The Crossings Blog

Thursday Theology -full listing Crossings Film Series
  • Being Like God’s Widow: Reflections on Freedom and the Stewardship of Money
    Dear Folks,Our Thursday Theology this week comes from Steve Kuhl, newly elected president of Crossings, Inc. and pastor of Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. FYI — Ed and Marie are back in St. Louis as of last Wednesday, but Ed is in the hospital as of yesterday. He has cellulitis and is on IV ...
  • Some Reflections on the Theology of Bishop I Wayan Mastra
    When Wayan Mastra, long-term bishop in the GKPB , confesses his faith, that confession is clear, crisp and Christocentric. His favorite way is to echo the words from Johns Gospel, Jesus own claim, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. When ...
  • What is Safe?
    This past weekend someone was raped in her college dorm room only a few doors from our daughter’s room. It wasn’t date rape, but middle of the night, stranger in the dark rape. It wasn’t our daughter, but another young woman who is also just taking her first steps toward adulthood and now has learned ...
  • Reflections on the Mango Tree Church
    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 ...
  • Book Review — The Mango Tree Church
    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 ...
  • A Balinese Religion Primer with American Commentary
    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 ...
  • Changes in Japan Today: Two Christian Perspectives
    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 ...
  • Book Review — “Power in the Blood? The Cross in the African-American Experience”
    “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 ...
  • A Book Review GRACE AT THE TABLE. ENDING HUNGER IN GOD’S WORLD
    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 ...
  • Tim’s questions (and Ed’s responses) about Christianity in Bali
    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 ...