Nordic-Baltic Prayer Breakfast in Tallinn, Estonia

Updates from Tübingen    

by Dennis Lindsay 

Lauri Hussar
Chairman of the Estonian Parliament (left side)

Ministry Update:
This past November I had the honor and pleasure to attend the Nordic-Baltic Prayer Breakfast in Tallinn, Estonia and to deliver the keynote address on the theme "You are a Letter from Christ" (2 Cor 3:1-4). This prayer breakfast is an annual event and there were members of parliament, church leaders, and dignitaries from over a half dozen countries in the Nordic-Baltic region. The country of Estonia was responsible for this year's event and two of my colleagues/former students from way back in the 1990's were part of the organizing committee (hence the opportunity for me!). I was delighted and impressed at the opening ceremony when the current president of the Estonian Parliament opened his remarks to the gathering by quoting the Greek introduction to the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word..."

Also during my brief visit to Tallinn, I was invited to deliver a special lecture at the Estonian Methodist Church Seminary. I shared with them one of my Chi Rho lectures from October on "The Opposite of Faith and the Rehabilitation of Doubt."

CHI RHO LECTURES EUGEN OREGON - MEMORY J. SCHAUER (1934-2024)

Updates from Tübingen    

by Dennis Lindsay

 "I Believe; Help my Unbelief! (Re-)Discovering Faith for Moments of Crisis"
It was an honor for me this fall to deliver the annual Chi Rho Lectures in Eugene, Oregon, sponsored by Central Lutheran Church in partnership with Bushnell University from October 18-20. The four lectures focused on:
1. The Crisis of Faith (and the Loss of Biblical-Theological Perspective)
2. The Foundation of Faith (and Jesus' Role as Pioneer and Perfecter)
3. The Opposite of Faith (and the Rehabilitation of Doubt)
4. The Gift of Faith (and the Potential of Human Participation)

Video recordings of all the lectures, as well as the Sunday morning worship service with my sermon, are available on the Central Lutheran Church website: www.connecttocentral.org (Look for “Chi Rho” under the “Ministries” menu.)

 In Memory of Josef "Sepp" Schauer (1934—2024).

Many friends of the EES who have visited Tübingen over the years will have fond memories of Josef "Sepp" Schauer. Sepp and his wife Gerda were members of the German youth group that Earl and Ottie-Mearl Stuckenbruck gathered in the early 1960's which later became the founding membership of the "Christliche Gemeinde" (Christian Church) in Tübingen. Sepp was baptized by Stuckenbruck's co-worker "Uncle" 

Theo Mosalkov and he and Gerda were married in the Gemeinde by one of the early pastors, Dr. James Crouch. Sepp regularly presided at worship, was a faithful as member of the board of the Gemeinde, and served several terms as president of the congregation. The Schauers often provided hospitality to visitors from America. Sepp entered the "Church Triumphant" on October 29, 2024, just a little over a month shy of his 90th birthday. He is survived by his wife Gerda, their three sons, Jürgen, Tommy (and Antje), and Frank, along with four grandchildren. 

Symposium "The Great Commandment.." 6-8 October in Tübingen

Updates from Tübingen    

by Dennis Lindsay

Our much anticipated international symposium on "The 'Great Commandment' in Early Christianity and its Jewish and Greco-Roman Environment" has now come and gone. From October 6-8 fourteen scholars, both Christian and Jewish, delivered presentations exploring how the double command to love God and to love our neighbor has impacted the lives of God's people from the earliest times, and even up to the present. Proceedings from the Symposium will eventually be published in a bound volume. (Please be patient, and stay tuned for further details!) 

Loren and Lois Stuckenbruck together with Prof. Tilly and TCMI guest A. Puzynin at the Institute

At the Institute for the Study of Christian Origins, were especially pleased to host a delegation from our EES board, along with a number of faculty members from the TCMI Institute in Austria. 
This group "launched" the symposium on Sunday, Oct 6 with a brief time of worship and communion in our Institute seminar room, led by Dennis Lindsay.

Upcoming Events October 2024

The World    

Updates from Tübingen    

by Dennis Lindsay

This past month Karen and I travelled to Amsterdam where I presented a paper at the International Society of Biblical Literature meeting. The title of my presentation was “The Opposite of Faith in the New Testament.” Looking specifically at the Greek words for “faith” and “unfaith”, I argued that the opposite of faith is not primarily a matter of doubt or an intellectual rejection of certain dogmas and doctrines; rather, it has to do with a deliberate and willful act of abandoning relationship with God. I will be delving deeper into this study in my upcoming Chi Rho Lecture in Eugene, Oregon, October 18–20 (see details below). These lectures will be available via livestream through the Central Lutheran Church website: www.connecttocentral.org

Upcoming Events:
October 6-8, 2024–International Symposium on “The Great Commandment”; Tübingen University
for details please look  at : https://eesinc.org/symposia-and-more
October 18-20, 2024-Chi Rho Lectures: “I Believe, Help my Unbelief”; Central Lutheran Church and Bushnell University, Eugene, OR
for details please look at:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:bafe6ca4-f86a-4fde-bd23-a7894a339769)

In Memoriam Prof. Jürgen Moltmann

The World 

Updates from Tübingen    

by Birgit Hallmann 

Visitors and Guests:
The summer semester is slowly coming to an end and we continue to keep very busy.

In early June we hosted Mircea Paduraru (doctoral student at the University of Bucharest) in the Institute guest room. Mircea was here to make a presentation of his doctoral work for our English-German Colloquium for New Testament. His topic was: „Ecclesiology and Power. Towards an Anatomy of Church Discipline within the Evangelical Churches in Romania.“ Mircea shared the following about his brief stay in Tübingen:

„The experience of staying in the Gastzimmer of Tübingen’s Institut zur Erforschung des Urchristentums was wonderful. The guest room is nice, simple and clean, and the fact that the Institute is situated some two hundred meters away from the iconic Stiftskirche and a five minute walk from the University 's Theologicum gives the place a special aesthetic and spiritual aura. Also the quiet and peaceful working atmosphere and the kind and discrete presence of Birgit and Dennis add to the spirit of the place. It was a rich experience to live and sleep practically in a nice library, surrounded by books, and to work hard and focused, away from daily distractions.“ (Mircea Parduaru, June 2024)

In Memoriam: Many of our readers will fondly remember Prof. Dr. Jürgen Moltmann, world renown for his “theology of hope” and ground-breaking professor of systematic theology in Tübingen from 1967 to 1994. Prof. Moltmann, who had just celebrated his 98th birthday in April, passed away peacefully and without prolonged suffering at his home on June 3, 2024. Moltmann was mourned in the local newspaper as the “last survivor among the great scholars who, during the 1960’s and 1970’s, had made Tübingen’s theology so exciting and so attractive for Christians throughout the world” (source: Schwäbisches Tagblatt, June 6, 2024). A memorial service was held on June 14th in the Tübingen Stiftskirche.