Thursday Theology

Biblical Depiction as Judgment and Promise Co-Missioners, “Christ for you, Christ for us.” Call this the bumper sticker version of God’s key message to the world, entrusted for delivery to folks strangely called “the saints,” the strangeness arising from the …

Co-Missioners, The first step in a Crossing analysis, be it of a Scriptural text or a present reality, is to identify a problem that demands attention. Our mission correspondent, Richard Gahl, does this today in a follow-up to his reflection …

Co-Missioners, “Tracking” is a term Crossings practitioners use for a process that examines the contents of an everyday life for signs of correlation with issues surfaced in Scriptural texts. It starts and ends with careful listening to people the Word …

Co-Missioners, On this 502nd anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, we remind you of the first of them: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt. 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of …

Co-Missioners, Lutherans in America, if not elsewhere in the world, will celebrate Reformation Sunday three days from now. We will do so as usual in several rival camps, each with its set of gripes about the others, each with its …

Co-Missioners, Some of us are already starting to slip our Reformation caps on. This year’s annual Lutheran observance, on October 27, is but three Sundays hence. The day’s Epistle, Romans 3:21-28, ends with the resounding declaration that “a person is …

Co-Missioners, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence / and in fear and trembling stand….” See below for the second and final installment of Fred Niedner’s presentation at the Crossings’ conference this past January. Last week’s first installment closed with a …

Co-Missioners, The dates are January 26-29. That’s when the 2020 Crossings Conference is set to unfold. The venue as always is the Shrine of our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois. The lineup of speakers is, dare we say, …

Co-Missioners, In the wake of Hurricane Dorian—how terrible that was, and how quickly it recedes from the world’s attention and our own as well—we send along a year-old sermon by Steve Albertin. He preached it on June 24, 2018, when …

Co-Missioners, Today we pass along a homily—a brief, condensed sermon—that was delivered this very morning at a meeting of ELCA pastors and other rostered leaders in a corner of northeastern Ohio. Peace and Joy, The Crossing Community “What Else Shall …