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Up one levelTearing the Soul by Violating the Body
One more on Harry Potter, and then I promise I’m done. In the Potterverse, the whole plot hinges on Voldemort’s creation of Horcruxes: physical objects in which a fragment of his soul have been concealed, which mean that whatever assaults come on his body, he cannot die. Division of body from soul normally spells death plain and simple for mortal creatures, but in a Horcrux the division is turned to a warped sort of advantage. Professor Slughorn, from whom the young Voldemort learns this, assures him “few would want” the kind of existence resulting from such an act. “Death would be preferable.” But to Voldemort, absolutely nothing conceivable is worse than death...
The Resurrection of Saggy, Lumpy, Longing Bodies
Once you start theologizing about Harry Potter, it’s kind of hard to stop. I have been pondering another blog post about all the central theological details of the last HP book that the movie version left out. To my surprise, what I consider the biggest movie error of all was not mentioned: namely, that when Voldemort is finally defeated—through his own death curse rebounding upon him—his body explodes into a billion pieces...
The Presence in the Absence
The Harry Potter series, once giving rise to accusations of seducing young folk with witchcraft, ended a couple of years ago with the most powerful christological themes to come out of fiction since the Chronicles of Narnia. Theological reflections on the Potter saga accordingly abound...
Empty Bowling Alleys, Stages, and Churches
One of the great privileges of being the regional District Vice-President for Metro-New York, has been how it has allowed me the opportunity to walk through many of our urban church buildings. I am always amazed at how extensive the facilities are. It seems the pattern for the early urban churches was to build a sanctuary first and then the next thing to build was a fellowship hall with a stage, even if there wasn’t going to be a day school attached to the church. Even more remarkable is how many of these old churches had bowling alleys in their basements...
The Celebration of a Cardinal
Given the preeminent role that the issue of religion in the public sphere has played during the last couple of week’s news cycle, it was with a little more interest than usual that I attended the February 25, 2012 service of mid-morning prayer celebrating the elevation of Timothy Dolan to cardinal. As usually happens with anything formal regarding the Archdiocese of New York, the event was a gala celebration pulling together ecumenical and inter-faith clergy from innumerable traditions, and a host of politicians across the political spectrum, all wedged, quite literally by seating arrangement, between the women religious on one side and the male religious on the other. . .
Physician Heal Thyself?
My parish is situated in the midst of a growing medical-professional area in the Bronx, surrounded by three hospitals and a number of outpatient and specialist facilities. During the day as I walk the neighborhood I am more likely than not to encounter medical personnel on break. One of the great oddities that I have observed is how poorly so many of these doctors, medical students, nurses and EMTs take care of themselves...
Pouches and Pockets for Faith and Love
Recently I stumbled across a charming little passage from Luther that I don’t recall ever reading before. It’s in his account of catechetical instruction in his German Mass of 1526 (LW 53). Once children—or any persons desiring to be Christians—have learned the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer, they can start on Bible verses, which Luther selects and distinguishes according to pouches and pockets. Before you start, it will help to knw that Hungarian gulden were worth more than Rhenish gulden, that pennies, groschen, and gulden were made of copper, silver, and gold respectively, and that Schreckenberger were a variety of silver groschen...
The Hope of Eternal Life
The eleventh round of the American Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialog has released its latest common statement entitled The Hope of Eternal Life. Following the general format of the Joint Declaration the statement explores first the Biblical evidence and then ecclesial-specific doctrinal teachings on matters such as “death and Intermediate states”, “Judgment”, “Hell and the Possibility of Eternal Loss”, and “Heaven and the Final Kingdom”...
Two Senses of the Word “Gospel”
“Gospel” is a dear word to us Lutherans, the measure of all good theology and preaching. But because of its polyvalency, especially because of our law-gospel distinction, the word itself sometimes trips us up. In my recent re-read of the Book of Concord, I came across a useful little section in the Formula about two distinct senses in which this word is rightly used among Lutherans...
The Communion of Saints
One of the challenges of raising and educating children among the urban poor is finding heroes for them. Despite the low poll numbers Barak Obama still retains hero status among most of my youth here at the school because someone who is “one of us” became president of the United States, and those examples of success are often few and far between in this community. Presidential politics aside, I find the notion of embracing heroes somewhat refreshing in a world that is so often riddled with the historical amnesia of a contemporary information overload that has little space for quaint stories of old...
Sources of Authority according to the Lutheran Confessions
Lutheranism as a distinct branch of the church catholic began with the realization that the church is full of liars, politicians, hucksters, unbelievers, and traitors. Luther and his companions were not the first to realize this as such. It has been the ongoing problem of the church and of Israel and of the whole fallen world. The fact that our Lord Jesus Christ even needed to declare that “all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18) is proof enough that sin, death, and the devil contend Christ’s authority. So Christians should be aware that if the topic of authority comes up at all, it is because there is already a crisis of authority at hand...
The Right and Salutary Way to Destroy the House of the Lord
I didn’t realize till I was well past seminary and halfway through internship that the adult Jesus took up residence in Capernaum. I suppose it’s because Christmas focuses our attention on Bethlehem and Nazareth, and then Easter and Pentecost put us in Jerusalem. The other cities of the Gospels slide by, familiar but otherwise meaningless names. Capernaum doesn’t have much in the way of emotional or theological resonances like the other cities do, but I’ve ever since been struck by the fact that Jesus did in fact establish himself in another city as his ministerial base of operations. In the past week, this Jesus-of-Capernaum has startled me once again...
The Resurrection in a Memorial Culture
Years ago I had the great delight of seeing Kathleen Chalfant star in Margaret Edson’s play “Wit,” sometimes written “W;t” in reference to the recurring theme of commas vs. semi-colons in one of John Donne’s holy sonnets. Chalfant played Vivian, an English scholar of markedly misanthropic tendencies diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer. Over the course of the play she suffers through the side-effects of aggressive treatment, which finally fails, just as she struggles through what the death awaiting her means. Is it the end, as rigid a division from life as a semi-colon? Or is death—compromised by what Christ has done—merely a comma, passing from one life with him to another?...
American Lutheran Bishops?
The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in its wisdom established a Commission on Constitutional Matters (CCM) to serve as the supreme court interpreter of Synod’s constitution and bylaws until such time as the Synod in convention gives their official opinion on matters. Their quarterly plus special meetings reports are “must reading” for aspiring church bureaucrats everywhere. Occasionally, they even make decisions that actually impact the average everyday life of those few remaining Lutherans who still seem to care about church bureaucracy and authority. The recently posted minutes of the CCM meeting over February 18-20, 2011 are one such example. Buried in their comments regarding the revision of the constitution and bylaws of the English District of the LCMS (10-2578), the CCM referenced back to its previous opinions 00-2202 and 00-2215 which affirmed that although the LCMS constitution and bylaws refer to “district presidents” as “district presidents”, it is ok for them to be referred to as “bishops” in the everyday usage of everyday Christians, with the exclusive “district president” being reserved for constitution and bylaw usage...
The First Use and the First Article
I must not be the only one longing for the first use of the law, judging by the outpouring of responses to my previous post. In fact, it’s probably not even the first use itself, but just plain old preaching of the Law, which will be “used” by the Holy Spirit in the first way or the second way (perhaps even in the third!) as is needed in each human soul… but which can’t happen if the Law isn’t getting preached at all...
Desperately Seeking the First Use of the Law
At the midpoint now of my biblically allotted threescore and ten, I have come to the sad conclusion that anybody is capable of anything. I have also, not coincidentally, come to the conclusion that one of the worst failures of our Lutheran churches has been the widespread abandonment of preaching on the first use of the law. I can’t remember ever, since childhood, hearing a Lutheran sermon simply expositing the Ten Commandments, telling me in plain speech that this action is pleasing to God while that action is not...
Luther on Godparents
Last year I posted some comments about the renewal of the role of godparents in baptism in connection with my article in the print edition of Lutheran Forum, “Joyful Exchanges, Part I” (Summer 2010). So I was pleasantly surprised to rediscover Luther’s comments on the duties of godparents in his “Baptismal Booklet” appended to the Small Catechism. They are well worth repeating here...
Lutherans and Roman Catholics - By the Numbers
One of the many hats that I wear is as the leader of the Atlantic District team on our local trialogue with the ELCA Metro-NY Synod and the Archdiocese of New York. Given the significant changes in the American church political landscape over the past few years, the dialog determined to spend the first few meetings just reintroducing ourselves. Each tradition shared some of its history as church bodies and regional incarnations of church bodies, documenting developments over the years, and identifying challenges and pressing issues that their respective communions will face in the years ahead. It was a rare and helpful opportunity for each tradition to describe itself in its own words I had always known how big Roman Catholicism and the Archdiocese of New York was. But to work with actual numbers was astounding. Arch-NY has nearly 3 million members. Comparatively, the whole of the LCMS has approximately 2.5 million members (the ELCA, 4.8 Million)....
There were Giants in the Land
December 12 marked the second anniversary of the death of Avery Cardinal Dulles. In commemoration of this occasion, Fordham University, where Dulles spent his last 20 years as a professor, held a forum discussing his legacy...
The Forum Package for Christmas
You already know what a great read and a great deal the Forum Package is--four issues of Lutheran Forum absolutely stuffed full with articles, probably more than you can read in 3 months anyway and certainly the most colorful covers in the theological journal business, plus 12 issues of hot-off-the-presses reporting in Forum Letter--but a lot of your colleagues and friends probably don't. Even though we enjoy an astonishingly wide circulation for a Lutheran-specific publication at about 2500 paid subscribers, by our count there are at least twice as many people who ought to be subscribing. If not more! So please help us and your neighbor out, and think about giving a gift subscription for Christmas, maybe to a first-call pastor in your area who's feeling the painful loss of the seminary community, or a parish ministry veteran who's ready for a fresh encounter with theology, or lay folks who are constantly bugging you with their excellent challenging questions..