Archives for 2022

A tense moment in my classroom captured some of the changing dynamics at my seminary. We were learning about the rise of higher criticism within the history of biblical interpretation in the United States. As we were analyzing a lecture that Charles Augustus Briggs delivered at Union Theological Seminary in 1891, ...

It was Christmas break 2019 and I was exhausted. I had just finished my first full-time semester. I was frantically composing new lecture material during the day and at night nurturing twin toddlers. There was little self-care happening in my days, let alone a dynamic spiritual life. After losing myself in ...

Every week during my online course I assign a body-oriented spiritual practice that overlaps with what is often called “self-care.” I sometimes hesitate to use “self-care” as a descriptor because it has been so overused in some contexts that it has become a cliché catchphrase. Still, I recognize the need ...

Teaching through pandemic brought home two basic lessons to me: What happens in our students’ lives affects their performance in the classroom. Professors are mere human beings who can only do so much before our health suffers. Both seem obvious. Surely, I knew all that even before the pandemic? Perhaps. ...

A couple of years after joining the faculty at Concordia Seminary, I decided to audition for the Saint Louis Civic Orchestra, a community orchestra made up of professional, semiprofessional, and accomplished amateur musicians from the greater St. Louis metropolitan area. My training on the double bass goes back to my ...