The Crossings Blog

Co-missioners, Today is the fourth Thursday in November. For readers who aren’t American, we mention that this is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. It was established as a national observance in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War was raging at the time; bodies were still being buried at Gettysburg. Lincoln issued his thanksgiving proclamation ...

Co-missioners, We’re not surprised that last week’s post prompted a couple of quick rejoinders from readers steeped in Lutheran confessional theology. The post’s author, Ron Roschke, is steeped in this theology too. You’ll discover this in today’s second part of his reflection on Romans Disarmed, the book he invites us to consider. We thank him heartily ...

Co-missioners, We are “justified by faith.” What does this mean? The classic Lutheran answer to this Luther-style question is up for grabs these days in mainline Protestant circles. This includes much of the ELCA, where the term “justice” is replacing “justification” as the focus of teaching and proclamation. This shift is due in part to New Testament ...

Co-missioners, Tuesday was Reformation Day on the Lutheran church calendar. Today we send you the first of three posts that will either echo its themes or address them directly. They’ll also point you to a pair of new and useful additions to your reading lists. Speaking of lists, here’s an item for the one labeled “To Do.” ...

Co-missioners, We send you a reflection from our editor today. We add a reminder about the Crossings Seminar at the end of January. The topic is preaching, or to put this more sharply, about delivering the goods that God in Christ wants people to use and enjoy. Registration is now open. See the Crossings website. We hope ...

Co-missioners, Our gift today is a text study that was supposed to reach you two Sundays ago. It didn’t. It couldn’t. We sent you news on Tuesday of Lori Cornell’s battle with cancer. Lori had been editing our text studies for over twenty years. She had begun her usual work on the one below a few ...

Co-missioners, Today we send you the second half of Fred Niedner’s essay on “the sweet swap.” And again we add our hope that you’ll be able to join us at the end of January to hear Fred in person along with other gifted presenters, all of whom who will push to us think more sharply about ...

Co-missioners, For the past six weeks we’ve been reviewing the core insights of the Lutheran reformation as presented by Philip Melanchthon in Article IV of the Apology, his defense of the Augsburg Confession. Now our focus shifts to the matter of putting these insights to work in 2023 for the benefit of God’s church and God’s ...

Co-missioners, The year was 1530. That’s when leaders of the incipient Lutheran movement confessed their faith at the Diet of Augsburg and prompted the hostile reaction that drove Philip Melanchthon to pen the counter-response we’ve been poring over these past five weeks. The very title of the response flashes an instant signal of the distance between ...

Co-missioners, The end is in sight. Paul Jaster will walk us today through Philip Melanchthon’s rebuttal of his opponents’ claim that he and his fellow-confessors have either made a hash of key Biblical texts or ignored them completely. God says a person needs more than faith in Christ to wind up justified—so the opponents argue. “Think again,” ...