I-N-G-S is for Inter-National Gathering of Scholars

This is in reference to the forthcoming gathering of the Crossings mega-conference, "Honest-to-God Gospel for Today's Church and World" next January, 2007 [see ad, page 3]. We thought you might be interested in getting a sneak preview about another one of our featured presenters, Jerome (Jerry) Burce.

Burce practices theology these days at an ELCA parish in suburban Cleveland. He underscores the word "practice"-a better verb, he says, than the ubiquitous "do." ("What does it mean that 'I do theology"? That I make it up as I go along, a crafter with Old Adam of my own word about God? If so, watch out!") "Practice," says he, "implies a number of things. First, that I'm working with a body of thought and assertion that isn't my own and to which I'm responsible. Second, that I'm on the ground floor connecting this thought and assertion to the lives and persons of ordinary human beings for whose benefit it's intended.

Theology Practitioner

Third, that like the fellow at the piano I'm in fact practicing, attempting again and again to get it right, or at least better than I got it the last time, the immediate aim being that God's Law and God's Gospel are both heard in a weight and proportion appropriate to the circumstances of the telling, the telling done in language that demolishes the phony barrier between 'the religious' and 'the secular'-between God and his Word on the one hand and 'real life' so-called on the other. The ultimate aim? That would be to open the road by which the Holy Sprit gets sinners to bank on the unbelievable, namely that 'all things are yours...and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's' (1 Cor. 3:21-23)."

Burce started professional practice in the central highlands of Papua New Guinea-home turf, in his case; he was raised there, a missionary's son. He counts his father Willard as a key mentor, among the best of down-to-earth Law/Gospel theologians he's ever known. He recalls his PNG stint as having forced him finally to learn what Ed Schroeder and Bob Bertram had tried to teach him in the classrooms of Seminex. Nothing does more for theological clarity, he says, than using New Guinea Pidgin English to convey what something like justification by faith is all about. From that was born a passion to translate "church talk" into the English of the street, the office, the supermarket aisle, a passion that has spilled into 18 years of preaching, teaching, and pastoral work at two congregational sites in the U.S.

A graduate of Concordia Senior College and Christ Seminary-Seminex, Burce also holds a D.Min. from Hartford Seminary. He turned his D.Min. project into a book, Proclaiming the Scandal: Reflections on Post-Modern Ministry. He has been a regular Sabbatheology writer since 2003 and has also written for the Crossings newsletter and for Ed Schroeder's Thursday Theology postings. He contributed a hymn text and an essay to last year's Festschrift honoring Ed's 75th birthday. He describes himself as visually ignorant ("can't tell a good piece of art from a bad one") and aurally astute. He revels in the well-turned phrase and for that reason ranks P. G. Wodehouse among his all-time favorite authors.

Burce will have been married 30 years this July. He and wife Nancy have four children, the youngest of whom has one year left in college.

We hope you come to meet Jerry in person this January. Together with others whom we'll feature in future newsletters, the gathering should be a good (spiritually good) time.

mhoy