The Crossings Blog
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Co-missioners, Last week Paul Jaster urged us to take a fresh look at what most of us have hitherto known only as God’s “commandments.” As he wraps up his argument today, Paul will give us abundant reason for repeating the Alleluias we’ve been saying at church these past two Easter …
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Co-missioners, On this first Thursday of Easter week when we bask in the promise of all things made new, we send you the first installment of a two-part post by Paul Jaster. Many of you will recognize the name, having encountered his first-rate contributions to our weekly series of text …
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Co-missioners, Some of you will spend this evening at a Maundy Thursday service. Others will not. In either case, you might be glad for another dose of the Gospel God gives us to hear and trust and marvel in as we slide into the three-day heart of the Church’s liturgical …
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Co-missioners, Last week we promised to send you an essay by Robert Bertram on the topic of faith. Here it is. Bob wrote this in 1994 for the fall edition of the LSTC Epistle, a publication of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago where he had taught from 1983 …
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Co-missioners, From our editor: an observation this week on a huge little thing in the text of John. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community ________________________________________________________________ “Believing Into…” by Jerome Burce A few days ago I finally spotted something in the Greek of St. John’s Gospel that I wish I had …
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Co-missioners, Our editor has been poking around some more in Luther’s Works. We send you something he wants to share as a follow-up of sorts to last week’s post. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community ________________________________________________________________ Luther on the Sound of the Wind (John 3) by Jerome Burce Earlier this …
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Co-missioners, Our conference in January featured a session on preaching. Jerry Burce prepared some notes to get it started. A week or so later, these notes somehow reached an ELCA bishop who doesn’t know Crossings. He promptly asked Jerry for permission to share it with his deans. Today we make …
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Co-missioners, Matt Metevelis blessed our recent conference with a superb analysis of St. Matthew’s beatitudes. On returning home to Las Vegas he did as do we all, slipping instantly into the rhythms and habits that constitute our usual days. For Matt these habits include some steady posting on Facebook, though …
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Co-missioners, Our conference in Belleville, Illinois last month was graced by the presence of several people who were attending their first-ever Crossings event. Among them was Dr. George C. Heider, a Senior Research Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University. You’ll recognize his name, perhaps. Thanks to an invitation—some gentle arm-twisting?—from …
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Co-missioners, Steve Hitchcock is a member of our editorial team. Some months ago, he found today’s item in our online library and thought it worthy of fresh attention, demanding though it is. The team agreed. The author of the piece is the late Robert C. Schultz (1928-2018). Those who knew …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
Cruciger’s Hymn Revisited, A Preaching Course, A Birthday
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Our editor sends three notes today, two brief, one longer. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ Assorted Notes: Cruciger’s Hymn Revisited, A Preaching Course, A Birthday by Jerome Burce 1. Cruciger’s Hymn Revisited I got an altogether unexpected note from Timothy Wengert three Thursdays ago. For those not …
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Co-missioners, The folks who get Thursday Theology on its way to you these days spent much of last week at our 2023 Crossings conference. The days were full and ever so rich. When they were done some decompression time was of the essence. That’s why you didn’t get a post …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
“Kill Me, Jesus!” Notes on a Hymn and the Woman who Wrote It
by BethanyCo-missioners, This week’s offering comes from our editor. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ “Kill Me, Jesus!” Notes on a Hymn and the Woman who Wrote It by Jerome Burce I met Elisabeth Cruciger last week. I want you to meet her too. I think she merits our high …
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Co-missioners, We have two items for you this week. The first, by Matt Metevelis, is a year-and-a-half old. We found it on his Facebook page at the end of July in 2021. Our thanks for his permission to share it with you. It’s one of the most succinct and bracing …
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Co-missioners, He has done it before. He does it again. Our editor passes along some lingering thoughts as a major season of the church year draws to a close. A dollop of Luther comes with it. A bit of Bach too, for that matter. On this Eleventh Day of Christmas— …
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Co-missioners, Dare we call him a Crossings scholar? The church historian Kurt K. Hendel launched his teaching career in 1973 at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and joined Christ Seminary—Seminex in February, 1974. When that school dissolved in 1983, he was among the majority of faculty members who found a new …
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Co-missioners, Today we’re on the cusp of celebrating the Birth of births. This may strike you as an odd time to be sending you an obituary, as some might call it. Then again, perhaps it’s the best of times for such a thing. How better to celebrate Christmas than by …
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Co-missioners, Back in the 1970’s, the nascent libraries of America’s earnestly Lutheran seminarians were likely to include two books by the German theologian Edmund Schlink. One discussed the Lutheran confessions. The other focused on the doctrine of baptism. Both had been issued in translation by Concordia Publishing House which, for …
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Co-missioners, The Old Testament reading for next Sunday, Isaiah 35:1-10, will invite us to consider the world’s unfolding history from God’s point of view. This makes today’s offering especially apt. Our thanks to George Heider, Retired Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University, for blessing us with it. Peace and …
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Co-missioners, The Crossings Community meets at the end of next month to confer on the topic, “The Promising Community: Can I Have a Witness?” The second half of this title was supplied by our colleague, Bruce Modahl, who has heard the phrase used in predominantly Black churches as preachers call …
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Co-missioners, A new church year starts on Sunday. Those who pay attention to such things will be drawn to think again about God’s unfolding operations in the world, and about the roles they’re given to play in this, whether as recipients or contributors. This makes it an apt time to …
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Co-missioners, We are pleased this week to send you the second half of Ed Schroeder’s 1984 essay on Baptism and Confession. See here for Part 1. As the essay continues, Ed touches on any number of theological issues that the church continues to grapple with forty years later. Don’t miss …
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Co-missioners, Suddenly we find ourselves in the final weeks of the current church year. A new one launches at the end of this month. The texts we hear in church between now and Christmas will crackle with news about the pending end of all things and the new beginning that …
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Co-missioners, Gospel-minded preachers have had a tough go of it these past many weeks. So have people who drag themselves to church or sit through online services in the hope of hearing some good news from God to carry them through another week. As today’s writer will observe, the immediate …
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Co-missioners, Our writer this week is Chris Repp. That’s Chris as in the Rev. Dr., pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Champaign, Illinois; also a long-serving member of the Crossings board, convener of our biweekly Book Club (drop him a note if you’d like to join), and one of the writers …
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Co-missioners, Are you looking for ways to talk about the Gospel with people who can’t imagine needing it? If so, we send you notice of a book you’ll want to buy. It was published only last month. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ A Review of David Zahl’s …
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Co-missioners, What, you may ask, is the best gift Christianity can bring to American public life, or to the mood of the world, for that matter? Marcus Felde has an intriguing response to that question today. He’ll draw on some deep cross-cultural experience as he makes the case for it. …
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Co-missioners, A month ago, a servant of Christ named Robin Small was ordained into the ministry of Word and Sacrament at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Bowling Green, Ohio. Robin had been serving at St. Mark’s under the auspices of the ELCA’s Northwestern Ohio Synod as a Synodically Authorized Minister. …
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Co-missioners, We send along some thoughts from our editor about Queen Elizabeth’s funeral ten days ago. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ “Their Sound is Gone Out into All Lands” Reflections on the Queen’s Funeral On September 19th the online version of the New York Times livestreamed the day-long …
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Co-missioners, Today Carol Braun takes up an issue that grates on more than a few of us, we suspect. It’s one of those hot topics in our current culture wars that gets Christians sniping at each other too. Carol will push us all to think more carefully about the matter …
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Co-missioners, We rummaged through our files this week and found a little piece that merits some mid-September attention, at least in North America. These are the days when congregations are returning to the regular rhythms of parish life. Summer vacations are a fading memory. Councils are meeting again. So are …
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Co-missioners, Our editor sends along a reflection occasioned by a recent and dramatic change in the way he spends his days, and his Sundays in particular. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ Will I Hear the Gospel this Fall? Suddenly I’m spending a sliver of every Sunday looking …
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Co-missioners, Twelve and a half years ago a number of us had the great privilege and equal pleasure of meeting a young Finnish expatriate named Jukka Kaariainen. He was one of three keynoters at our 2010 Crossings Conference, having been recommended for that role by Ed Schroeder. Raised in China …
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BlogThursday Theology
On the Question of Salvation Outside the Church: Luther vs. Luther (Part 3 of 3)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Don’t think for a moment to skip today’s finale to the essay we started feeding you two weeks ago. We think you’ll wind up as refreshed as we were in the wonder of God’s will for humankind in Christ. Our thanks again to Kurt Hendel for his permission to …
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BlogThursday Theology
On the Question of Salvation Outside the Church: Luther vs. Luther (Part 2 of 3)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Here is the second installment of an essay by Kurt Hendel, first published by the journal Currents in Theology and Mission in 2008. If you haven’t worked through last week’s first installment, you’ll want to do that before you dig in here. And dig you should. Carefully. Thoroughly. For …
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BlogThursday Theology
On the Question of Salvation Outside the Church: Luther vs. Luther (Part 1 of 3)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Time was when would-be Lutheran pastors were required to learn a smattering of Latin on their way through school. Those who did will have encountered the following phrase at some point in their studies: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” Later they ran into …
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Co-missioners, This past Sunday, July 31, was the final day of pastoral service for Jerry Burce, our distinguished chief editor here at Thursday Theology. He enters retirement this week at the end of a long and fruitful career as a parish pastor, the last twenty-eight years of which were spent …
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Co-missioners, Our food for thought this week is a gift from the Rev. Dr. Steven Kuhl—a homily on the parable of the Good Samaritan from the 5th Sunday after Pentecost. As you’ll see, Steve focuses on the narrative sleight-of-hand that gives this parable its subversive power. When the self-justifying lawyer …
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Co-missioners, This week we bring you a review of James Runcie’s 2022 novel The Great Passion, which depicts Bach’s composition of his St. Matthew Passion against a background colored by grief and loss. The review is by another Matthew—in this case, Matt Metevelis, an ELCA pastor and chaplain in Las …
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Co-missioners, In the run-up to this year’s Seventh Sunday of Easter, our editor, Jerry Burce, was dreading the prospect of having to preach again on the high priestly prayer of John 17. He decided instead to invite his congregant Christopher Neumann—layperson and frequent writer for Thursday Theology—to embark on his …
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Co-missioners, Carol Braun writes this week about an issue that surely weighs on countless Christians parents in 2022. Her candor will refresh you. So will her gritty trust in the One who gave his life for every child or grandchild that you happen to know and love. Peace and Joy, …
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Co-missioners, In this second half of David Krause’s essay on America’s original sin of racial genocide, he breaks down the aspects of our national culture that can draw us away from Christ and away from our calling to love our neighbor as ourselves. He then lays out specific suggestions for …
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Co-missioners, For more than four hundred years of our nation’s history, racism has led to discrimination, abuse, and violence. In an essay we bring you in two parts, this week and next, David Krause deftly illustrates our nation’s original sin, exposing our failure to trust God and our worship of …
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Co-missioners, Each month, many in the Crossings network gather via Zoom for Table Talk. Those who gathered in April were encouraged to read two articles from the Crossings library, both by Ed Schroeder and both about the “third use of the law.” Following the thought of Werner Elert, Ed clearly …
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Co-missioners, Thursday Theology is devoted to “making full use of Christ’s benefits.” Of course, we have use of those benefits because of Christ’s death and resurrection. In today’s post, Fred Niedner offers a rich repast of his close reading of the Gospels and Paul’s letters, as well as a few …
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Co-missioners, This week the clear prose and sharp insights of Lori Cornell once again give Thursday Theology readers much to ponder. In this instance Lori reviews an important book that recently became available in paperback: Jesus and John Wayne, by Calvin University scholar Kristin Kobes Du Mez. Lori’s astute review …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
Luther’s Infamous “On the Jews.” An Assessment (Part 2)
by BethanyCo-missioners, This week we bring you Part 2 of Kurt Hendel’s essay on Luther and the Jews. As he laid out in Part 1 last week, Kurt’s goal here is “to summarize Luther’s attitude toward and comments about the Jews, analyze the potential reasons why he wrote what he …
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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 think in Martin Luther’s categories will refer to this as …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
As War Rages in Ukraine: Fresh Thoughts on Forgiveness, Peacemaking, Love
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 Thursday Theology so far. “Chalk that up,” says Jerry, “to …
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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, a member of our current editorial team, is the one …
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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 by our Thursday Theology editor, Jerry Burce, for the congregation …
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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 this in a meditation she offered at a midweek Lenten …
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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 Easter sermon. Hence our daring to trouble you with it. …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
Devotion to Jesus? Service to the Poor? An Interpretation of John 12:1-8
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. Steve observed in a note to us that the matters …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
Perilous Children: Notes from the Lutheran/Jewish/Evangelical Frontier
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 Holocaust, or, more pointedly, the children it consumed. Children were …
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Co-missioners, This week Bruce Modahl reviews a little book by one of the most prominent American Lutheran theologians of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. As Bruce suggests, it might prompt some interesting and profitable discussion in the circles you think and pray with. At its heart is a …
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Co-missioners, Were someone to ask for a definition of Crossings in five words or fewer, we might put it like this. “We push Christ.” And for clarity’s sake, we might take that one word further: “We push Christ Crucified.” There are many reasons for doing this. Today’s offering uses pew-level …
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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 connection to Ed’s work. For that we call on your …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
The ‘Peace-and-Justice’ Mantra. (An Ed Schroeder Rerun, Part 2)
by BethanyCo-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 Schroeder’s unhappiness with current church-based thinking about peace and justice.
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
The ‘Peace-and-Justice’ Mantra. (An Ed Schroeder Rerun, Part 1)
by BethanyCo-missioners, Lent is less than a week away. With that in mind we send you some homework for a Lenten assignment. It’s a rerun in two parts—half this week, half next—of an eighteen year old essay by Ed Schroeder that invites some repentance, as in “rethinking,” a “re-forming of the …
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Co-missioners, Three Sundays ago Pastor Chris Repp preached on 1 Corinthians 13 at Grace Lutheran, the congregation he serves in Champaign, Illinois. He shared his sermon with us a few days later. We couldn’t help but share it with you. Here is the antidote to every harangue you’ve ever gotten …
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Co-missioners, Our guest writer today is the Rev. Kirsten Worzala Dumke. A 2012 graduate of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Kirsten is a Board Certified Chaplain on the Palliative Care Team of the University of Wisconsin Hospital’s Carbone Cancer Center. She also serves as the pastor of Parroquia Santa Maria, a …
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Co-missioners, We hear from Paul Theiss this week on a topic as timely as timely gets. It begs for a lot of discussion—much more than it’s getting, as Paul points out. If you have reason to launch the conversation in your churchly setting, we recommend Paul’s essay as a solid …
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Co-missioners, Today we send you a coda to Marcus Felde’s marvelous essay on reading the Lord’s Prayer through the lenses of Law and Gospel. We got this from Matt Metevelis who quite by coincidence posted it on his personal Facebook page the day after we sent you the first part …
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Co-missioners, Last week was Part 1, a preamble of sorts. This week Marcus Felde rolls up his sleeves and gets to work on the task he set for himself in last week’s final paragraph— “Condensing the [Lord’s Prayer] into two ‘super-petitions’—first, ‘Be God to us!’ and then, ‘Be good to …
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Co-missioners, Our colleague, Marcus Felde, has emerged in recent years as a specialist in the theology of the Lord’s Prayer. He delivered a paper on the topic at the Crossings Conference of 2008. Seven years later he published an article in Word and World entitled “The Lord’s Prayer: Who Could …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
Through Perils Unknown: Thoughts of a Seasoned Pastor in a New Call
Co-missioners, Lori Cornell, longtime editor of our Crossings text studies, reflects today on her opening months of service as Lead Pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Spokane, Washington. She took a call there last summer. We thank her for the abundance of insight, both theological and pastoral, that she shares …
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Co-missioners, We launched the recent Advent season with a startling reflection by Chris Neumann on everlasting life, a bedrock Christian promise that most all of us look forward to with delight. Chris found it terrifying. This brought a response from Bruce Martin, a longtime member of our Crossings Community and …
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Co-missioners, On this final Thursday in the current Advent season, we send you a challenging reflection by Karen Clapp, a member of Grace Lutheran Church, River Forest, Illinois. It’s a sequel of sorts to a presentation she made at the Crossings conference in 2020. Those remarks are available on our …
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Co-missioners, Last year’s Christmas was the bleakest any of us have lived through. The pandemic was raging. Vaccines were not yet. Seniors stayed home. Their dear ones kept a distance for fear of making Grandma sick. A lot of churches were closed on Christmas Eve. Those that dared to be …
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Co-missioners, Today’s post is both late and timely. Late, because it discusses a text we heard in church two weeks ago on this year’s First Sunday of Advent. Timely, because the issues God pushed us to face that day are issues we deal with every day. “How are we judged?” …
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Co-missioners, Kudos to writer Chris Neumann for today’s one-of-a-kind post. We urge it on you for three reasons. First, Chris raises an issue that has never surfaced in Crossings. We know of no prior writer who has addressed it. That includes Bob Bertram and Ed Schroeder. We doubt that it …
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Co-missioners, There is an endless list of gifts to thank God for this Thanksgiving. Among them is the simple fact that more Americans than usual will take a break from the crabbiness of the times to express some thanks of one kind of another. Not that all of these thanks …
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Co-missioners, Today’s guest writer is the Rev. Dr. George C. Heider, a Senior Research Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University. Dr. Heider is a product of the system that trained many of us who connect with Crossings these days. He graduated from Concordia College, Bronxville, from Concordia Senior College, Fort …
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Co-missioners, Atop the sounding board of the imposing pulpit in Cape Town’s Strand Street Lutheran Church—the oldest church building in South Africa—there sits a swan; or to be more accurate, the carved and painted figure thereof. From the floor of the nave it appears like a white dot incongruously marring …
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Co-missioners, Today’s contribution is about preaching. It comes in the form of a book review by Bruce Modahl for which a bit of background might be helpful. In 1871 Yale Divinity School inaugurated an annual series of lectures on preaching named after a famous Yale alumnus, Lyman Beecher. Beecher was …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
Remembering Carl F. Schalk—Composer, Teacher, Friend
by BethanyCo-missioners, Reformation Day is three days hence, and on a Sunday for once. Lutherans will celebrate, or so one hopes. Will the music be robust and daring, pandemic strictures notwithstanding? One hopes for that too. Lutherans have a deep tradition of singing the Gospel, and often better than they preach …
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Co-missioners, This week we send you another a classic from the Crossings’ library. Going forward we plan to do this at least once a quarter. Today’s item was written by Ed Schroeder in 1976 and originally published in Currents in Theology and Mission, launched two years earlier as the theological …
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Co-missioners, Our editor, Jerry Burce, is still the full-time pastor he was when took up with Crossings two decades ago. Much of his theological work spills out in the sermons he preaches at Messiah Lutheran Church in Fairview Park, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Here’s one from the Sunday before …
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Co-missioners, In recent decades a group of New Testament scholars have set lots of Protestant teeth on edge with a so-called “new perspective on Paul.” They argue among other things that the 16th century reformers skewed Paul’s gospel by equating it with his teaching on “justification by faith.”
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Co-missioners, Carol Braun reflects today on how the pandemic has driven changes in the way she thinks about church and appreciates it too. We think you’ll want to share this widely. We pray that you will.
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Co-missioners, So you thought we had it tough at church last month when we struggled through five successive Sundays of John 6? Comes suddenly another challenge for preachers and listeners alike: a stretch of texts from Mark 8 through 10 that leave us wondering where the good news is.
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Co-missioners, Fourteen months ago we published an essay by Pr. Paul Theiss (ELCA, retired) about the potential of small group ministry to help churches rebound from the pandemic. Today Paul reflects on an older and perennial plague that continues to afflict the Church.
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Co-missioners, Matt Metevelis reflects today on current anxieties about the future of the church and its institutions. As you’ll notice in the opening paragraph of his essay, there couldn’t be a better day than this for getting it to you. God grant encouragement as you read.
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Co-missioners, Our editor reflects this week on a pressing issue of our day. Seriously! Don’t let the opening paragraphs fool you.
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Co-missioners, The gap between rich and poor gets ever wider in the United States—in the world as a whole, for that matter. God has much to say about this, also through people who can’t imagine they’re speaking for him. Today Carol Braun wrestles with the dilemma
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Co-missioners, A new chapter in Thursday Theology launches next week. Some months ago I pulled together an editorial support team comprising Steve Hitchcock, recently retired from Bread for the World; Bruce Modahl, retired pastor par excellence and current editor of Crossings’ quarterly newsletter; and Carol Braun, an online teacher of …
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Co-missioners, This week we send along a homily by our favorite Lutheran in Episcopal clothing, Steve Kuhl. He delivered it in Milwaukee a few days ago, on the third of five successive Sundays that feature a piece of John 6 as the Gospel for the day. Read More
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Co-missioners, Our editor is enmeshed in some family responsibilities this week—all good, to use a phrase that merits some musing in future weeks. He left us two items to pass along to you. Both are brief. Read More
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Co-missioners, The exhibitionism of our latest space adventurers, Messrs. Branson and Bezos—Musk perhaps to follow—prompted Mike Hoy to pen the essay we send you this week. Michael the Confessor (as we ought to call him) will drive us to Christ for the hope these others would seem to offer but …
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Co-missioners, Lori Cornell reflects this week on an agony that many other Gospel-trusting parents are facing of late as their children lapse into adulthood. Lori is the long-time editor of the six-step text studies you get from Crossings every week. Read More
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Co-missioners, A quick note, tongue somewhat in cheek, before we get to today’s main item: We’ve been hearing in recent weeks about the intense heat on North America’s west coast, reaching all the way up to Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. An ELCA pastor in that area posted a photo …
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Co-missioners, Early in the Easter season we brought you an essay on preaching by Steve Hitchcock. Turns out that Steve had more to say. Here’s his second installment, as helpful for Gospel-minded preachers as the first one was. Read More
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Co-missioners, Noticing that America’s July 4th super-holiday falls on a Sunday this year, Matt Metevelis was moved to nudge us—his fellow preachers in particular—into some better and deeper thinking about the idea of patriotism. We’re pleased to share his argument with you. Read More
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Co-missioners, This week we send a smattering of items that landed recently in our editor’s “Passing Thoughts” file. Perhaps you’ll find them of interest. If so, there are more where these came from. Read More
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Co-missioners, As we’ve mentioned here before, Steve Kuhl serves as priest at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in South Milwaukee. Lately he’s been sending us pieces that he writes for the saints there. Another arrived a few days ago. It has to do with revisions to worship plans as vaccination rates …
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Co-missioners: With Trinity Sunday still in the rearview mirror we send along another item unearthed from our library. It’s a sketchy little piece by Ed Schroeder about an old issue in Trinitarian theology that continues to resonate in our day. Read More
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
The Sound of the Spirit: A Reflection on the Trinity
by CrossingsCo-missioners: Last Sunday was one of the more stressful days in the church year for preachers and hearers alike. The former felt pressed to explain the inexplicable. The latter yearned to be edified and squirmed when they weren’t. Read More
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Co-missioners: Our editor had a few mini-“Aha’s” this Easter. We pass them along on the chance you’ll find them useful. Read More
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Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives.
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