There’s lots of talk around the Twin Cities about what’s going on at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. The largest seminary of the ELCA, Luther’s president and CFO resigned late last year after disclosing a $6 million shortfall in 2012 (our of a $27 million annual budget). More recently, the interim president announced big cutbacks: 18 of 125 staff were laid off immediately 8 of 44 faculty members will retire this year and not be replaced 5 more faculty will... Read more
Emergent is dead. Long live Emergent. Like me, you may occasionally hear comments like this: “The emerging church is dead, and it had no long-lasting impact.” It’s similar to people telling you that no one is doing postmodern philosophy at universities anymore. Both are patently false. Things have changed, to be sure. Philosophical and ecclesial fashions change, and others take a run at making headlines. But the excitement building around this week’s Subverting the Norm conference just goes to show... Read more
Yesterday, I was sitting in the steam room at the gym, minding my own business, enjoying some silence, when the naked guy next to me says, “So, did you see that basketball player’s broken leg? It was gruesome.” “No,” I replied, “I’ve been avoiding it.” “Well, all the talk on the radio today is about the sound. Supposedly a lot of people in the arena could hear the snap, and they can’t get the sound out of their heads.” Then... Read more
We took last week off for Holy Week, and for the release of the QTHC ebook. With the release of that book, a host of new questions have come in — to date, hundreds have been asked. You and I have answered 21. It’s time to dive into another season of excellent questions and thoughtful answers. If you’re new to the series, it works like this: people email their questions to me; I post them on Tuesday for general conversation... Read more
You know things are getting desperate for “Minnesotans for Marriage” when they devolve to Godwin’s Law: Minnesota for Marriage is urging pastors to preach Sunday against same-sex marriage. To assist religious leaders, the group’s allies prepared a “sermon starter” designed to touch on key arguments against same-sex marriage. Some of the material quotes Bible verses claiming same-sex couples are “detestable,” “an abomination” and an attack on children and Christians. The material also tries to debunk a body of medical and... Read more
I received the baseball mitt on the left in second grade. It was way too big for me then, in 1976. It’s a Bob Grich playmaker model, and I loved it. I played with it through middle school; it came with me for intramural softball in college and seminary in the ’80s and ’90s, and church league softball in the ’00s. Its latest endeavor is to accompany me as the Little League coach for my oldest son. This will be... Read more
Happy Easter, everyone! Just wanted to share this completely awesome sketch by Paul Soupiset for the forthcoming Animate.Bible resource. Of course, it’s a variation of the famous Dewey Defeats Truman headline, and it couldn’t be more appropriate for today. Here’s the link to the image, if you want to share it yourselves. And, again, Happy Easter! Read more
Scott Paeth: One needn’t believe in an literal, or at least eternal, view of hell and damnation in order to believe in the importance of Christ’s descent into hell. On the contrary, one may believe that Christ’s redemptive activity is precisely that which saves us from the hell that he himself suffered. He deprived hell of its enternity, not to rescue us from divine wrath, but from our own experience of god-abandonment. Read the rest, including a perfect quote from... Read more
Many Christians struggle to understand this day, Good Friday. We’re told, “Jesus died for you,” and “Jesus died for your sins.” And that makes perfect sense for many years. And then, at some point, most of us ask, But how does that work? By what cosmic calculus does the death of one man mean that I am not accountable for my sins any longer? I’ve written extensively about this question, including an ebook: A Better Atonement: Beyond the Depraved Doctrine of... Read more
For the second year in a row, Rabbi Joseph Edelheit graciously invited Courtney, the kids, and me to share in his family Seder dinner for Passover. It was a wonderful experience. There are longstanding, traditional elements on a Seder plate, including maror, charoset, karpas, z’roa, and beitzah. We had all of those. But one of the things that I like most about the traditions of Passover is that they are open to change and modification, at least in the Edelheit... Read more
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