Early on in the current occupation cos-playing as an actual, functional administration … back during the slash-and-burn heyday of Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency,” Michael Flynn posted something on the X social media platform about Lutheran Social Services (LSS) being a money laundering operation. Elon Musk, owner …
During the ELCA Churchwide Assembly this week, a colleague from seminary, Scott Johnson, who is now Bishop of the Nebraska Synod, posted a piece he had written back in February with a view toward the election of the next Presiding Bishop of the ELCA (one of the major agenda items …
About a month ago, we marked the first anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In a little less than two months, it will be the anniversary of the shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston, Texas. Next month, it will be …
Four weeks ago, as of last Thursday, I was headed off on a reluctant return errand to a store I generally visit only once a month because it is a fair drive from home. I misremembered whether it was north or south that I wouldn’t be able to go directly …
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light … That’s where we’re headed in Advent, these words from Isaiah that we’ll read on Christmas Eve. Advent is a journey set in the darkest weeks of the year, as the days grow shorter and shorter. Even after …
Summer and assembly time have passed. Rally Day, the now traditional re-launch of regular congregational activities, has come and gone. In many cases, some of the prompting for renewed focus on activities — and attendance — in the congregation has come from the downward trend lines that are dogging most …
Because Easter fell rather late this year, the commemoration of the theologian Anselm of Canterbury on April 21st falls within the first week of Easter. Maybe it’s because these events are so close this year … Maybe it’s because I spent Lent reading Walter Wangerin Jr.’s The Book of Sorrows …
Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” in 1919, during the aftermath of World War I. American history books don’t attend to this, but “the war to end all wars” was not only a profound social-political crisis for Europe; it was a spiritual and theological one as well. …
In some traditions, there is a custom known as “St. Martin’s Advent” or Celtic Advent by which the season begins November 16th so as to be 40 days before Christmas, balancing the season of Lent, which is 40 days before Easter (not counting Sundays). It is with a view to …
I’m indebted to pastor & author Walter Wangerin, Jr. for the title line (which also appears in the text) as well as for the indentifier “the fear-not angel.” I also want to acknowledge my mom for the theological insight she gave me twenty-some years ago… We’re here tonight because it’s …