Let’s Talk thanks Carl Isaacson for putting blood and passion into our synodical theological dialog. We trust all will understand that irony can be irritating and still be irenic. Some slightly less bloody responses: Maxine Washington was the author of the article–noted only in editorial brackets in Carl’s piece. Granted, she was writing as a […]

As a rule, I’m not an avid reader of other folk’s Pastor’s columns. Like most clergy I receive at least half a dozen newsletters from other congregations. I read the parish statistics, and check the program notes. But I don’t generally read the Pastor’s column. The same applies to the Bishop’s missives in the synodical […]

The development of a new mission congregation is a challenging, yet exciting enterprise. It is challenging because mission developers must overcome great obstacles on a daily basis, operating without the familiar infrastructure of an existing congregation. On the other hand, mission devel­opment is exciting because one gets to create a new community of faith with […]

It has been noted, often with a bit of irony, that Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom and what came instead was the Church. The irony is of course that while Jesus proclaimed a new reality, what we got was another fallible institution, subject to the same frailties and limitations that define all human […]

I remember learning about ecclesiology in my basic Christian doctrines course when I was in seminary in the mid 1970’s. I had all the answers then. In seminary the doctrine of ecclesiology was a simple theological and theoretical pursuit. After 16 years of ordination, of doing ministry initially as a parish pastor, and for the […]

The question that I have been asked to address flows from a recent lecture series by Philip Hefner and Tim Lull at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago on the issue, “How is the Church necessary for Salvation?” Though I was unable to be present during that 1996 Hein‑Fry series, I did have the […]

(These remarks were delivered as part of Dr. Hefner’s contributions to the 1996 Hein-Fry Lectures.) The theme of these three lectures is described by A.R. Ammons in his poem, “Politics”: I look for the way things will turn out spiralling from a center, the shape things will take to come forth in: I look for […]