The Crossings Blog

Thursday Theology -full listing Crossings Film Series
  • Third Use of the Law–One More Time
    Colleagues,It wasn’t long after Luther’s death that his students started arguing about what the Meister had said about God’s law. Specifically its role in the life of the “regenerate,” folks now trusting Christ as Lord and Master. Actually the debate began before Luther died, but it blossomed post mortem. Bob Bertram, similarly Meister for many of ...
  • Jaroslav Pelikan and Roland Bainton–Just before Christmas
    Colleagues, D.v., on December 17, next Wednesday, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan will celebrate his 80th birthday. One of the super-whiz-kids to grow up in the Missouri Synod–in its “Slovak District”–Pelikan is now a member of the Russian-rooted “Orthodox Church in America.” That move to Orthodoxy was really no surprise. He always was a Slavophile. I know. He ...
  • Faith Place
    Dear Folks,Below is a compilation of two pieces about Faith Place, the new mission that we’re developing in the city of St. Louis. The first part is a theological reflection I wrote the day after Christ the King Sunday. The second and shorter part is a weblog entry I wrote the following week. Between the ...
  • Martin Marty’s SPEAKING OF TRUST. A Review.
    Colleagues, Today’s ThTh 285 comes from the hand of Albert J.Jabs, retired (well, not really) professor, Allen University and Limestone College, Columbia, SC. Al and I have some common bonds. We’re both graduates of Valparaiso University. Both septuagenarians born in November, though he just entered the 70s turf. Both with family roots going back to the ...
  • The Reformation. What was it all about?
    Colleagues, God willing, Marie and I will be out of the country when this week’s ThTh gets to you. And next week’s too. Costa Rica’s the place. San Jose the town. We have a niece there, Heidi Michelsen, erstwhile Lutheran deaconess and now an M.Div. and ordained ELCA pastor. Heidi’s husband Marco Ruiz is also a ...
  • Third Use of the Law and “Valparaiso” Theology – A Book Review (Part II)
    Colleagues, Here’s the final portion of Matt Becker’s review of “Law, Life, and the Living God: The Third Use of the Law in Modern American Lutheranism.” By Scott R. Murray. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002. 250 pages. Part I was posted last week as ThTh 282.Peace & Joy! Ed Schroeder Murray’s book offers inaccurate assessments of others, ...
  • Third Use of the Law and “Valparaiso Theology” – A Book Review (Part I)
    Colleagues, November 6, 1930 was the day I was born. So I’m 73 today–well beyond the Biblical 3-score-and-10. And this past year’s deaths of oh-so-many dear co-confessors–Bob Bertram, Curt Huber, Tim Lull, Marcie Childs, Jim MacCormick, Dick Jungkuntz, Walt Rast, Andy Weyermann–has been a memento-mori drumbeat for me. So for one more year, one more day–Thank ...
  • Proposal: When Jesus says: “That they may all be one,” he’s NOT talking about ecumenism.
    Colleagues, Here’s what prompted the heretical claim in the proposal above. It was this throw-away line from a big-name speaker last month at St. Louis University: “Remember, Jesus spoke Aramaic.” [His point was that the Greek New Testament, our closest contact to Jesus’s own words, is a translation. Jesus spoke Aramaic, the “pigeon”-Hebrew in the culture of ...
  • The God Question
    Colleagues, One of my Schroeder nephews, an M.D., has an associate who asks theological questions. Recently he sent me the last batch of such questions. He wasn’t actually asking for help, he said, but wondered what Uncle Ed might say. Here are the questions (the numbered paragraphs), and here’s what I said.Peace and Joy! Ed Schroeder The God ...
  • Book Review – J.A. Nestingen: MARTIN LUTHER: A LIFE
    Colleagues, For this week’s ThTh posting a book review.Peace and Joy! Ed Schroeder James A. Nestingen, MARTIN LUTHER: A LIFE. Minneapolis: Augsburg Books. 2003. 111 pp. Paper. $9.99 Nestingen has given us a winsome “Life” of Luther, presenting a complex figure in a conflicted era in a little over 100 pages. And it’ll play in Peoria. Illustrated with color photos ...