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What Became of the Shepherds’ Flock?
In his sermon for Christmas Eve, our pastor, preaching on St. Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus Christ, wondered aloud what the shepherds did with their flock after they had heard the angels’ assurance of the birth of the Savior and their promise of the sign the shepherds would find swaddled in the manger.…
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Listening to Our Master
“Listen, O my son, to the teachings of your master, and turn to them with the ear of your heart” (Prologue 1, Benedict’s Rule, Terrence G. Kardong, trans., The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minn., 1996). St. Benedict begins his rule in simplicity by calling us to listen. When we put down what burdens our hands, when…
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On Allah and the Trinity
Miroslav Volf wrote an article, “Allah and the Trinity,” that appeared in The Christian Century, March 8, 2011, pp. 20–24. I thought it was well written and did a solid job of presenting the fundamentals of orthodox Trinitarian theology. What I found intriguing was the thought about what part of a dialogue this article represents…
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Redefining Sin?
In his book, Making Sense of the Christian Faith, David J. Lose writes, That’s how theologians have talked about sin for centuries. It’s a sin of self-assertion. Recently though, a number of theologians, and especially female theologians who didn’ historically have the same power that men did, have asked whether it is also a sin…
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The Gift of Tears
This past Tuesday at the Nebraska Synod’s annual Theological Conference,, when Bishop David deFreese shared a clip from A League of Their Own and mentioned that God makes some Christians “weepers,” I wrote myself a note to figure out why that sounded so familiar to me. After a little digging, I discovered that I had…