Michael Reid Trice

A Rumor of Black Lutherans

History & Biography

“A Rumor of Black Lutherans is a silver tapestry on the stuff of leadership, or what notable author Dr. James Thomas recalls of Willie Lawrence Herzfeld: "artful, sometimes angry, resourceful." It is real. These chapters beautifully articulate lives of courage, resilience, faithfulness, tenacity, and innovation. Individual narratives are blended in a way that reveals a disposition to community that Daniel Payne, the first African American Lutheran president, yearned for in his early experience at Gettysburg Seminary: "More than 600 miles from the place of my nativity. Among strangers, among benefactors, but not among friends in the strict sense of that word." This work is part history; it is also incarnational theology. There are lessons to take from the volume, and Thomas allows the reader to see them in stark relief. One of these is how our readiness to receive leadership is otherwise than leaders who will find a way anyhow. Multitudes of decades stepping into conflict, breakthroughs and saved lives in Alabama through the triumphs of Rosa Young, Nelson Trout's early work with the LGBTQIA+ community. There is something here for all of us. A Rumor of Black Lutherans is an opening to a discovery. Thomas invites the reader to walk through these pages and assess the rumor yourself.”

Care for the Sorrowing Soul

Counseling, Grief & Mental Health

“During a low ebb in our national identity, Duane Larson and Jeff Zust provide a comprehensive pastoral response to the quagmire of moral injury that should win an award in the finest of public theology. This text is a clear eyed assessment of the soldier as moral actor, of the complexity of combatant experience, and of moral injury. The book never loses sight of the displacing power of cruelty, yet alongside the truth of divine solidarity as the source of human hope. Care for the Sorrowing Soul matches the humility of its authors with the competence of what they know, and I will carry its lessons with me for a long time. There are indeed lots of implications for the rest of us!”

Salvation for the Sinned-Against

Theology

“What I am encouraged by is this author's close attention to method and content - to the how in the what - the integration of which provides clear evidence of a hermeneutical commitment to intercultural engagement and the need for serious cross-cultural theology within world Christianity… Considine is a theologian strongly in the Catholic tradition who desires to be of service to the Church. His work aims at amplifying the voices of the wounded. In our age, and considering this January, public theology requires amplification of the wounded as much as ever.”