Spring 2005
By John Helmke We long to be “an Acts 2 church” focused on verses 42–47. It was a time when controversy was not yet mentioned and the scandal of Ananias and Sapphira’s fraud was still three chapters off. “Every day they continued to meet together … enjoying the favor of all the people….
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Another Look at Romans 16:17–20[1] By William J. Hassold Paul’s directive in Romans 16:17, “avoid them,” has significantly influenced the attitude of some in the LCMS as to the proper way in which to relate to other Christians and even other Lutherans. This passage helped to shape the attitude of the fathers of the…
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By Mary Todd I have moved from a small-e evangelical campus to a capital-c Catholic campus. In learning about my new Catholic world, I find that, more and more, we need not only to understand the words we use but to ask—in an attempt to understand—about the words others use. When I heard that the…
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By Robert Schmidt The 46th Convention of the LCMS passed this resolution in 1965: “Resolved, That we affirm as Lutheran Christians that the Evangelical Lutheran Church is chiefly a confessional movement within the total body of Christ rather than a denomination emphasizing institutional barriers of separation.” In the intervening years that resolution has been challenged again and…
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By John Hannah In 1965 The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod accepted the invitation to join other American Lutherans in initiating bilateral theological dialogues with Roman Catholics. The Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue has continued for forty years. Missouri remained a member and sent representatives through 1993 and has recently asked to rejoin the dialogue. I believe that we…
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By James Gruetzner George L. Murphy is at home in two worlds: the world of science (Ph.D. in theoretical physics, Johns Hopkins, 1972) and the world of Lutheran theology (M.Div., Wartburg, 1983). As a physicist, he is authoritative; as a Lutheran theologian he is informed. It is more than merely having “one foot in each…
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By Eugene Brueggemann The question of church fellowship is one of the leitmotifs in the history of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. The fellowship debate serves as a perennial tar baby in our fellowship, an obsession which time and again distracts us from other more pressing questions of mission and ministry. The sad, offensive spectacle we…
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By Matthew Becker The most controversial issues in the last half millennium of Christian theology surround the Christian Bible. Of course the major division that began in western Christendom in the 16th Century was largely the result of disagreements over scriptural authority and interpretation vis-à-vis church doctrine and practice; yet even among the church bodies that adhere…
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