Let’s Talk has offered “living theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod” since 1996. At the beginning and for many years it was a mailed print publication. A few years ago we went online. It costs less and gave us greater potential circulation (the whole world!). We have usually published thematic volumes. The last was the 2017 Reformation 500 issue. Now we are opening up our content to any and all topics. We invite submission of papers and talks from members of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the ELCA OR talks given to members of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod. Send submissions in Word docx. to fcsenn70@gmail.com.
Articles in the 2020 issue
The liturgical year begins with Advent and that’s when we began our 2020 issue of Let’s Talk. We featured several articles appropriate for the Advent season by Professor Maxwell Johnson of the University of Notre Dame on “Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Season of Advent,” based on an address he gave at the annual Lutheran Hispanic-Latino Encuento at St. Timothy Lutheran Church, 4208 W. Dickens, Chicago (Hermosa neighborhood) on El Dia de la Santa Cruz (Holy Cross Day), September 14, 2019 sponsored by Lutheran CORE; Dr. Richard Johnson of Fuller Theological Seminary on “Holy Living,” an address given at First-Santa Cruz Lutheran Church in Joliet, IL for an evening of fellowship, a dinner, a speaker, and Vespers hosted by the Society of the Holy Trinity, Northern Illinois Chapter, Pr. Keith Forni, STS, dean; Frank C. Senn on the need of pastors for self-care, a Lenten talk on spiritual discipline for pastors in the Central Conference of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod on March 17, 2017; and a Farewell Sermon: Home Rejoicing by Pastor Benjamin Dueholm, one of our regular columnists (“On the Way”), to Messiah Lutheran Church in Wauconda, IL.
Advent is a time to consider eternity. The Cantata Vespers at Grace Lutheran Church, River Forest, featured Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata 20, “Eternity, You Thunder Word.” The end of the church year summons us to consider eschatology (“Where will you spend eternity?”) and the last judgment. Bach’s cantata text, with reference to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, dwells on the threatening terrors of hell. The homilist at Vespers, Dr. Mark Bangert, raised the question of how we deal with our own anxieties. We publish here the whole package of Cantata text, notes on the cantata, and the sermon under the cantata’s title, “Eternity,” You Thunder Word.
