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Russell E. Saltzman is a former Lutheran pastor, transitioning to the Roman Catholic Church.

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Kim Davis and the Mess She's In

From Web Exclusives

Once upon a time I was a sworn officer of the State of Kansas, occupying a statutory office as deputy secretary of state for legislative matters. I had to take an oath before I could sign my name to anything that pertained to the job. (Somewhere I think there is still a photograph of the occasion, . . . . Continue Reading »

Dieting

From Web Exclusives

It is time for some late summer lighthearted fun, except our household is dieting. We have gone low carb, paleo, eggplant. Yes, I know, eggplant doesn’t belong to a paleo diet. It’s cultivated. Fruits, berries, nuts, and wild roots are paleo. But with only four or so carbohydrates to a cup, . . . . Continue Reading »

Tourists at a Tragedy

From Web Exclusives

Vacation this year took us to Fredericksburg, Virginia just to see a ridge known as Marye’s Heights. It was there, December, 13, 1862, that a Union brigade of II Corps attacked the Confederate left, two thousand entrenched Rebels positioned behind a four-foot high stone wall bordering a narrow lane. Enhanced here and there by field fortifications, the wall was a perfect defense. Originally known as Telegraph Road, the lane was forever after called the Sunken Road. Continue Reading »

Catholicism Unriddled

From Web Exclusives

I first read Jaroslav Pelikan’s The Riddle of Roman Catholicism: Its History, Its Beliefs, Its Future (1959) while doing my pastoral residency in Detroit, 1978–79. I just finished it for the second time. It is still a book with value. Pelikan says one thing in particular that struck me: Any . . . . Continue Reading »

Dump Hamilton

From First Thoughts

Quinn Hillyer at National Review is calling the anticipated change in the U.S. $10 note “outrageous and ignorant.” The change entails removal of Alexander Hamilton’s portrait for that of an as yet unnamed woman. It’s not the woman that arouses Hillyer’s unhappiness, but the removal of his . . . . Continue Reading »

Visiting Leonard

From Web Exclusives

Leonard was one of those pastoral visits pastors avoid.He was a guy who just got lost in the life of the congregation. He got mad at a pastor back in the mid-1950s and stopped attending worship. He came on and off—mostly off—during successive pastorates thereafter, but never with any regularity. . . . . Continue Reading »

Mary, Mary's Son, and Islam

From Web Exclusives

Does Islam worship the one God of Abraham, like Jews and Christians, or some other god? Many strident voices insist Allah is a different god. Inconveniently, though, the three great monotheistic faiths claim Abraham as their patriarch and resulting from that, each claim Abraham’s one God as their . . . . Continue Reading »

Advice to Inactive Christians

From Web Exclusives

What is there to make of Raul Castro’s strategic little slip about becoming Catholic again? I say “strategic” because I can’t think that an inactive church member would ever say such a thing without assuming there was some advantage to be gained by saying it.Castro’s papal fawning is, he says, due to the pope’s “wisdom and modesty.” I’d rather hear Castro say the pope’s Christian example had convinced him to ban extralegal political executions, but let these things come in their time, I suppose. Continue Reading »

Loved Through Eternity

From Web Exclusives

I wasn’t going to say anything further about being adopted, not beyond what I’ve said before. The wistful “melancholic nostalgia” I described about being adopted is gone. It has been replaced with . . . well, I don’t know, perhaps, a practical certainty I’m better off. The fact of adoption weighs on some adoptees, adopted as babies with little or no access even in later life to the real story. I was one of those.There is at the heart of things the knowledge somebody could not, or would not keep me. It puts a strain on things. It adds a tentative dimension to many relationships. I don’t like it, but there it is, hunched in a corner waiting to snag me unawares. So, no, I wasn’t going to say anything more. Continue Reading »