The Lutheran Confessions in Korea

Abstract: Although Christianity has been active in Korea for two centuries, the church of the Lutheran confessions was planted only a half century ago, in 1958, by the Lutheran Church‐Missouri Synod. With an ecumenical face, Korean Lutherans provide a dynamic leaven in wider society and the church is growing. Even though other Korean church bodies have engaged in writing new confessional statements, Lutherans are finding the richness of the Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord sufficient for self‐understanding and expansion.     

Supervision: The Devil Is in the Details

Close attention to the process of a treatment is proposed as an ideal vehicle for examining the analyst–patient interaction and teaching analytic listening, understanding, and intervening. A balance needs to be maintained between too dogged attention to details, which can lead the supervisee to feel outclassed, criticized, shamed, and constricted, on one hand, and abandoned and deprived of support because of insufficient input, on the other. In discussing the two treatments presented, I approach supervision with a focus on the dialectic between repetition and transformation in the therapist–patient interaction, the distinction between leading-edge and trailing-edge interpretations, and the coconstruction of model scenes and imagery to broaden the analytic context. In supervising, I would amplify these topics by recommending relevant readings: some papers by Peter Fonagy, Dan Stern and the Process of Change Study Group of Boston, and some of my own work.     

The Lutheran Confessions and Popular Religiosity in Latin America

Abstract: The early history of European missions in Latin America led to a close identity between Confessional Lutheranism and German culture. Following World War II that connection has been all but broken, and Lutherans now swim in the sea of Latin American pluralism, including popular religiosity or the people's religion. Constitutive of the latter is devotion to the saints; and the emphasis on “remembering the saints” in Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon may become valuable resources in contextualization.     

The Usefulness of the Lutheran Confessions in the African World

Abstract: The Malagasy Lutheran Church is one of the fastest growing churches in Africa. Maturing after having been seeded by Western missionaries, the confessional bond to Lutheran history is flowering differently within (1) the development of African contextual theologies and (2) ecumenical dynamics involving Lutherans and other Christian traditions.     

The Lutheran Confessions in Western Europe: Past and Future

Abstract: The idea of a church uniting confession began with the Lutherans in the late 1520s; and with translations of the Augsburg Confession (AC) it spread throughout Europe with the advance of the Reformation. As European culture slips further toward postmodern relativism, the absolute nature of divine claims reflected in confessions will seem odd and unwelcome. Christians must take up the challenge of developing a hermeneutic for interpreting the confessions so that the Truth of God can be respected.     

Confessions of a Non-Evangelical

Book reviewed:
The Lost Soul of American Protestantism , D.G. Hart, Rowman & Littlefield 2002 (0-7425-0768-8), pp. xxxiv + 197, Hb $37.50/Pb $22.95
That Old-Time Religion in Modern America: Evangelical Protestantism in the Twentieth Century , D.G. Hart, Ivan R. Dee 2002 (1-56663-460-1), pp. 246, Hb $24.95
Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham , D.G. Hart, Baker Academic 2004 (0-8010-2728-4), pp. 224, Hb $21.99     

Sympathy for the Devil

Abstract

This article describes the personal and professional experiences of the author while working as a mental health trainer in Serbia. In addition, various approaches to victims and perpetrators are reconsidered, along with the ethical implications of this work. The relationship between working with violence in a war zone and in a peaceful society is also explored.     

Veridiction and juridiction in Confessions of the Flesh

In an archived draft at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Foucault describes two questions haunting him since 1963: “Why are we obliged to tell the truth about ourselves? Which truth?” Foucault poses these two questions in 1980 in drafts for his lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, and I see in these two questions two argumentative threads that weave through Foucault's changing History of Sexuality series over his last decade. These two threads correspond to the dimorphism Foucault frames in Part III of Confessions of the Flesh between confessing monks and married men, that correlates with the distinction between “veridiction” and “juridiction” as two forms relating subjectivity and sexuality. To help tease out these threads, I make two recommendations for how to read Confessions of the Flesh in this following review essay: (1) situate Confessions of the Flesh in relation to Foucault's History of Sexuality series which spans his last decade from 1974 to 1984 and (2) untangle two major threads of Confessions of the Flesh in Foucault's treatment of Cassian and Augustine, as progenitors of veridiction and juridiction respectively, which together produce the conditions for modern disciplinary subjects.