Blog - Cross

So, Donald Trump will be inaugurated on Friday as our next president.

In the late ’60s and ’70s, my father was a Professor of New Testament in the Religion Department at Concordia College.

What is, therefore, our task today? Shall I answer: “Faith, hope, and love”? That sounds beautiful. But I would say–courage. No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth. Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature…we lack a holy rage–the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth…a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God’s earth, and the destruction of God’s world. To rage when little children must die of hunger, when the tables of the rich are sagging with food. To rage at the senseless killing of so many, and against the madness of militaries. To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction peace. To rage against complacency. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God. And remember the signs of the Christian Church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish…but never the chameleon.
Call committees, when sketching out a profile for their next pastor, are awfully drawn to words like these: kind, available, comforting, pastoral, articulate, flexible, intelligent, dynamic, wise, knowledgable, organized, trust-worthy, confident.

This morning, I found myself trolling some earlier blogs I wrote about Advent and Christmas, trying to remember what thoughts I have had about them in the past (I have lots of thoughts, but can hold on to only one or two at a time).

Tuesday, post Holy Week.

So tomorrow, on Ash Wednesday, many–not all, but many–people in the Christian Church mark the beginning of Lent.

This blog will be laced with obscenities.

I was listening, the other day, to a man on the radio who said that he advocated “Value Based Voting.”

Today, at 10:00 p.m., South Dakota will execute a man, and another man within the next couple of weeks.

Good Friday is a High Holy Day in the Christian tradition, and I would argue is half of a singular event: Cross/Resurrection.

It’s 8:04 on Tuesday morning, and I’m sitting in the waiting room at the hospital after just sending my son off to yet another surgery.

Anna- curious of your understanding of Matthew 13:36-43.  Is this really telling of a one time judgement and not an eternal one?  I was thinking of our conversation at Outlaw Ranch this past week.  It sounds pretty eternal to me.

The problem I see every day amongst Christians is the inability to find a more practical explanation to those of us who don’t quite understand the meaning of giving up your only son to save a bunch of sinners. Why would anyone do that? And worse: no matter what kind of crook you’ve been your whole life,  just accept such a travesty and you secured a spot in heaven. And I’m supposed to reason with that?????  Come on!!!

Question:

My daughter Else and I have settled in these last several nights to read Bridge to Terabithia.

Next Monday we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

I try to believe that grace is a fundamental teaching of the Lutheran faith. I have trouble with that at times. Any ideas?

So. I recognize that I have been lax in writing.

After the accident, somebody told me that that best metaphor that they could think for me was that of Holy Saturday.

“Jews and Christians can walk together until Good Friday…”  So says Pinchas Lapide, a remarkable Jewish theologian, in his book, Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian Doctrine.