Christian Living, Discipleship, and/or Spirituality

[1] Today’s reading from Jeremiah casts a lovely and hopeful vision for a future when God’s law is “written on the hearts” of the people, and when friendship with God is so obvious that no one needs any convincing. Imagine the profound reformation required for us humans to reach that point! Although we trust that […]

1] The year 2010 marks the centennial of the birth of the Swedish theologian Gustaf Wingren, who died in 2000. For nearly all his academic career Wingren taught Christian theology at the University of Lund. Between 1940 and 1980 he published numerous books and articles that were influential (and often controversial) not only in Scandinavia […]

[1] Johann Michael Reu (1869-1943) was born in Diebach, Germany and trained for the pastoral ministry at the mission institute founded by Wilhelm Loehe in Neuendettelsau. He came to the United States in 1889, first serving as pastor at Mendota and then at Rock Falls, Illinois for ten years until 1899. Reu was next called […]

[1] She knocks a little tentatively on my office door; and at my invitation she comes in and sits down. I’ve not seen Sarah (not her real name) for some time, and I’m delighted she has come to talk. One of the most capable students I’ve ever taught, she is just back from a semester […]

[1] The Rev. Mark Wm. Radecke, an ELCA pastor at Susquehanna University has penned an excellent article in a recent issue of Christian Century entitled “Misguided Missions.”1 In discussing short-term mission trips, Pastor Radecke explains that “I’ve found that [mission trips] can have a profound effect on the faith and life of participants, and good […]

You have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things…. Do you despise the riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to […]

[1] Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most celebrated and honored African American in the latter half of the 20th century. Streets named after him and scholarships bearing his name have immortalized the contributions of this Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning, American Christian minister. Moreover, a national holiday was established to celebrate King’s birthday as a way of signaling […]

[1] Johann Konrad Wilhelm Loehe (1808-1872) served from 1837 to the end of his life as a village pastor in Neuendettelsau, Germany, in the vicinity of Nuremberg. This was a call that Loehe did not covet. However, from this out-of-the way place, Loehe engaged in a ministry and mission that had monumental influence, not only […]

[1] I was once teaching Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason[1] to a group of undergraduates. We were discussing Kant’s claim that Christ acts as a “prototype” for human morality. That is, Christ provides us with the most perfect example of how to be good, one that is worthy of our emulation. […]

Introduction [1] When looking at Christian figures from the past, interpreters primarily choose three routes, what I think of as the evolutionary, conservative, and progressive. A more evolutionary approach views Christian history as a development to maturity, with the earliest years of the church akin to its childhood and adolescence, the Middle Ages as perhaps […]