This essay takes further the ―Christmas‖ motif as a metaphor of Bonhoeffer‘s Lutheran spirituality. Condensed from lectures given at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, CA, and Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, Ontario, it focuses on the last five years of Bonhoeffer‘s life and the intensifying of the incarnational heart of his experience of Jesus Christ in the face of not only profound suffering and evil, but the radiance of love.
Using the writings of medieval women who were devoted to the Eucharist, Schroeder urges contemporary Lutherans to embrace an incarnational Eucharistic theology that affirms the goodness of the body.
Schroeder examines the writings of medieval women who characterize the devil as a violent misogynist. Schroeder argues that violence against male or female bodies is an attack by the Evil One. The doctrine of the resurrection is God‘s affirmation of the goodness of the human body and a promise of healing in this life and at the bodily resurrection.
This article reminds readers that the church is not a place but the body of Christ connected across the globe. It describes the hopes and fears of Palestinian Christians and calls the rest of the church to respond to this hurting member.
This article explains how Athanasius used Middle Platonic ideas of Form to present Jesus as the ideal Form of Humanity, in which Christians participate through faith. In such participation, the image of God that had been lost by sin, is restored forever because it is divinized in Christ, and thus it is eternal and indestructible.
This article is related to my book ―I Am a Christian‖. It recounts the stories of two medieval nuns, one succumbing to the temptation to harm herself, and the other fighting such despair by confronting the devil with Christ. It gives the example of a modern Christian woman using the second nun‘s strategy to deal with the difficult emotions expressed in self-harm
This article presents Luther‘s advice to those tempted to despair, especially by a bad conscience: Do not weigh your good and bad actions to determine your worth in God‘s eyes, but remember your baptism into Christ.
This article is addressed to those who work for justice and see no results. It pursues the question of why Jesus does not set John the Baptizer free from captivity. My answer is that Jesus enters into captivity, too, in order to work from the inside out, breaking the very system itself that continuously imprisons people. This approach looks like weakness, but it is strength.