By Matthew Becker[1] One of the more controversial matters among some Christians today is the relation of Christian faith in the triune God to scientific knowledge of the natural world. Disagreements about this relationship have led to conflicts within many church bodies, including the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). While educated Christians cannot avoid the knowledge that arises from…
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By Matthew Becker For those who were classically trained in the Missouri Synod (or almost classically trained; I graduated from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 1988) and who stayed awake during Dogmatics 101, 102, and 103, where the main textbook was either Franz Pieper’s Christian dogmatics or J. T. Mueller’s compendium, there was no one…
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By Matthew Becker This past year marked the 400th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest painters of all time, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), not to be confused with the person whom Caravaggio sought to surpass in artistic greatness, namely, the more well-known Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). While I had learned of Caravaggio…
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By Matthew Becker Earlier this October I led a group of twenty Valparaiso University students on a week-long study trip to sites in central and eastern Germany connected with Martin Luther (1483-1546). The students have been participating in Valpo’s semester-long study abroad program in Reutlingen, Germany, where I serve as its director. This fall I’m teaching two courses: one on the theology…
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By Matthew Becker Those few Christians from previous centuries who appealed to Scripture to argue against the institution of slavery in Britain and the United States, and who opposed racial inequality, faced a difficult challenge. After all, there are few biblical texts that oppose slavery or that support liberal, egalitarian principles, and there are many…
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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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By Matthew Becker Prefatory comment: In my introductory course on Christian theology, students engage Christian understandings of God, creation, anthropology, evil, sin, and so on. During class discussions participants analyze such issues as God’s relation to creation, the relation of ancient religions to each other, the nature of human beings, the problems of evil and…
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By Matthew Becker *The following essay is based partly on the introduction to my book, The Self-Giving God and Salvation History: The Trinitarian Theology of Johannes von Hofmann (New York: T&T Clark, 2004). Johannes Christian Konrad von Hofmann (1810-1877) has been properly identified as “the greatest conservative theologian” of the nineteenth century and one…
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By Matthew Becker For many Christian church communities today, the practice of women teaching theology in a university or seminary is not an issue. The largest Christian denomination in the world, the Roman Catholic Church, has allowed this practice for many years. The number of female teachers of theology in Roman Catholic and Protestant universities and seminaries…
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