Can One “Preach” the Law? An Interchange, Part 1

Colleagues, Now that Christmas sermons have been filed in whatever repository preachers may use for such things, we may as well return to a theme we’ve touched on more than once over the past year or two, namely the nature of the preacher’s task, craft, and calling. A couple of months ago I stumbled across a page on …

Campus Ministry

This week we bring you a short essay on campus ministry by the Rev. Dr. Steven C. Kuhl, current president of the Crossings board. Steve wrote this essay as a statement of purpose in a recent application for a Campus Ministry position at a Lutheran-affiliated liberal arts college. As he explained by e-mail, he is passing the statement …

Advent Orts (on Mandela; the Promise; Francis and Joy; Justice; Certitude)

Colleagues, Orts. In other words, bits of this, pieces of that. (In case you missed it, see the intro to ThTheol 793.) The ones that constitute today’s helping were lying in the path here and there as I stumbled through the week. They somehow caught my attention. Perhaps they’ll catch yours. There’s a strong whiff of glorious Advent in …

On Religions, Liturgies, Distinctions—and a Huge Difference. A Book Review

Colleagues, Today we send you another gift from Ed Schroeder, this time a book review. We got it from him a few days ago. It follows nicely on last week’s pitch for the Crossings conference at the end of January. The conference topic, you’ll recall, will be pluralism and a Christ-confessor’s response to that. Ed provides such a …

“One for All and All in One”: A pitch for your presence at the forthcoming Crossings conference via some ruminating on Good Friday prayers.

Colleagues, Let’s start with the conference. It happens next January in Belleville, Illinois, at the end of the month. For the fifth time since 2007 the Crossings Community will meet around a topic that cuts to the heart of our avocational calling as a band of drum-beaters for the proper distinction between God’s Law and God’s Gospel, and for …

Genetic Engineering

Late last month we received the following thoughts from Ed Schroeder on the intersection of theology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). I know little about genetic engineering, but I must confess that my scientist’s eye is skeptical of the factual claims in the anti-GMO source that Ed cites. (I also take issue with Ed’s implications about Einstein, much …

Seminex Exile – Love It. Don’t Leave It

Edward H. Schroeder [Printed in Strivings (Seminex student journal) Vol. 1:2 (April, 1977).] “Exile”: the NT term for such as us Many of us in Seminex have had to learn that the exilic tradition is a New Testament tradition, albeit a rather thin one. So it is not surprising that we continue to have trouble with it. The …

#800 Pop-Cultural Theologies of Glory

For the four hundredth Thursday Theology, we bring you a short essay by Dr. Peter Keyel, an immunologist and Crossings board member whose writing has appeared several times in this space, most recently in Thursday Theology #771. In this piece, he considers the differing soteriologies (of a sort) in the novel and recent film version of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit. …

#799 Justification by Grace through Faith”: What Does This Mean?

Colleagues, Another Reformation Sunday is upon us, and this year so much so that even preachers in traditions that don’t pay heed to Lutheran festivals will be obliged by the standard lectionaries (Revised Common as well as Roman Catholic and Episcopal) to address the core issue that occupied Luther and his colleagues in 1517 and thereafter. The issue? …

Like Movement, Like Seminary

Like Movement, Like Seminary Robert W. Bertram [Printed in Viewpoint, 19 February 1978.] Recently at Christ Church Cathedral here in Saint Louis we, Seminex, presented our upcoming graduates to the Church as candidates for that Church’s ministry. Yet “the Church” which received them on this occasion was represented only by presidents of AELC. But AELC, of course, …