Several years ago I received a brochure promoting a very conservative Lutheran seminary. Among its boasts: “This seminary is founded on an inerrant interpretation of the Bible.” Was that simply a syntactical slip? Do these people rely on God’s inerrancy or their own? As long as the Christ has been around, he has been “a […]
Are We So Right We Can’t Be Saved?
“Maceration of the Minister” Revisited
A generation has come and gone since Joseph Sittler wrote his essay on the “Maceration of the Minister” in his book, The Ecology of Faith: The New Situation in Preaching (Fortress, 1961; reprinted in Grace Notes and Other Fragments, Fortress, 1981). Much has changed in the Church in 36 years, but it still stings to […]
Choosing the Future to Fear
Have you been listening to teenagers lately, along the frontier? City meets suburbia and third world meets all the rest in this funky landscape we call the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, and for the sake of the Church we should pay close attention to how theology plays out here with the emerging generation. One thing you […]