- Lenten Reverie. First Anniversary of Bob Bertram’s Death.
Colleagues,
For this first full week in Lent, GO to the Crossings to <www.crossings.org> and click on “More Literature – Robert W. Bertram’s.” Then click on “Pardon My Dying — A Sequel to Ash Wednesday,” a magnum opus from 1972. It’s already been a year since Bob died, the second week in March 2003. This week’s ...
- Mission Affirmations Run Through a Law-Promise Sieve
Colleagues,
Last month’s postings ThTh 291 and 292 featured the DAYSTAR conference in St. Louis at that time and the “Mission Affirmations,” the Missouri Synod’s ground-breaking mission manifesto of 1965. In ThTh 291 I did a bit of sifting through the MAs using the law-promise filter. Some aspects seemed good to me, some “needed a little ...
- Your Responses to recent ThTh Postings
Colleagues, PERSONAL ITEM
This week’s ThTh is the last one for a while that I’ll be confecting in St. Louis. After that, God willing, Marie and I will be 10 thousand miles away on the equator working with the Lutheran Church of Singapore. But I do have a couple ThTh postings already in the hopper to bridge ...
- Book Review of Martin Marty’s MARTIN LUTHER
Colleagues,
This week’s ThTh is Steve Krueger’s review of Martin Marty’s just-published biography of Martin Luther. A couple of weeks ago we passed on to you a sermon that Steve preached at the January DAYSTAR conference. From this review you’ll see the same law/promise theology at work which grounded that sermon. That’s one reason I pass ...
- Your God is Too Small
Colleagues,First off some corrections on ThTh 293 a fortnight ago, “Seminex at Thirty. Random Ramblings for an Anniversary.” Senectitude triumphed over rectitude. There were three errors that I know of.
I forgot Carl Volz’s name in the roster of the dear departed. Here’s how the paragraph should have read:Of the 38 faculty folks who walked “off,” ...
- John Tietjen’s Sermon on Confessing Christ
Colleagues,
ThTh 294 is a sequel to ThTh 293’s reflections on Seminex’s 30th birthday. On Sunday of that January week in 1974 John Tietjen was suspended from his office as President of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and the labor contractions began that birthed Seminex. This year on that same Sunday John preached in the congregation where ...
- Seminex at Thirty. Random Ramblings for an Anniversary
Colleagues,Thirty years ago this week, on January 20, 1974, John Tietjen was sacked as president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. In the agonized history of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod it was a long time coming. But when it happened, Seminex started moving through the birth canal. That passage took 28 days. And ...
- “Lord, Bless This Mess, Please!” A Sermon at the Daystar Conference
Colleagues,
Last week’s ThTh #291 concluded with something like this: I’ve been invited to the Daystar conference next week here in town. They want to remember and rehab the 1965 “Mission Affirmations” for implementation in the LCMS today. If I hear something that grabs me, and if I can get permission, ...
- The LCMS Mission Affirmations of 1965–Then and Now
Colleagues,Contrary to popular perception the LCMS is not a monolithic entity. Nor was it ever. Some say they were squabbling about doctrine before they even got off the boat in 1839. And it continues today even after the sweeping purge of “liberals” 30 years ago that created Seminex, and (tell it not in Gath) nudged ...
- 2004 Won’t be a Happy New Year in the USA, So Long As . . . .
Colleagues,2004 won’t be a Happy New Year in the USA — as long as we’re still in denial.
Background:
For the Sundays in December Fred Danker and I have been Bible Class leaders at our parish church here in St. Louis. Fred, as some of you know, is the world’s superstar lexicographer for the Greek New Testament. ...
