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Luther Reading Challenge

From Web Exclusives

In 2009, my colleague Theodor Dieter and I started teaching a two-week course every November on Luther’s theology, for Lutheran pastors from all over the world, in no less venerable a location than Wittenberg itself. We approached the first year with post-Christendom and post-colonial qualms. Did Luther have anything to say to people anymore? Was it pure anachronistic antiquarianism on our part still to love him? Did we have any business inflicting Luther on Africans struggling with malaria and tremendous political violence, or on Asians negotiating a level of religious plurality unimaginable to North Atlantic Christians like ourselves? Continue Reading »

Here I Walk, I Cannot Do Otherwise

From Web Exclusives

There’s nothing like being ejected from the bosom of family, parish, and church college into the orbit of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus to give a young Lutheran a run for her money. During my tenure at First Things he paid me the compliment of trying to make a Catholic out of me. I thanked him by discovering I had a call to the ordained ministry and heading for seminary. It was a memorable fifteen months… . Continue Reading »