- Gnosticism and Legalism
Colleagues,
ThTh #423, the posting 2 weeks ago, “Tranquebar Tercentenary Celebration – Ziegenbalg Arrives in India 1706” concluded:
“Whether in goatskin the real legacy was the same: ‘Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.'”
After I shipped it off, I kept thinking about that last sentence. ...
- The St. Louis Bonhoeffer Conference, July 19-21, 2006
Colleagues,
My first thought was to start this post with a different focus. As Hezbollah rockets continue to rain down on Haifa, and the Israelis continue to retaliate throughout Lebanon, I checked a topographical map of Israel and Lebanon to get some clarity. When I zeroed in on Haifa, I got more than I wanted.
Haifa is ...
- First Lutheran Missionary in India–Arrived 300 years ago (July 9, 1706)
Colleagues
“Lutheran Missionary’s Legacy Hailed at Tranquebar Tercentenary Celebrations in India Seminar, International Consultation, Look at Past and Post-Modern Mission Challenges”
That was the headline on the press release coming from the Luth. World Federation on Tuesday. Here is the full text.
GENEVA, 18 July 2006 (LWI) Tribute was paid to the legacy of the first Protestant missionary ...
- A Sermon Commending Repentance
Colleagues,
“Summertime. And the livin’ is easy.” So goes one of the American classics in George Gershwin’s opera PORGY AND BESS. Well, it really was not “easy” at all in the hardscrabble life of Porgy and Bess alongside Old Man River–even though “the fish were jumpin’ and the cotton was high.” But for this pensioned retiree, ...
- Talitha Kumi in the Cuckoo’s Nest
Colleagues,
I was asked to be guest preacher on July 2 at an ELCA congregation here in St. Louis. Not because I’m noted for “Fourth-of-July” homilies, but because the pastor, with away-from-home holiday already booked for the nation’s 230th birthday, was desperate to find anybody who would say yes. So I said it.
But I didn’t know ...
- The Holy Gust on Skid Row–But Hardly a Surprise
Colleagues,
Brian Heinrich has been on these cyber-pages before. of Vancouver, British Columbia. Brian’s a native Canadian, Seminex-grad (’83), my Teaching Assistant at that time ...
- American Society of Missiology, Annual Meeting 2006
Colleagues,
This past weekend for the umpteenth time I was north of Chicago at Techny Towers (RC retreat center) for the annual meeting of the American Society of Missiology .
I want to tell you about the weekend.
There are 400 or so members in the ASM. They span the ecumenical denominational rainbow. The society was consciously crafted ...
- Cross-winds at Pentecost
Colleagues,
All the “paid pastors,” and the intern too, at Bethel Lutheran (St. Louis) were attending our ELCA synod assembly on Pentecost last (June 4). So Sunday service leadership was handed over to two goldie oldie retirees, octogenarian Karl Boehmke (celebrant) and 70-something Ed Schroeder (preacher). We added 40-something Sherman Lee to make a troika, and ...
- The Trinitarian Dogma
Colleagues,
This coming Sunday is the Festival of The Holy Trinity. Herewith some random reflections.
There is a LCMS congregation here in St. Louis whose offical name is “Saint Trinity Lutheran Church.” Usually saints are human beings. This time it’s the deity. The current pastor explains the curiosity this way: in the late 1800s a Concordia Seminarian, ...
- Earthquake in Yogyakarta
Colleagues,
Marie and I have dear friends in earthquake-devasted Yogyakarta, Java, friends from our earlier Mission Volunteer days in Indonesia. The folks we know there are with the ACAA, the Asian Christian Art Association–Judo Poerwowidagdo (ACAA president), his wife Timur, and Marthen Tahun, prime-mover for producing IMAGE, the association’s quarterly journal. We’ve been members almost from ...
