By Jerome Burce

  Co-missioners, An eruption of racist slaughter left ten people dead in Buffalo last week. On Sunday another was killed and more were injured at a church in Laguna Woods, California, for the sin of being Taiwanese. Anyone inclined to …

Co-missioners, This week our editor, Jerry Burce, interrupts our publication schedule to pass along three items that caught his attention in recent days and weeks.  The first two pertain to the war in Ukraine. We’ve said nothing about this in …

Co-missioners, Last November we introduced you to a new contributor, Dr. George Heider, adding the hope that we’d hear from him again soon. We do so today, in a piece that comes with a special introduction by Bruce Modahl. Bruce, …

Co-missioners, Today we follow up Carol Braun’s reflection of last week with one by another lay writer, Chris Neumann. Both prepared these for a series of midweek prayer services that unfolded over Zoom this past Lent. The series was organized …

Co-missioners, Christ is risen indeed! So we heard on Sunday and will continue to hear for the next several weeks, with reminders aplenty to take this fact and put it present use. This week we see Carol Braun doing precisely …

Co-missioners, For the purposes of Thursday Theology, today’s topic is best addressed in essay form. As it is, we deliver it via yet another sermon, this one preached at an Easter Festival service three years ago. It’s not a standard …

Co-missioners, Today’s offering features Steve Kuhl probing a key question that surfaced in lots of churches this past Sunday through the Gospel reading for the day. This was St. John’s account of Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anointing Jesus’ feet. …

Co-missioners, We lifted the lead title of today’s post from the final paragraph of the essay it delivers. The essay’s author is Jill Peláez Baumgaerter. It includes a profound contribution by her friend, Rabbi Yehiel Poupko. Their subject is the …

Co-missioners, Over the past two weeks you caught Ed Schroeder grinding his teeth about “the peace-and-justice mantra,” as he called it. Today we send a related piece in a different genre—so different that we’re obliged here to point out the …

Co-missioners, “Dust you are; to dust you shall return.” God saw fit to remind us of this in yesterday’s Ash Wednesday liturgy. As you read today’s continuation of last week’s post, you’ll notice how this word—grim, implacable—looms heavily in Ed …