The verbs of the resurrection, ἐγείρω and ἀνίστημι, are modest verbs. They can function in quite ordinary fashion: one can raise stones or a horn of salvation in the same way that the Father raises the Son; one can rise from sitting the same way Jesus rises from the tomb. That’s why ἐκ νεκρῶν (ek nekrōn, “from the dead”) follows both verbs so often—there’s no self-evident reason to see the miracle otherwise...

You must read this book. I have never said that about any book I’ve reviewed, and rarely at all. Rarer still is there a book of seven hundred pages that should not have been a single page shorter and never leaves the reader bored for a moment. If this is the only book of theology you read in your life, or the last book of theology in your life, it is enough...

I’m still a bit stunned that it’s actually 2017. We’ve been building up to this anniversary for so long, and now it’s just a few months until the exact 500th anniversary of the 95 Theses. The language to refer to this anniversary is telling in itself: we far more often say that it’s the anniversary of “the Reformation” or “the beginning of the Reformation” than of the Ninety-Five Theses. But why, exactly, does “the Reformation” begin with the Ninety-Five Theses...?

More than a decade ago I spent a brief year serving on the ELCA’s sexuality task force. That awkward service came to an end when I accepted the editorship of LF, as I felt that it would be difficult for me both to head up an independent (and not infrequently critical) journal of American Lutheranism while participating in a highly controversial process that required discretion for the duration. I have no illusions that my staying on would have made any difference to the outcome...