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Up one levelTheological Reading Challenge 2013: Cyril of Alexandria
St. Cyril of Alexandria was the great champion of the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). But that doesn’t mean he was a straightforward hero. He was among the least pleasant of human beings ever to get canonized, politically wily, sometimes outright violent. If Lutherans ever wanted proof that our ultimate rightness with God does not depend on our moral perfection, St. Cyril is it...
2013 Theological Reading Challenge: On the Soul and Resurrection
And you thought Leviticus was a tough slog! Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise is an intriguing piece of work, and in some ways its inaccessibility is all the more reason for us to read it. For one thing, it gives us a window into the apologetics of a far distant time and place. It is almost impossible to overestimate how parochial our thinking is, how much we project our own particular set of issues onto the whole church throughout its history. The nature of the arguments here shows how flexible but also how impermanent the apologetic project is, which is why apologetics in itself cannot be our foundation. (George Lindbeck gave us the handy concept of “ad-hoc apologetics”: what works to remove unnecessary stumbling blocks in a particular time and place, as opposed to an entire edifice that will crumble with cultural movement away from those particular stumbling blocks.) At the same time, we see recurring questions that need to be addressed generation after generation, and we discover resources for our own apologetic task that we might not have lit upon otherwise. As with all good reading, tackling this text should be a horizon-expanding experience...
What Being "Pro-life" Truly Means
Abortion was supposed to solve many of the social problems that have now become endemic. If pregnancies could be planned and women had ready access both to contraception and abortion, then rates of illegitimacy should go down. Likewise, if every child was a wanted child, then of course child abuse should become a thing of the past, or at least it should become a rarity. Logically, safe, legal abortion makes perfect sense...
2013 Theological Reading Challenge: The Martyrdom of Polycarp
Polycarp was not quite the earliest Christian martyr—there’s Stephen in Acts, and the other apostles too, of course, and then Ignatius—but the story of his death by burning at the stake in the year 156 was widely circulated and powerfully inspirational to early Christians and has continued to be so ever since. (He’s commemorated on the ELCA and other calendars on February 23.) In the best tradition of hagiography, his story teaches about the gospel and gives the glory to Christ, but through the medium of another human life, one to which we can relate, a life into which we can even imagine ourselves. Chapter I already spells out the remarkable gospel qualities of Polycarp’s death...
2013 Theological Reading Challenge: I and II Peter
It wasn’t till this time through that I really grasped the “gestalt” of the Petrine epistles (which seems to be the recurring theme of reading large swaths of the Bible). I Peter is pretty well summed up in 4:19: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” The new believers in Christ seemed to have expected a smooth passage; after all, they were on the side of the mighty, good, saving Lord! So the persecution that followed quickly after they faith startled them and shook them badly. Peter is trying to bolster them up: suffering doesn’t mean that their faith is wrong or that God has turned against them...
2013 Theological Reading Challenge: Matthew
As I observed with the Pentateuch, it’s quite a different experience to read a book of the Bible all at one go instead of in drips and drabs. But while the first five books of the Old Testament contained plenty of surprises and forgotten tales, the Gospel of Matthew surprised me with how much of it I already knew, and quite well, at that. This can be attributed to the lectionary, I suppose—though the parts left out of the lectionary leapt out at me for their lesser familiarity. (Why aren’t we allowed to preach on the temple tax in the fish’s mouth, anyway?)...
2013 Theological Reading Challenge: The Pentateuch
I have read all the books of the Pentateuch before, separately; and I have read some parts over and over again. But I’d never before gone through all five in a short period of time—and I still haven’t quite caught my breath. It’s amazing how how you read affects your perception of what you’re reading. Genesis to Deuteronomy all at one go is really not like hearing a snippet in Sunday worship...
Come, Lord Jesus
It is entirely rational to be fearful, of nearly everything and nearly all the time, and that is one of the biggest problems with fear. There’s simply no end to it. Wars sprout and grow all over the globe, and there is no guarantee that we will end our days without seeing another on our own soil. In the meanwhile, as recent tragic events have demonstrated once again, there is no immunity from terrorizing violence even in apparently peaceful lands and towns. We fear the state of the economy, the state of the government, and the state of the church; we fear for the health of our food and the health of our environment. We fear the people around us and we fear for them. All too often our fears our justified, and so it is proven to us, once again, how eminently rational it is to live in a state of constant fear...
Rehabilitating Openmindedness
I get the impression that among a certain segment of the population “openmindedness” has become a vice instead of a virtue. That is probably because, in another segment of the population, “openmindedness” is the equivalent of “emptyheadedness,” the same way that “tolerance” can degenerate into “indifference.” But abuse does not exclude right use (abusus non tollit usum, a rule Luther himself liked to invoke). Openmindedness is a virtue that Christians of all stripes should earnestly cultivate...
Advent Musings
At home we’ve been singing through Advent hymns, and like many a Lutheran we have come again to the conclusion that Advent gives Christmas a real run for its money, musically speaking. From the solemnity of “Savior of the Nations, Come” to the eager expectation of “Wake, Awake, For Night Is Flying,” Advent has good claim to be the most singable of the liturgical seasons...
Preparations for 2017 in Germany
Germany didn't get the Winter Olympics for 2016, but it does still have the Luther anniversary in 2017. Enormous amounts of time and money are being put toward the grand event, and in fact started in 2008, ten years in advance. The Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland has been observing a "Luther Decade" with a different theme for every year and no end of special events, concerts, and conferences. They range from very theological to marginally so, and—perhaps because Germany faces an even more accelerated rate of secularism than the U.S., and is nearly completely secular already in the old East—a great deal of emphasis is laid on the heritage of the Reformation that is expressed in the daily life of Germans, Europeans, and citizens around the world, whether they realize its source or not...
All Are Welcome, Sort Of
"All are welcome.” A sign with these words in front of the church, or a notice in the bulletin, or an ad in the paper—the “all are welcome” announcement has become the sine qua non of most American churches, more than any sacrament or Scripture text. Yet this ecclesiastical pick-up line is a lie. We have bought into the idea that hospitality is an entirely benevolent act. But as with most things human, a lot more lurks beneath the surface of our apparently pious good works...
The Curious Case of First Lutheran Church
It happened something like this. First Lutheran in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, is a large and flourishing congregation with both traditional and contemporary worship services, a strong commitment to evangelism, and a Bible-centered outlook. In the course of recent events, which are too obvious to be named, First Lutheran began to have some doubts about the general drift of the ELCA. But it also wasn’t ready to walk out altogether...
Tearing the Soul by Violating the Body
One more on Harry Potter, and then I promise I’m done. In the Potterverse, the whole plot hinges on Voldemort’s creation of Horcruxes: physical objects in which a fragment of his soul have been concealed, which mean that whatever assaults come on his body, he cannot die. Division of body from soul normally spells death plain and simple for mortal creatures, but in a Horcrux the division is turned to a warped sort of advantage. Professor Slughorn, from whom the young Voldemort learns this, assures him “few would want” the kind of existence resulting from such an act. “Death would be preferable.” But to Voldemort, absolutely nothing conceivable is worse than death...
The Resurrection of Saggy, Lumpy, Longing Bodies
Once you start theologizing about Harry Potter, it’s kind of hard to stop. I have been pondering another blog post about all the central theological details of the last HP book that the movie version left out. To my surprise, what I consider the biggest movie error of all was not mentioned: namely, that when Voldemort is finally defeated—through his own death curse rebounding upon him—his body explodes into a billion pieces...
The Presence in the Absence
The Harry Potter series, once giving rise to accusations of seducing young folk with witchcraft, ended a couple of years ago with the most powerful christological themes to come out of fiction since the Chronicles of Narnia. Theological reflections on the Potter saga accordingly abound...
Empty Bowling Alleys, Stages, and Churches
One of the great privileges of being the regional District Vice-President for Metro-New York, has been how it has allowed me the opportunity to walk through many of our urban church buildings. I am always amazed at how extensive the facilities are. It seems the pattern for the early urban churches was to build a sanctuary first and then the next thing to build was a fellowship hall with a stage, even if there wasn’t going to be a day school attached to the church. Even more remarkable is how many of these old churches had bowling alleys in their basements...
The Celebration of a Cardinal
Given the preeminent role that the issue of religion in the public sphere has played during the last couple of week’s news cycle, it was with a little more interest than usual that I attended the February 25, 2012 service of mid-morning prayer celebrating the elevation of Timothy Dolan to cardinal. As usually happens with anything formal regarding the Archdiocese of New York, the event was a gala celebration pulling together ecumenical and inter-faith clergy from innumerable traditions, and a host of politicians across the political spectrum, all wedged, quite literally by seating arrangement, between the women religious on one side and the male religious on the other. . .
Physician Heal Thyself?
My parish is situated in the midst of a growing medical-professional area in the Bronx, surrounded by three hospitals and a number of outpatient and specialist facilities. During the day as I walk the neighborhood I am more likely than not to encounter medical personnel on break. One of the great oddities that I have observed is how poorly so many of these doctors, medical students, nurses and EMTs take care of themselves...
Pouches and Pockets for Faith and Love
Recently I stumbled across a charming little passage from Luther that I don’t recall ever reading before. It’s in his account of catechetical instruction in his German Mass of 1526 (LW 53). Once children—or any persons desiring to be Christians—have learned the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer, they can start on Bible verses, which Luther selects and distinguishes according to pouches and pockets. Before you start, it will help to knw that Hungarian gulden were worth more than Rhenish gulden, that pennies, groschen, and gulden were made of copper, silver, and gold respectively, and that Schreckenberger were a variety of silver groschen...