The Crossings Blog

From Robin Morgan– Since last week Ed and I were, for the most part, less than complimentary about the “dead stones” of the Holy Land, this week I’d like to turn to one of the “Living Stones” of Palestine whom we met. As far as I can tell, if there is any temporal hope in that ...

Colleagues, We got back from our 2-week pilgrimage in Palestine and Israel–all 26 of us–just in time for Epiphany worship at home. Four “goldie oldie” Crossings people were in the bunch along with a kaleidoscope of relatives and friends and friends of friends–some Germans, mostly Americans. Age span: from a 20-year-old college Joe to two eighty-something ...

Colleagues, Within hours of this posting Marie and I, d.v., will be on our way to the Holy Land to celebrate Christmas in “the city of David called Bethlehem.” We’re in a group of 27 folks, many of them friends or relatives–some from the USA, some from Germany. Our hosts in the Holy Land will be ...

Colleagues, ThTh 29 is an Advent gift from the past. Forty-five years ago–summer semester 1953–Bob Schultz, Dick Baepler and I were students at Erlangen University in Germany. Werner Elert was one of our profs. After class one day he invited us “Missourians” to come over to his home on a Sunday afternoon for “Kaffee und Kuchen.” ...

Seventy “younger” Lutheran theologians, most of them from the two-thirds world, travelled at the invitation of the Lutheran World Federation to Wittenberg, Germany, at the end of October this year to talk about the Implications of Justification in the Many Contexts of Today’s World. On the last day of their meeting, Reformation Day, the 31st, ...

From my last couple of issues reviewing “The Promise of Lutheran Ethics,” it might appear to some of you that I’m on a vendetta against the law, even against the ...

Colleagues, ThTh 26 continues some comments on the contents of: THE PROMISE OF LUTHERAN ETHICS, Karen L. Bloomquist & John R. Stumme, eds. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1998. vii, 247, paper. . Three weeks ago (ThTh 23) I noted how frequently the essays in this volume claim the Ten Commandments as foundational for Lutheran ethics. For authors claiming to ...

Colleagues, Last week’s ThTh 24 essay prompted this inquiry from Scott Jurgens, Seminex alum (’80), currently pastor at Christ Lutheran Church in Odessa, Washington USA. By the time I finished responding to Scott’s items, it occurred to me that I had also produced ThTh 25. So here it is for this week’s offering. If nothing else ...

Colleagues, Today’s essay continues the book review begun last week as ThTh #23. THE PROMISE OF LUTHERAN ETHICS, Karen L. Bloomquist & John R. Stumme, eds. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1998. vii, 247, paper. The three Bible readings appointed in the lectionary for Reformation Day (Oct. 31) are Jeremiah 31:31-34, Romans 3:19-28, and John 8:31-36. No surprise, there is a key ...

There could be more promise in “The Promise of Lutheran Ethics.” By that I mean the Biblical term “promise,” the term chosen by the Lutheran reformers to pinpoint what the reformation was all about. Melanchthon put it simply in his Loci, the first “systematic theology” to come out of Wittenberg: “Evangelium est promissio. The gospel ...