The Crossings Blog

In the last paragraphs above I’ve been signalling questions that I’d like to talk about with GKPB pastors and leaders. But there’s been no real opportunity for that in our time here. I’ve met four of the (I think) five people at the top of the church’s administration, but ...

Dear Folks, Ed and Marie have left Bali and are on their way to Australia. This week’s THTH is Ed’s review of this book about the history of the church in Bali and next week will be some of his thoughts about that church after three months in its midst. Peace, Robin Douglas G. McKenzie (in association with bishop ...

Dear Folks, Here is a “tourist’s” primer in Balinese religion that Ed and Marie copied from a local English weekly newspaper and a few American thoughts (mostly mine) thereunto. Peace, Robin HINDU DHARMA: An Introduction to Balinese Belief and Worship Hindu Dharma, the religious belief system of Bali, governs all activities of the daily life of the Balinese. The three ...

Today’s Thursday Theology about the state of Christianity in Japan comes to us from two sources: Richard Leigh lives and works here in St. Louis and is a student at LST (Lutheran School of Theology). He is part of a discussion forum list on the proposition “That They May Be One,” moderated by Charles Miller, who wrote ...

“Power in the Blood? The Cross in the African-American Experience” by JoAnne Marie Terrell (Orbis Books, 1998) is an exposition of the development of a womanist theologian (Terrell herself) through a historical exploration of the meaning of the Cross and the Atonement. Terrell’s definition of a womanist theologian is a theologian who is a woman ...

Ed and Marie have island-hopped from Bali to central Java for this week, following up on invitations from the president of the Asian Christian Artists Association in Yogyakarta, Judo Poerwowidagdo, and from Nancy Johnson and Steven Haggmark, ELCA exchange professors at the Christian University in Salatiga. He sent me this before they left. A Book Review ...

Colleagues, Once before a thoughtful response from nephew Tim Hoyer, ELCA pastor, to these Thursday postings generated another edition of ThTh. Well, its happened again. Read on.  Cheers! Ed Tim, Two postings I have from you, each with enuf questions to exhaust the small handful of answers I have lying around the Bali parsonage these days. You ask: “What is the ...

Colleagues, Christians are 1% of the population of Bali. That’s 30K of 3 million. In that “little flock” we’ve come to know two artists, Ketut Lasia and Nyoman Darsane. These superb craftsmen do their daily work “crossing” Balinese painting and sculpture with the Christian Gospel. One of Lasia’s bas reliefs welcomes worshippers at “our” church here ...

Colleagues. After this 2-paragraph personal prolegomena, the real theology follows. [Journal entry for Aug. 12, 1999 Yesterday’s solar eclipse is followed (so tells us BBC’s “World Service”) by today’s 50th anniv. of the Geneva Conventions for conducting decent wars. I wonder about a connection. To wit, the eclipse (even total?) of what glowed in Geneva a half century ...

Colleagues, Background — In the run up to Seminex’s 25th anniversary gathering (St. Louis , June 1999) we learned of the death of Makoto Mizuno, director of another seminary in exile, this one in Japan. These folks called themselves “Aoyama Seminex” to signal their linkage with us after they were deposed from Aoyama Gakuin, a university of the ...