Russell E. Saltzman

The complaints and worry and agonizing anxiousness about the fiscal cliff and Washington gridlock have an alarming air of coming apocalypse. Phrases wafting around include but are not limited to “divided dysfunctional government,” “the worst Congress ever,” and “the grip of partisan gridlock.” The mixed election results”call them a political mulligan”have, many argue, set us up for more of the same horrible things we have endured since the 2010 congressional elections … Continue Reading »

Back in 1980 out in rural Nebraska I conducted my first Thanksgiving Day worship service. It was not a good week. Lucille had died the previous afternoon. I was at the hospital with her husband, her sisters, and her children when, at age forty-eight, she lost a three-year battle with cancer. For some little while before she died she had whispered the sursum corda: “Lift up your hearts.” … Continue Reading »

No, I have never snuck into a Catholic mass for Holy Communion. Not the first time anyway. I politely asked, and when I communed I had the permission of the archbishop of Washington, D.C. That was 1978 when I was one of the chaplains at a Scout summer camp in Virginia and still a Lutheran seminarian. There was a Catholic priest on staff, and I approached him for communion… . Continue Reading »

An Internet search seems to confirm that the late Baptist minister Clinton Locy holds the world’s record for the longest sermon ever preached. In forty-eight hours and eighteen minutes Pastor Locy, back in February 1955, reportedly preached on every book in the Bible, tossing in as well some remarks on the nuclear age. I can find no record of the actual sermon text itself but the exertion did get him mentioned in Time magazine… . Continue Reading »

“They can tell you everything about the battle as if it happened to them,” said a commentator, referring to some residents of Sharpsburg, Maryland, descendants of those who eight generations previously were swept up in the great Battle of Antietam Creek. The battle just passed its one hundred-fiftieth anniversary, yet has recently been described as “a gash in history that is still healing.” … Continue Reading »

Richard Neuhaus told the story (in 1991, I remember it clearly) of going to Kansas to give a lecture. He was met at the Kansas City, Missouri airport and whisked out beyond Topeka across the eventually barren plains that frame the shoulders of Interstate 70. All the plains beyond Topeka eventually become barren. … Continue Reading »

Does this look like a United States coin to you? Federal prosecutors said it did and called it a counterfeit. I don’t see the similarity. It’s too pretty in the first place and in the second place it is composed of one troy ounce of .999 silver. There hasn’t been any silver in circulating U.S. coins since 1964… . Continue Reading »

At my age you’d think sophomoric questions no longer matter. Likely they wouldn’t if I hadn’t slept through religion, logic, and philosophy when I was an actual sophomore (the real action was over at history, journalism, and political science). Besides, it is my age. These things take on a keener edge as time advances. What I need for this discussion, though, is about five other pastors and two six-packs, maybe three. But, you’ll do in a pinch … Continue Reading »

In the summer of 1993, family obligations dictated that I move closer to home. It also meant taking a sabbatical from parish ministry. That’s how I ended up in Marceline, Missouri, population 2,500, interviewing with the publisher of the Marceline Press to become editor. He’d already offered the spot to me by telephone based on clips I sent. Now he was taking me on a tour, selling the town… . Continue Reading »

I am rethinking Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical condemning artificial birth control. Well, actually not rethinking since I cannot remember ever thinking about it much at all, ever, except dismissively. So best to say, I am considering it seriously for the first time. I actually sat down to read it. This, I admit, is a bit unusual for a Lutheran pastor, or for any Protestant, pastor or not… . Continue Reading »