Edward H. Schroeder   This essay proposes to trace a segment of the history of hermeneutics in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod insofar as the distinction between Law and Gospel plays a role in that history. The study is important because in recent years one school of thought in the Synod …

EDWARD H. SCHROEDER The author is professor of systematic and historical theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. In this article, he argues that the concept associated with the term “orders of creation” in current Missouri Synod discussions of the ordination of women is not Lutheran but Calvinist in origin, and …

A Sequel To Ash Wednesday   Today’s first lesson recalls yesterday’s Imposition of the Ashes, Genesis 3:19: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The second lesson is I Corinthians 15:49: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the …

The theme once more: “The Gospel as Good News in Today’s World.” That theme prompts four quick questions: World? In? New? Good? (If you have a craving for acronyms, as I do, then think of the four-letter word “wing”, W-I-N-G: W is for “world,” I is for “in,” N is …

Robert W. Bertram   In Germany recently a conference of students, including an impressive representation of Marxist-Leninists from The New Left, confronted the American guest speaker with the question: How free are the churches in the USA? One clue to the answer is Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”1 …

Robert W. Bertram ABSTRACT Not just asking can individual Christians operate in their private economic roles as Christians but can the Christian community itself engage in economic activities in the Christian world mission, might that community support itself by profit-making activities without compromising itself for that very mission? To raise …

Robert W. Bertram   If these International Congresses for Luther Research continue to be held every five years, then the next one would occur in 1976, the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Karl Holl. Who of this century’s Lutherforscher deserves commemorating more than he? Without his precedent our own …

  The Lighter asked Pat Keifert to interview Dr. Theodore Ludwig and Dr. Edward Schroeder about their understanding of Delbert Hillers’ Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (John Hopkins Press, 1969). The hope was that in bringing together a specialist in Old Testament and one in Systematics, there would …

 Edward H. Schroeder ABSTRACT A consensus community stands behind the required study of academic theology at Valparaiso University consisting finally of the holy Christian church and what that community considers important as skills and knowledge for human life. As these skills and knowledge do not emerge naturally in a world …

Robert W. Bertram I. 1. Theology, says the assignment, must relate to “mission.” But aren’t the two, theology and mission, too far apart for that? Isn’t theology here, here at the seminary? And isn’t mission out there, out there in the world? Doesn’t mission mean being sent, sent out, out …

By Edward H. Schroeder   In considering the role of women in the church, it seems to me that the issue is a threefold one. First, how to use the Scriptures – and especially St. Paul’s statement about women in the public work of the church – in understanding the …

By Edward H. Schroeder   In considering the role of women in the church, it seems to me that the issue is a threefold one. First, how to use the Scriptures – and especially St. Paul’s statements about women in the public work of the church – in understanding the …

 Edward H. Schroeder   Presentation #1: A Proposed Lutheran Model (My Own) Arising from the Lutheran Confessional Tradition Introductory Reflections: Systematic theology probes for the “sufficient grounds” supporting any doctrine. The sufficient grounds of the confessional doctrine about the church. Article 7 & 8 of the Augsburg Confession say: Church …

Edward H. Schroeder   The previous chapter discloses the medieval data on the family strictly speaking. Concern for “family” in the Christian Middle Ages focused on marriage and the issues of sexuality, the relations of the sexes to each other inside and outside of marriage, and the celibate alternative to …

Robert W. Bertram   We have a way of saying about someone that he goes to all the trouble, or, in another connection, that he takes the trouble. By way of a pun, we might say the same two things about the Word of God: it goes to all the …

Part One  1. The search is for a “Scriptural and Confessional Basis” of Christian economic ethos. Where to begin looking for such a basis? Try this: “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does the love of …

  January 5, 1969 Dr. Richard Jungkuntz Lutheran Building 210 North Broadway St. Louis, Missouri 53102 Dear Dick: That fact that I’ve spent all day – from breakfast yesterday until the wee hours now of Sunday morning – on the CTCT “immorality” materials proves not only how slowly I work …

(A fragment from the 13 November 1968 meeting of the Concordia Seminary Department of Systematic Theology) ….What is most “systematic” about systematic theology is, not merely that it arranges its material – say, the biblical data – in this or that orderly way, (that much is true of all the …

Edward H. Schroeder   I have capitulated at the outset to the improbability (if not impossibility) of my chronicling in twenty minutes how contemporary Protestant theology deals with evidences for God. Instead I propose to lead our seminar into a consideration of what I consider necessary preliminary questions for any …

Robert W. Bertram   When Robert Kennedy was defeated in the Oregon primaries the other day, he was asked, How does it feel to be the first Kennedy ever to lose an election? He replied, Apart from the distinction, I could just as well do without it. The Kennedy wit—his …

Robert W. Bertram   There is freedom and there is freedom. There is freedom with a small f and freedom with a capital F. Both freedoms are yours. You are twice free. Of both freedoms we can say, though not in the same way, three things: freedom is a hard-bought …

Robert W. Bertram   Editorial Note: At its recent Fourth World Assembly in Uppsala, Sweden the World Council of Churches featured three speakers from three worldwide sectors of Christendom that do not, at present, hold membership in the WCC: one from the Roman Catholic Church, one from the Pentecostalist churches …

Robert W. Bertram   I. ASKING THE QUESTION A) My presentation comes at the very end of the day’s program, obviously not because I am to speak the last word on the subject but rather because I am to attempt a summing up of what all has been said earlier …

Edward H. Schroeder   In H. Richard Niebuhr’s book on The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry, he says: “Much confusion and uncertainty in theological schools today seems to be due to lack of clarity about the community–the church; about its form and matter, its relations and composition. Without …

Robert W. Bertram   ABSTRACT If the Reformation was about anything, it was chiefly about the Romans 1: 17 passage, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” In the language of theology, the Reformation was about the doctrine of justification by faith because, of all the things we humans …

Robert W. Bertram   September 29 was Michaelmas or, as some of us know it, the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. For a saint’s day this one enjoys an unusually ecumenical popularity— “throughout the church,” says one authority sweepingly.1 The festival’s ecumenicity and especially its feting of the …

Troeltsch’s objection that the doctrine of justification has outlived its usefulness for modern man may well have underestimated both that doctrine and modern man as well. Could it just be not only that the doctrine of justification still has something to say to us, (which seems almost too grudging a …

 Robert W. Bertram ABSTRACT Theologically the 1967 LCMS Convention Workbook, genuinely struggling to realign its problems around the gospel, offers a promise to the synod. Even when that gospel centrism is criticized by accusers who complain about an alleged “whittling down” all doctrinal issues to “the gospel itself,” in the …

Robert W. Bertram ABSTRACT While mirroring our own twin concern for a high doctrine of biblical inspiration and modern biblical studies, the Vatican II document “De Revelatione” also mirrors our own dilemma less of scripture vs. confession (tradition) than that third alternative, traditioning scripture. The Council’s document, however, while surmounting …

Robert W. Bertram   1. THEOLOGIA BREVISSIMA ET LONGISSIMA Although sinners are justified solely by their faith, that, as Luther knew, does not yet exhaust the description of them as “Christians.” “He who wants to be a true Christian…must be truly a believer. But he does not truly believe if …

Dr. Edward H. Schroeder   In the Holy Scriptures the “Word of God” is not just divine information. It is God in action speaking about me. If the opening chapters of Genesis are to be the Word of God they must say something about me and what God is doing, …

Edward H. Schroeder   Is there a distinctively Lutheran interpretation of the Scriptures? In his recent book The Holy Spirit and Modern Thought, Lindsay Dewar (an Anglican) says the answer is Yes. At least in Luther himself, says he, there is a distinctive and unique hermeneutics at work—and it is …

Edward H. Schroeder Edward H. Schroeder is associate professor at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Ind. This article is a condensation of a doctoral thesis which the author submitted to the theological faculty of the University of Hamburg, July 1963.   INTRODUCTION A concern for dogmatics and a concern for ethics do …

Robert W. Bertram This essay was originally presented as a lecture at the Evangelische Akademie in Bad Boll, West Germany, on Oct 25, 1965, when the author was working as a Fulbright guest research professor at the Institut fur okumenische Theologie, the University of Munich. The evangelical academies provide forums …

Edward Schroeder   A. Distinguishing between the discipline of theology and the so-called non-theological disciplines. No one in this audience is likely to deny that theology is a distinctive discipline, unique for some reason or other in the midst of the numerous disciplines promoted and pursued in the market place …

  This, by contrast with my first paper this morning, is the light-weight paper of the two, though this one too still tries manfully to conform to the conference theme, “there’s no place like home.” In fact, as I warned you this morning, we shall now take that theme quite …

  If the above title, in addition to it being frivolous, is also misleading – suggesting perhaps a commercial for the Alitalia Airlines or an invitation to Protestants from the Curia – I can only plead that I have tried to adhere, if only by the hair, to the conference …

Robert W. Bertram Father Schillebeeckx, whose reputation is already as notable as his name, has previously attracted English readers with his chapter in the Callahan-Obermann-O’Hanlon symposium, Christianity Divided. That chapter, like this book, was on the sacraments, with the consequent risk that this versatile theologian might just become typecast as …

 Edward H. Schroeder ABSTRACT Professional church workers are specifically fingered for the church’s unique role of administering God’s Christ-connect acceptance of the world. Yet, there are barriers to accepting one’s role as “acceptor,” which include: (1) lack of measurable success; (2) feelings of inadequacy and guilt; (3) myopia about goals; …

Edward H. Schroeder ABSTRACT The human personality reveals a core hunger for acceptance, thus making a theology of acceptance like Tillich’s important. Yet, while craving acceptance, human beings are forced outside themselves to acquire acceptance through dialogue with others because of “man’s” inherent ability and obligation to respond to others …

Edward H. Schroeder   The difficulty we just had in getting the tape-recorder functioning for this speech might serve to introduce the subject “Suffering,” for in this electronic age electrical failure is for some of us northern semi-suburbanites as close as we come to any patent suffering. Therein is also …

BertramDissertation_text (PDF) This is Robert Bertram’s Dissertation.  It is searchable but is much easier to read in the PDF document.     THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO THE HUMAN SUBJECT AS THE OBJECT OF THEOLOGY LUTHER BY WAY OF BARTH A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN …

Robert W. Bertram   1) In the profession which I represent, some of the biggest names – John Calvin, Martin Luther, Tertullian, St. Paul — have been ex-lawyers (in the cases of Calvin and Luther, at least ex-law students.) The switch they made could be interpreted, I suppose, as a …

By Robert W. Bertram 1. Peccator Peccatorum The sinlessness of Christ, indispensable as this was for Luther’s christology, was seldom the major point at issue. In fact, Christ’s innocence, readily enough accepted by Luther’s opponents, threatened to overshadow what was equally essential to Christ’s redemptive achievement: that “for our sake …

  The hope of theology lives in this balance: Quod vitam theologiae, id Ecclesiae animat, et Ecclesia, quae ad vitam pertinet, eadem ad theologiam. What is life for theology Is life for the Church, And the Church for life Is the Church for theology. Accordingly, the Conference of Lutheran Professors …

Robert W. Bertram, Paul G. Bretscher, Albert G. Huegli, O.P. Kretzmann, Edward H. Schroeder, John Streitelmeier (The typist was able to distinguish only those items written by Bertram and Schroeder. After each thesis, the writer is indicated.) (Editor’s Note: This month marks the 100th anniversary of the death of C.F.W. …

Robert W. Bertram, Paul G. Bretscher, Albert G. Huegli, O.P. Kretzmann, Edward H. Schroeder, John Streitelmeier11 (This typist was able to distinguish only those items written by Bertram and Schroeder. After each thesis, the writer is indicated.) (Editor’s Note: This month marks the 100th anniversary of the death of C.F.W. …

Robert Bertram His name alone was enough to lure me into conversation with him, “Simon Schneeweiss, pastor at Crailsheim.” I had passed him often, on page 317 of my Book of Concord. There he stood with the other confessors of Smalcald, only a few lines up from Melanchton, though he …

Edward H. Schroeder   “Pious Roman Catholics pray the entire Psalter once a week, Anglicans once a month, Lutherans almost never.” Why? In public worship we tolerate the psalms. The synodical hymnal includes about one third of them. The Sunday introit and gradual preserve a snatch of them. In Walther …

Edward H. Schroeder   The dilemma that all of us face as we try to speak with young folks is well depicted in a cartoon in the Saturday Review. A young father comes into the living room looking distraught and harried, followed by little Junior who has all the marks …

Robert W. Bertram   The subject of this panel discussion is “Law and Revelation.” This general subject, in turn, has been subdivided four ways. Mr. Duesenberg’s question was, What can revelation do for law? Mr. Kauper’s question was, What can revelation not do for law? Mr. Piepkorn’s question was, What …

Robert W. Bertram   It was exactly eight years ago today – April 4 1968 – that Martin Luther King. Jr., was buried. Let us hope his influence was not. And it was just thirteen years ago, almost to the day, that King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”1 It …

Edward H. Schroeder   PROBLEM OF HONESTY AND TRUTHFULNESS Rigged Quiz Shows Payola Election Year Doesn’t affect us WHAT DOES HONESTY AND TRUTHFULNESS MEAN IN COLLEGE LIFE? When is my witness-bearing true, when is it false? What makes it true of false? Is truth more than correct facts, falsehood more …

By Robert W. Bertram Head of the Department of Religion Valparaiso University   I. Freedom of the Teachable Learner Christian education, which paradoxically invites people to believe and he what they are inherently incapable of believing and being, seems a contradiction in terms. One of the first ingredients any education …

By Robert W. Bertram Valpariaso University   Every American Christian who is morally serious about the law of his land deserves two reminders: First, that being a Christian believer and being a good citizen, though he must be both, are two different things – and sometimes are two conflicting things; …

Robert Bertram   In a Greyhound bus a few weeks ago the woman behind me said to her partner, and said rather indignantly, “Well, it’s my life and I oughta be allowed to live it the way I want to.” My partner and I looked at one another and chuckled. …

Robert W. Bertram Professor Emil Brunner, the Reformed theologian at the University of Zurich, probably requires little introduction. He, more than any others of the so-called neo-orthodox theologians from Europe, has fast found his way into American Protestant theological thinking, his books seem to be showing up more and more …