The Crossings Blog

Thursday Theology -full listing Crossings Film Series
  • From a Crossings Colleague in Beirut, Lebanon: “How the Israel-Palestine Conflict Looks from Here.”
    Colleagues, Art Preisinger and wife Mitzi are in Beirut, Lebanon this semester. They’re at Near East School of Theology as ELCA Global Mission Volunteers. Art’s teaching church history. Mitzi’s also doing useful work. Art and I were classmates in seminary days. I asked him for something that I could pass on to the listserve readership. ...
  • The Church’s Authority and Homosexuality
    Colleagues, This is the last ThTh posting coming from New Haven, Connecticut. Next Thursday, d.v., Marie and I hope to be home in St. Louis. Our spring semester tour of duty here at the Overseas Ministries Study Center is over. It’s a bit too soon for a retrospective summary. Yet today’s posting is a piece of ...
  • Richard John Neuhaus, A Mystery No More [Part 2]
    Colleagues,In the ...
  • Richard John Neuhaus, A Mystery No More
    Colleagues, Richard John Neuhaus has been a conundrum–especially so to many of his fellow Lutherans in North America when he “swam the Tiber” twelve years ago and became a Roman Catholic. But he has unscrambled the puzzle for the perplexed in the lead article of “his” journal FIRST THINGS, April 2002 [also available at ...
  • A Tribute to Irmgard Koch
    This past Friday, the matriarch of the Crossings community went on to her glory. Irmgard Koch, beloved teacher and friend to so many, was part of Crossings from the very beginning. She took every class, pressed Bob and Ed to invent more courses so she could continue taking them and even coined the phrase “God-sized ...
  • Jesus Through Jewish Eyes
    Colleagues, Someone asked: Why don’t you send us any of the stuff you’re doing at the Overseas Ministries Study Center this semester? I have been working on mission themes. One product is an expanded essay on Luther’s preaching on the so-called Great Commission. Another is a 34-page study book for my seminar running here this week. ...
  • Just how good is the theology of GOD BLESS AMERICA?
    Colleagues, This posting consists of two responses to the omnipresent mantra in US national theology for these past 7 months: God bless America. The first is from Gary Dixon, an associate minister from downunder in the Lutheran Church of Australia. The second one, brought to my attention by Steve Hitchcock, comes from a recent issue of ...
  • Christian reports on the Israeli Invasion of Palestine
    Colleagues, I’m torn between a number of options for this week’s posting. The horror-stuff we just received (April 3) from our Lutheran friends in Bethlehem. Telling you about our weekend in New York City (Maundy Thursday through Easter) with four liturgies, sermons by 2 bishops–one Episcopal (Griswold), one Lutheran (Bouman)–the Easter parade on 5th Avenue, plus 2 operas ...
  • Creation Spirituality – an Other Gospel
    Colleagues, Once each semester the community here at the Overseas Ministries Study Center joins the Maryknoll Sisters, a Roman Catholic mission order an hour’s drive west just across the border in New York state for a week of study together. It’s home and home. So two weeks ago we went to their place. The Maryknoll campus ...
  • Prayer and Providence
    Colleagues, Every now and then during the academic semester here at the Overseas Ministries Study Center we have no formal classes for a given week, but do a “reading week.” Last month we read and discussed the book listed below. Review addict that I am, I put my input down on paper.Since this was written, one ...