today’s offering, but time ran out. Look for it next week, when I’m going to raise a question or two about whether pastors and churches are well-advised to tout the classic disciplines of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving as the thing for folks to concentrate on during Lent. I think not, at least …
Discipleship in the Lutheran Tradition, Continued
Colleagues, Herewith the second installment of Robert Kolb’s exploration of Lutheran thought and practice in matters pertaining to the development of the conscientious Christian. We broke off the tale last week in the latter part of the 16th century. Today Bob ushers us through the 17th century and into the 18th, introducing us along the way to some …
Discipleship in the Lutheran Tradition
Colleagues, If “mission,” our general theme for these past many weeks, is a hot topic in the church at large these days, so is “discipleship.” It stands to reason. The one requires the other. Who can be sent—missioned, if you will—unless they know what the sending is for and are ready to serve the one who sends them? …
Mission in the Secular American Academy
Colleagues, Last week we heard a pastor, Mark Greenthaner, reflect on his work in Australian Lutheran schools that embrace the mission of Christ as a defining characteristic of their identity. This week’s offering is a counterpoint of sorts to Mark’s observations. The author, our own Carol Braun, is a lay polymath whose vocation as teacher unfolds in a …
1) Think Christ. 2) Rethink Church
Colleagues, We have two items for you this week. First, yesterday was Ash Wednesday. Forty years and five days ago the late, great Robert W. Bertram graced a chapel service at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, with a stunning little homily entitled “Pardon My Dying: A Sequel to Ash Wednesday.” If you don’t know it, click on the hyperlink …
Football Theology
Colleagues, Call me un-American. I’ve never been enthralled by U.S.-style football, and the older I get the more my interest in it, such as it ever was, continues to fade. So when I joined the mass of the citizenry in attending to the super-doings two Sundays ago it was mainly to check out this year’s crop of million-dollar …
Response to John Roth’s “How to Disagree Well”
Disagreement within the Church is nothing new. About a month ago (ThTheol #708) we reprinted a five-minute election speech by the Rev. Dr. S. John Roth, who currently serves as bishop of the ELCA’s Central/Southern Illinois Synod. In his speech, Roth discussed what it means to “disagree well.” This week we return to that theme. Our writer is …
Mission in Mark, Part 3
Colleagues, This week’s Thursday Theology brings the third and final installment of “Mission in Mark” by Pastor Paul Jaster (Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Elyria, Ohio). In it, Paul walks us through the rest of Holy Week in Mark’s gospel, from the “riddles” and parables of Holy Tuesday through terror and amazement of the women at the tomb on Easter …