Rev. Eugene Brueggemann We live in a country and in a time when the religious word evangelical has been politicized. It is a term traditionally used to describe an expression of Protestantism which has thrived in this country practically from its beginnings. It emphasizes evangelism and a more or less literal reading of the Bible….
Read more
Babel and Trump Rev. Eugene Brueggemann Ancient history in the Book of Genesis records the attempt of the people in the Near East to build a city and a tower “with its top in the heavens,” by which they would “make a name for ourselves.” They didn’t get a building permit from God, the…
Read more
Pr. Eugene Brueggemann When I was a seminarian in the late ‘40s, we still heard a lot about the Election Controversy of the 1870s, a theological/ecclesiastical contretemps which fractured the newly created Synodical Conference. “Election” was shorthand for the doctrine of predestination. Fallout from the controversy poisoned inter-Lutheran relationships for decades. Election controversies do that….
Read more
Pr. Eugene Brueggemann Pastor Eugene Brueggemann served in parish and campus ministries as a member of the Missouri Synod for fifty-five years. He has an abiding interest in the history of that Synod and has written extensively on its historical development since the 1973 New Orleans Convention. Ed. One of the most important questions before the…
Read more
By Eugene Brueggemann Wayne Saffen is one of those unsung heroes in a lost cause whose contribution to that cause was worthy of note. The lost cause was defending the Missouri Synod and its St. Louis seminary from the swarm of cultural and theological conservatives who triumphed at the Denver convention in 1973. He was…
Read more
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…
Read more
By Eugene Brueggemann One of the most important speeches I ever heard was delivered at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, on the occasion of my graduation from grad school in 1951 –and I thought it was a terrible speech. The speaker was Dr. A.H. Grumm, a Vice-President of Synod. He had three books at the podium as…
Read more