Russell E. Saltzman

Communion in both kinds (host and cup) is a staple of the Lutheran reform of the Mass. Somewhere around article twenty-two in the Augsburg Confession of 1530 you’ll find this: Among us both kinds of the sacrament are given to the laity for the following reason. There is clear order and command . . . . Continue Reading »

Looking for the thrill of a life time? Take a ride on the euthanasia roller coaster , designed by Julijonas Urbonas, a Ph.D. candidate in London’s Royal College of Art’s Design Interactions department from Lithuania. He has combined the fun of a roller coaster with the certainty of . . . . Continue Reading »

Melinda Selmys is the author of Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality. She surrendered secular lesbianism for Catholicism, and, according to reviews, the book charts her course from one to the other. I have not read the book, but I’m not here to talk about it anyway. No, what I’m talking about is her article in the New Oxford Review, “Authentic Dialogue is Possible” (May 2011). The authentic dialogue is between Catholics and gays… . Continue Reading »

Alarmed in 2006 by the hard lines of American political language, Orson Scott Card, an otherwise respected sci-fi novelist, was led to write the dumbest book of his career, Empire. It is his future history of the Second American Civil War. It is Card’s depiction of how a society slips into civil war, presented as a cautionary tale for an America polarized by ideology. That is where it flubs, I think; more momentarily. It is not much of a civil war that Empire depicts… . Continue Reading »

We have a cardinal nesting just outside our upstairs back door. Step out on the landing and there she is in a bush, not three feet away at eye level. She built it while we were on vacation, otherwise our constant coming and going surely would have discouraged her. It is a nest composed, I note, of eclectic materials but a good part looks like a plastic grocery bag. Recycling has reached the animal kingdom… . Continue Reading »

I have been called to numerous death beds, and I would like to say I have learned many things about the dignity of Christian death, but I cannot say so. Death is an indignity of the first order; that’s all I know.My feelings are complicated by an acute sense of inadequacy for the occasion. Something noble and fearless should arise to match the solemnity of the moment, but rarely does… . Continue Reading »

It was 1985 and I was chatting with the pastor of Lutheran congregation located on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The congregation he served had a long and once distinguished history but neighborhood change, Lutherans dying off with no replacements, and other factors had brought about a long, sad decline in the fortunes of both neighborhood and church. I was there to interview on becoming his successor. I had four children to that point, all towheaded. He called them “street bait.” That dampened things a bit… . Continue Reading »

For some four weeks now I’ve been traveling to Gothenburg, Nebraska, to conduct worship services for a mission church that split off from a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The mission church”newly named Trinity Lutheran”has aspirations of becoming a congregation of the North American Lutheran Church and, so it seems, I am the only NALC pastor available within three hundred eighty-three miles, one way… . Continue Reading »

I do not trust angels. They are capricious, arbitrary, impulsive, and mercurial. If Gabriel is any example they are also officious and apt to lash out if slighted. I doubt they are instructed very well on how to behave with humans. I don’t like them, the biblical sort anyway. But try reading about angels found at the I Believe in Angels web site, or BeliefNet, or Angels Online. The stories offered are about angels falling into a category best described as “unfailingly helpful,” guardian Boy Scouts out to do a good turn… . Continue Reading »

If the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America isn’t exactly falling apart at the seams, it certainly is becoming frayed at the edges. The North American Lutheran Church and another association, Lutheran Churches in Mission for Christ, are plucking former ELCA congregations up at a greater pace than I predicted… . Continue Reading »