by Robert G. Umidi
 
In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. established his essential legacy at the “March on Washington”, delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech to a quarter of a million people (and many more …

by Albrecht Classen
 
It would seem that modern people tend to interpret their dreams primarily as nightmares, or else follow the analytic precepts developed by Sigmund Freud and regard their dreams as expressions of unconscious desires, …

by Larrin Robertson
 
The fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a crucial moment in the movement toward Civil Rights to which King gave himself. King became America’s leading prophetic …

by Neal D. Presa
 
The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Volume One by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Edited by Isabel Best. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012. 240 pages. $25.46.
Karl Barth urged his students to read both newspapers and …

by Cleotha Robertson

In this article, an in depth exploration of Psalm 1 is discussed as a means of understanding spiritual formation along with related imagery in Joshua and Ephesians. These scriptures utilize key language important for spiritual development and highlight the co-participation of the believer and God in what is a collaborative transcendent venture. This exemplifies the joint nature of spiritual growth. The believer must be a “hearer and doer” of God’s Word, while actively “Standing” and “walking” in order to evolve. Therefore, what the Lord has put together, let us strive to keep together while co-laboring with Him.

by Jennifer Houston McNeel

As Jennifer Houston McNeel studies two key passages in scripture, she expounds first on an element of reconciliation often lost in today’s individualist culture and second on repentance as the vehicle to repentance with God. However, the feature here is not us, the recipients of reconciliation and professors of repentance, but God and Jesus Christ as the initiators of reconciling work and spirit led repentance.

by Neal Presa

The Confession of 1967 is an auspicious occasion in world and church history and is passionately documented with relevance in this piece. As divisions are bridged and progress is sought, the church is urgently encouraged to move onward with Christ’s mission.

by Erik M. Heen

The characteristic Lutheran “spirituality” centered in service to the neighbor, often expressed in the slogan “freed to serve,” is succinctly articulated in Luther’s 1520 treatise “Freedom of the Christian.” The slogan raises fundamental questions: “How are we freed?” “From what are we freed?” and “How is it that ‘service’ most characterizes freedom?” Luther concludes that though the “Word” is the means God uses to liberate humanity from Sin, “faith” is the agent that moves the focus of one’s attention off of self and on to one’s neighbor-in-need.

by Petra Carlsson Redell

In this article, Rev. Doc. Petra Carlsson Redell reflects over two Lutheran ideas, namely the Lutheran notion of grace and the idea of the priesthood of all believers. Redell suggests that if these notions are treated with care, they may help us spread the love of God and the inspiration of the Spirit in the political and social reality of our time.

by Jonathan Linman

Rooted in a robust, nuanced, and expansive understanding of Christian freedom, Martin Luther’s famous paradox, paraphrased as “subject to none, subject to all,” forms the foundation for Lutheran social ethics which continue to resonate with profound relevance in our day, five hundred years after the beginning of the Reformation.

by Donald L. Odom

Does Christian liberty suggest our freedom in Christ allows us to be passive concerning the least, last and the lost? What is our responsibility as Christians towards the disinherited and disenfranchised, and what does Christ’s love look like when we remain silent while others around us struggle? Christian liberty requires work within the Body of Christ to speak loudly and recurrently for the invisible and voiceless.

by Jill Schaeffer

This essay suggests how the works of two deeply faithful and creative men, born two centuries apart, may generate a single act of worship. Martin Luther’s commentary on The Lord’s Prayer is joined wordlessly with Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale on The Lord’s Prayer in the Clavier-Übung, more commonly known as The German Organ Mass. Luther’s influence on Bach’s music was pervasive and indelible. This particular influence on Bach’s compositions is well timed with Reformation celebrations in the town of Eisenach in 1739.