Winter 1992

Volume VII, Number 4

In This Issue

• New Year’s Day in Bonga, Tanzania by David C. Bjorkquist

  New Year’s Day was not a Sunday, but it was a special day of worship in the Bonga Lutheran Church. The Bonga church is one of eight congregations in the Bonga parish served by Pastor Raymond Hagberg.

• Books Handel’s Messiah, A Soulful Celebration: Reprise Records A music review and personal reflection by Susan Hawkinson

  My Advent preparations have always been marked with multiple performances, sing-a-longs, and recordings of Handel’s Messiah. This great work has inspired me since my days at North Park College, and I continue to look to the music and text for vision and hope each season.

• Waldenstrom's Commentary Acts 16:25-34 and Waldenström's Commentary translated by Tommy Carlson

  Epistle Lesson for New Year’s Day

• Therapeutic Theological Thought by Penrod

  Motto: “All therapy ends badly.” — Sigmund Freud

• Penrod’s Mother’s Version

  Shifting into fourth gear, God sighed heavily. It had been a rough week, a complete bust. Again. And picking up the pieces again would be a solitary assignment, because God knew that she could count on no one to help her this time around.

• Behavior Befitting a Covenant: Part II by David Hawkinson

  "i... because there was no place for them in the inn.” Luke 2:7

• Going to Wisconsin by Kari Johnson

  Dedicated to my dear grandfather

• Soviet Christmas, Russian Dreams by John L. Scherer

  Petr Chaikovskii’s “Nutcracker,” first performed in St. Petersburg in December, 1892, was set on Christmas Eve. In trying to destroy religion, the Soviets even changed the children’s party and Clara’s dream of dancing toys and nutcracker soldiers from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve.

• Where We Got Our Hymns — Interlude by J. Irving Erickson

  How does one describe a weekend of spirited hymn singing, concerts, inspirational worship, and engaging lectures? A serendipity? A mountain top experience?

• Ethics in the Mainstream by Elder M. Lindahl

  Our local chapter of Trout Unlimited is an organization of ecologically-minded flyfishing fanatics. This summer we gathered on the banks of a small pond in Lake County, Illinois, to practice flycasting techniques and socialize around a smoking grill of brats and burgers.

• Lutefisk — One Last Try by Arnold R. Bolin

  It was one last try. It really wasn’t approached that way, but that is what it ultimately turned out to be. When a friend asked where he could purchase some, my wife said, “Get some for us, too.”

• Sexual Abuse and the Church by Phil Johnson

  Both Protestant and Catholic Churches have been encountering painful, embarrassing, expensive, and time-consuming problems created by ordained and duly credentialed clergy who have been guilty of sexually abusing persons in their parishes while presumably acting in pastoral capacities.

• Tributes Earl C. Dahlstrom by Fredrick Holmgren and Arthur M. Bowman

  Some thirty-three years ago, while still a graduate student at Union Seminary in New York, I was notified that I was to be called to the Biblical Field faculty at North Park Theological Seminary.

• Tributes J. Irving Erickson by Zenos Hawkinson and Glen Wiberg

  “Singing together,” Nyvall used to say, “is tuning the congregation for worship.” Others have reported that, if you wanted to be in tune, singing the right note on the right page, you stood next to J.

• Out and About

  For a while, events were popping along like corn. Fortunately it has been a bit quieter lately. In October, Runar Eldebo of Lidingö Seminary in Sweden came to town to present a stimulating series of seminars, “God in Modern Society,” at Community Covenant Church in Minneapolis.

• Sport Report

  When we arrived that Saturday morning, the game between the Eagan Mighty Duck Celtics and the Bullets had just begun. Sandy found a folding chair on the sideline next to Grandpa Teed, and I found a spot on the floor in the corner across the court where the Mighty Duck Celtics “bench” was located.

• Post: Readers Respond

  Thanks for the latest Pietisten — and thank you also for your remembrances of your brother and Paul Sonnack. Paul Sonnack was my teacher at Augsburg Seminary in 1954. He was profoundly serious and at the same time was one of my most humorous “profs.”

• Poetry Remembering You by Ed Mampel
• Puppy Love by Arthur W. Anderson

  News came to us out in New Hampshire that our little spitfirg Cocker Poodle Schnauzer had to be put away. Tiki lived witll us for seventeen-and-a-half years. Quite a life span if figured in human years! We cried both here and at home in Ohio for the loss of this very real member of our family.