Featured Study
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Lesson 11: Concluding with Immigration
Read More »Let me end this series using immigration to illustrate what I’ve found. I chose the topic after a number of you said you would appreciate a theologically informed evaluation of the Trump administration. It seemed that repentance, viewed as rethinking, might do that. What started out as an examination of current events always developed into […]
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Lesson 10: Repentance and the 250th Anniversary
Read More »One of the reasons I chose to write about repentance was the fear that we would hear a lot of bad theology as we celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary. Most of those planning and participating in the religious events are prosperity gospel preachers. One of them is President Trump’s personal adviser, Paula White, whom he […]
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Lesson 9: Rethinking Nature
Read More »In a modern technological society, rethinking our relationship with nature is critical. Living most of the time in an artificial world, we tend to lose contact with our natural environment and with that, an appreciation of our dependence. In the past, technology provided tools that helped us live in harmony with nature. Tools protected us […]
Practical Theology
Lesson 1: Practical Christianity
Obviously, the first task is to define what I mean by Practical Christianity. Not so obviously, the second is to point out this is a very controversial subject. When I speak of Practical Christianity I simply mean what faith offers for everyday living here and now. People used to speak of it as “Applied Christianity”. […]
Lesson 2: Overcoming Suffering
The course will look at some of the components of Practical Christianity, sometimes described as the art of Christian living. It will begin examining how Christianity offers a way to overcome suffering, whether this is from natural disaster, social injustice, or personal problems. God obviously does not promise to shield us from the suffering caused […]
Lesson 3: Cause of Suffering
After writing, “Suffering is inevitable for all, but some suffer more, and some feel the pains of life more deeply than others, or so it often appears,” Concordia asked, “Is there a point or purpose to any kind of suffering? Does suffering build character?” The answer to those questions is essential for understanding our way […]
Christian Ethics
Lesson 1: The Moral Crisis
Why is Michael Sandel’s introduction to ethics the most popular class at Harvard? What led “China Newsweek” to name Sandel the most influential foreign figure of the year 2011? How come my classes report using Sandel’s book has provoked some of our most exciting discussions? I suspect the answer has something to do with the […]
Lesson 2: What are Ethics?
When I began my face-to-face classes by asking how many ethical decisions they had made that day, I received a variety of answers. Some felt these were confined to big questions that demanded carefully considering the proprieties and priorities of the options before taking action. Others believed just about all their acts involved some form […]
Lesson 3: Utilitarianism
Sandel first takes a look at utilitarianism, the way our modern society usually does ethics. (See Chapter 2 of his book.) In the past we determined right and wrong by using laws or principles to evaluate an action. You did not kill, because there was a law that prohibited it. Today, utilitarians decide by measuirng […]
Luther\'s Small Catechism
Lesson 1: The First Commandment in Luther’s Small Catechism
Being that this is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting the 95 Theses Against Indulgences, I plan to offer two series on the reformer this fall. The second will expand on a lecture I am giving at La Roche College on November 1, 2017. It suggests that the Lutheran and Roman Catholic narratives these […]
Lesson 2: The Ten Commandments in Luther’s Small Catechism
I do not intend to examine every part of the catechism. You can do that yourself here. Instead, I shall highlight some of the more important parts of Luther’s explanations, especially emphasizing some of his distinctive insights. He numbered the commandments just as he was taught in the Catholic Church. The first three included those […]
Lesson 3: The First Article of the Apostles’ Creed in Martin Luther’s Small Catechism
Luther’s explanation of the Creed’s first article is another classic. He uses everyday language to interpret creation as God’s ongoing action to provide for all our needs, protect us from all dangers, and preserve us through all changes. This is far from the deism most of our contemporaries associate with creation in which God sets […]
Revelation
Lesson 1: An Introduction to Revelation
I decided to write a short series on Revelation after a number of onliners indicated that they were not aware that the book charted the fall of the Roman Empire. Once you begin reading it this way, it offers another perspective on the relation of church and state. Most of us think Paul’s instruction in […]
Lesson 2: The Seven Churches of Revelation (Chapters 2 and 3)
Any decent understanding of Paul’s letters begins with an appreciation that they were written to particular congregations in a specific historical period. They were preserved in scripture, because the apostle handled their problems in a manner that remains relevant for us. So, too, any meaningful interpretation of Revelation depends on discerning the situation John was […]
Lesson 3: The Heavenly Court in Revelation 4 -5
These two chapters lift the veil from heaven so we can see first hand what is happening there. When an angelic voice calls John and places him in his prophetic trance, he finds himself in a throne room at the time of Jesus’ ascension. The prophet describes incredibly magnificent cosmic phenomena and wondrously strange creatures […]
Truth
Lesson 1: Trust
The present concern with fake news and a post-truth culture goes deeper than we usually acknowledge. I pulled out some quotes from Sissela Bok’s 1978 book, Lying, that I used when writing about trust decades ago. She wrote that “trust in some degree of veracity functions as a foundation of relations among human beings: when […]
Lesson 2: Truth and Facts
At first, I was taken aback when people read last week’s lesson as a political statement. My intention was simply to point out that a healthy society depends on being able to trust that people are telling the truth. The political examples were meant to show ours is ailing. This week, I wanted to suggest […]
Lesson 3: Truth and Political Correctness
A few weeks ago, Father Jude reminded us that the given in a democracy is a reasonable, educated audience. “Absent that as the valid context, free speech in a democracy is just so much noise, at best, and, at worst, a detriment.” Knowing Jude, I am sure he did not mean that all reasonable and […]
Theology of the Cross
Lesson 1: Luther’s Theology of the Cross
The pandemic has brought clarity to the current situation in Christianity. As it rages on, it has become apparent there are two incompatible camps not necessarily identified with denominational boundaries. One of these consistently speaks of fighting a battle against evil and clearly regards the other camp as the opposition. The anger and threats being […]
Lesson 2: Freedom in the Theology of the Cross
Freedom has become a big issue during the pandemic. Many politicians claim refusing to wear masks is your patriotic duty for it opposes authoritarian mandates. They call on their followers to choose to live as free people. Some water down their position by rationalizing that the COVID virus is not as deadly as scientists maintain, but […]
Lesson 3: Uncertainty in a Theology of the Cross
A late friend who was a world class theologian used to insist that relevance is not a theological category. He had studied under Karl Barth and believed theology begins and ends with the Word of God, not the human situation. I would argue theology is useless unless I can relate it to my everyday life. […]
Technology
Introduction: A Few Preliminary Thoughts
I have three face-to-face study groups, all of which begin in October, so I am going to mark some time before starting the next online series. Because I plan to use the book my son and I recently published in all four groups, coordinating the lessons will make my life far more manageable. With that […]
Introduction: A Summary of the Book
I plan to begin the lessons based on the book Faith, Hope, and Love in the Technological Society next week. Of course, I hope that you will buy a copy for $25 from Amazon (just click on the book; a portion benefits St. Judes) or for $20 from the publisher, Wipf and Stock, at 541-344-1528 […]
Introduction: The Blessed Ambiguity of Words
This series follows some of the thoughts in Faith, Hope, and Love in the Technological Society, the book that my son, Franz, and I recently wrote. One of its main theses is that God speaks to us when members of the community converse about their religious experiences and insights. The assumption is that these conversations […]
Genesis for Today
Introduction
Let’s do a series on what Genesis has to say about our present situation. We tend to think of the Bible as beginning with the Genesis creation and ending with Revelation’s last days. Then we remember it is really a library with books gathered in categories. When we do that we can consider that we […]
Lesson 1: Creation, Not Accident (Genesis 1 and 2)
An honest reading of the creation stories quickly reveals the authors are not interested in particulars. Once you acknowledge that there are two very different, even contrasting accounts right next to each other, you recognize the editors are not trying to write accurate historical accounts. They are obviously more interested in what the ancient stories […]
Lesson 2: Humanity’s Task (Genesis 1:16-31 and especially 2: 15-17)
Although the ancient stories felt all parts of creation were good and worked together according to God’s design, they focused especially on the relationship between the divine and the human. In the second creation story, the human was to till and care for the garden. In the first, he was to operate as God’s agent […]
The Ten Commandments
Introduction to the Ten Commandments
All Christians, all Jews, and even all Muslims agree the Ten Commandments are a basic statement of how to live according to God’s will. The disagreements come with how to codify these into specific laws. For instance, in our time you could argue all religious people are pro-life even though they do not agree on […]
Lesson 1: The First Commandment
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. The command goes on to prohibit making graven images, a command that might appear to be simpler than it really is. It certainly does ban worshiping […]
Lesson 2: The Second Commandment
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. The ancient Israelites took this so seriously that they did not even utter God’s name in fear that they might use it incorrectly. They would insert “Lord” instead of the […]
Biblical Stories
Lesson 1: Creation 1 — Who We Are
This new series will be based on fundamental Bible stories. In a time of severely divided Christianity, turning to the Bible helps us remember who we are, what we believe, and what we are to do. That’s especially important when so many active Christians no longer know the scriptures. Let’s start with the creation stories […]
Lesson 2: Creation 2 – What We Are To Do
Another feature of the Genesis and Johannine creation stories that is usually overlooked is the importance of words. God creates by speaking. The good order of creation has all living beings in conversation. The corruption of the order is illustrated by the inability of competing cities to share the same language. Genesis ends with words […]
Lesson 3: The Joseph Story
We usually pass off the Joseph story as a clever children’s tale. In truth, as written in Genesis 37-50, it is a rather sophisticated attempt to understand God‘s participation in our world. We still ask the questions it addresses. It quickly becomes apparent that this is a retelling of Cain and Abel, which describes the […]
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