Rev. Arthur Simon+

Longtime family friend Rev. Arthur ("Art") Simon died on November 14, 2023. To read an official announcement, go here.

Art's father and my grandfather were colleagues in ministry, serving as fellow Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastors in Oregon. Art, his brother Paul (not the famous songwriter/singer but the famous US senator from Illinois, who was also a one-time presidential candidate), my uncle Bob, and my dad were friends when they were active in the LCMS's youth organization, the Walther League. Art wrote briefly about his friendship with my dad in the opening chapter of one of his books, The Rising of Bread for the World (Paulist, 2009). He also wrote about my dad, and about my nephew Andrew, in another of his books, Rediscovering the Lord's Prayer (Augsburg/Fortress, 2005). Art and my uncle Bob were co-students at Concordia, Portland, and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. And then, years later, after the death of my dad, Art and my mom became very close friends, not least because of their shared interest in the Oregon Ducks football team. I thought perhaps Art and my mom might get married, but that didn't happen for various reasons. In 2014, when my wife, son, and I visited Art and his wife, Shirley, in Baltimore, he graciously gave me his entire library, which we brought back to Valpo in a large rented van. 

From my time on the faculty at Concordia, Portland, through my years here at Valpo, Art has been a mentor to me, especially in matters regarding the relationship between Christian faith and public service. (When I was facing oppositional headwinds in the LCMS over the issues of women's ordination and six-day creationism, Art was a frequent conversation partner. He provided me with a lot of pastoral consolation in those difficult years!)

I'm grateful to God for Art's life and ministry. I am also glad that some of my former Valpo students, while serving as interns in Washington (or as participants in various summer fellowships), benefited from Art's vision and expertise when they reached out to him. 

As the founder and first president of Bread for the World, Art tirelessly worked to end poverty and hunger. His engagement with these issues initially grew out of his pastoral ministry on the lower east side of New York City. Along with a dozen other church leaders in his region, Art began to brainstorm about how they could address the local and global root causes of hunger. They wanted to lead Christians to try "to prevent hunger from happening in the first place rather than just reacting to it." So toward that end, Bread for the World was founded in 1974. (If you watch Rick Steves' travel show on PBS, you'll see a brief promo for Bread. I once had a brief conversation with Rick, in which he shared how much Art's first book about hunger had changed his whole outlook on that issue.)

To learn more about Bread for the World, go here.

To quote from Bread's announcement about Art's death: "His work has helped initiate programs that have reduced hunger, decreased poverty, and improved nutrition, impacting hundreds of millions of people in the United States and around the world."

Bread's current president, Eugene Cho, nicely summarizes Art's legacy: "To this day, I’m inspired by the three ideas he had in the founding of Bread: to prevent hunger from happening in the first place rather than just reacting to it; to work within the system of American democracy to ensure political leaders hear about hunger from their constituents; and to organize Christians to speak up collectively against hunger – these speak to things that are as relevant in the 2020s as they were in the 1970s."

Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints. May light perpetual shine upon Art, and may God grant comfort and peace to Shirley, their family, and all who mourn Art's death.

Crossings Table Talk about Atheism

On Tuesday, Nov 28, at 1pm (Central Standard Time), I will be leading an online Crossings "Table Talk" discussion about atheism, based on a chapter from my upcoming book, Fundamental Theology , 2nd ed. (Bloomsbury, 2024). 

For an introductory "trailer" for this Table Talk, go here.

This talk is free, but you must pre-register with Cathy Lessmann via email. After registering, you will receive an invitation to join our Zoom-based Crossings Table Talk. 

To register, go here.

The Beauty of Dusk

On the morning of Christmas Eve 2018, after getting out of the shower, I couldn't see very well. The vision in my right eye was clouded by large blind spots, scattered gray areas, splotches of nothingness. I initially thought I was suffering from an optic migraine, which I have experienced several times throughout my life. But the blind spots didn't go away. During that night's Christmas Eve service, all I could do was to keep wondering, "Why can't I see out of my right eye? What has happened? Lord, why this blindness?" Needless to say, my Christmas that year was a bit more anxious than normal.

Because of the holiday, I couldn't get in to see an optic specialist until after January 1. From him I learned that sometime during my sleep on the night of December 23 I had suffered a stroke to the optic nerve in my right eye. The technical term for my condition is NAION: non-arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy. Thankfully, I was on sabbatical for the spring semester of 2019. I ended up spending a huge chunk of that term in and out of doctor's offices and hospital testing rooms. What was supposed to have been a period of writing a book, ended up being a time of getting pricked and prodded, scanned and studied.

For nearly five years now, I've been mostly blind in my right eye. The optic nerve specialist whom I visit twice a year has told me that there's about a 15% chance that I will suffer a stroke to the other eye as well. It turns out that I was born with abnormally narrow retinal blood vessels, the ones leading to the optic nerve in each eye. Ah, those blessed genes! Nevertheless, so far, so good--other than the blindness in the right eye, which, barring a miracle, will remain permanent. (Btw, my optic nerve specialist happens to be a close friend of a friend of mine who graduated a few years ahead of me at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Small world. The Doc and I occasionally discuss a little theology in between our focusing on optic issues.) 

While I can still see a little out of my right eye (which used to be the stronger of the two), most of that right-eye vision is dark and gray and blurry, a milky cloudiness. It's been a real cross to bear. But I'm managing. My brain has adjusted so that my left eye is doing a double load, so to speak.

For the first few years, I suffered pretty bad headaches most days, mainly as a result of the challenges of reading and working on my computer for long hours. Using a very large monitor (and enlarging my documents to 200%), I have been able to keep on writing. In fact, since 2018 I've published three books, totaling more than 2,000 pages. But I'd be lying if I said it has been easy. Much of that writing has been downright painful. The right-eye vision has been just good enough to interfere with the left eye's better vision. The result: some nasty headaches. Depth perception is non-existent. I have a lot more bruises, too, the product of accidentally running into things that I don't see on my right. I try not to drive at night. But now, after my brain has had a few years to adjust to the blindness, I don't suffer as much discomfort as I did earlier--or at least I know now when to stop reading and typing, and  when to give my one good eye a rest.

What Frank Bruni suffered and has written about so eloquently in his recent book, The Beauty of Dusk, is what I have been facing each day. (Mr. Bruni also experienced a stroke to the optic nerve in his right eye, in 2017.) I highly recommend his book, which is about more than just the loss of his vision and the challenges it has created for him. (He had been a columnist for The New York Times, and now he teaches journalism at Duke.) In that book he writes about a number of people who suffer from various levels of blindness. I was heartened and encouraged by the stories he narrates, including his own autobiographical reflections. 

I should add that my dad became legally blind after suffering a terrible battle injury in the Korean War. He was mostly blind from the age of 19 until his death at the age of 73. So his example of living many decades with near blindness, of leading a remarkably full and active life with only one half-way decent eye, has been encouraging to me as well. There's not a day that goes by when I don't think, "If Dad could live his life the way he did, I should be able to do so, too. Just take each day as Dad did, one day at a time." If my dad were still alive, he'd have been a good candidate for a Bruni interview!

The stroke I suffered in 2018 was not a Christmas gift I had wanted to receive that year. It's not the kind of set-back you want anyone to get in any year! But I have grown to see it as a gift of sorts. In a basic way, my partial blindness has led me to be otherwise grateful for things I had previously taken for granted. I'm grateful for the vision I still have. I'm grateful when I wake up each morning and can still see relatively well out of my left eye, that I can then see my beautiful wife across the breakfast table. I'm grateful that I have had to slow down in my reading, to slow down in my writing. I have to pay closer attention to details, to work hard at developing more patience. I'm now a strong proponent of "slow reading" and "slow writing." I think I'm a bit more patient and empathetic with students of mine who suffer from dyslexia or from other vision challenges. I'm grateful to learn from people who are blind, some of whom I've met in a doctor's waiting room, to be inspired by how they are navigating with their disability, with their cross. This blindness, this earthly cross I've been bearing, has taught me to see things in a new way.  I agree with Bruni: there is a new beauty that one can experience from such a loss. I am learning, slowly, the truth and wisdom conveyed in St. Paul's statements in Philippians 4:11-13 and 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. (That Paul wrote the ending to his letter to the Galatians "in such large letters," suggests that he likely suffered from a vision problem as well, maybe as a result of the blinding revelation of the risen Christ that he received on the road to Damascus.)

Brief Videos from Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb

Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb is the founder and president of Dar al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture in Bethlehem, the West Bank. From 1987 until 2017 he was the senior pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. He is also the co-founder of Bright Stars of Bethlehem, an organization that helps to support Dar al-Kalima. Dr. Raheb has published more than 40 books. For more information about him, go here. For information about Bright Stars of Bethlehem, go here.

Dr. Raheb is a friend of mine. He has been on Valpo's campus many times. He has taught me much over the years, and my wife and I do what we can to support Bright Stars of Bethlehem.

Last week I contacted him to share my wife's and my support for him and those he works with in this very difficult situation, following the attacks by Hamas and Israel's retaliatory actions. Detra and I condemn in the strongest terms what Hamas has done in attacking Israel. We also continue to criticize the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Israel's actions against  innocent civilians there and in Gaza. We should not forget that around 1,000 Christians live in Gaza, many of them displaced after 1948. For a basic overview about them, go here.

I encourage you to watch a brief video that Dr Raheb has published about people connected with Dar al-Kalima and its satellite school in Gaza. You can view it here. 

Along with more than 4000 other individuals, I have signed Tikkun's statement in solidarity with Palestinians and Jews. You can read that statement here.

Rev. Dr. Hans G. Spalteholz+

It is with deep sadness, tempered by faith and hope in the risen Christ, that I announce the death of my dear friend, mentor, and colleague, Professor Hans G. Spalteholz. After a brief illness, he died very peacefully last night in his living room. He was 92 years old. 

I am grateful that I was able to speak with him last weekend before he had to be more heavily sedated during this past week. I am also grateful that his suffering has now ended and that he has entered that perfect peace prepared and granted by the risen and glorified Christ. 

I will say more about him at his memorial service, but these are a few thoughts that come to mind this morning: Professor Spalteholz taught me to love the Holy Scriptures, to wrestle with them for the sake of faithful interpretation, and to apply them to the world’s deep needs and hurts. He taught me the distinction between law and gospel by unpacking the theology of the Lutheran Confessions. His love of books and of learning and of the German language rubbed off on me. He pointed me the way to the University of Chicago, and he later carefully proofread my doctoral dissertation. He modeled a truly ecumenical approach to the question of theological truth. He and Professor Richard Reinisch made room for me to join the faculty of Concordia University, Portland. In so many ways, the death of Hans marks the end of an era. He and others in his generation were among the best and brightest that the Missouri Synod educational system ever produced.

Since the fall of 1980, down through these many decades, Hans became a second father to me. At various times of crisis he was a spiritual counselor (serving multiple times as a "paraclete" when I was facing one charge or another in the LCMS). More importantly, he became the most influential and significant theological conversation partner in my life. For more than two decades we worked very closely together on several book projects, including the first two volumes of our translation of the writings of the German Lutheran theologian Edmund Schlink.

Since Hans and his wife Christa had no biological children of their own, I became one of their "adopted children." On many occasions, he let me know that he considered me his son. My son Jacob calls him "Opa Hans." So his death is hitting us hard, even though we knew this day was coming. We are experiencing what Hans' and my teacher and friend Martin Marty has called "the cry of absence."

The memorial service for Hans will be held at St. Michael Lutheran Church, Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, May 13. Dr. Robert Schmidt, our former colleague in the theology department of Concordia, will be preaching. 

Please keep Christa and her extended family in your prayers.

Precious in the eyes of the LORD is the death of his saints, who from their labors rest, and who sing their songs in endless light. Shalom, shalom, dear Hans!

P.S. Linda Borecki interviewed Hans two years ago and uploaded her three-part interview to Youtube. Below are the links to that interview. Thank you, Linda, for doing that! This interview is so meaningful to me. It really captures Hans' personality as well as his spiritual and intellectual depth. What an amazing  person he was!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

A New Republic Article on the Controversy at Valparaiso University

David Masciotra, a Valpo alumnus who writes for The New Republic, has published an article in the current issue of that national magazine: "A Georgia O’Keeffe Painting and the Battle for the Soul of a Liberal Arts College."  

The article is given prominence at the top left corner of the homepage of the online version of the magazine: https://newrepublic.com/

In my judgment, Mr. Masciotra frames the issues in precisely the right way. 

"What is the purpose of studying at a university beyond job training? How can schools like Valparaiso, which emphasize learning outside of vocational courses, survive when a corporate-consumer model has overtaken higher education and exerted a powerful influence on administrators and students alike?"

Masciotra writes: "Valparaiso University’s student body is shrinking and its dormitories are aging. But is selling the campus museum’s most famous artwork the right solution to the problem?"

As you can tell from the quotations by yours truly that he included in his article, I think Valpo can take a different, better path here. 

(The university recently constructed a huge, expensive residence hall, Beacon Hall, which is only partially full--and partially paid for. Valpo has also recently built a couple of rows of sorority houses down the hill from our athletics building, and Valpo has recently made renovations to at least one of its freshmen dormitories. These expensive on-campus housing projects have largely gone unmentioned in the reporting. Valpo has been making capital improvements to its campus housing in recent years.)

A larger issue, at least in my view, is the expensive and oversized role that athletics plays on our campus.  We are moving toward becoming an athletics institution that offers some college-level classes on the side. Toward that end, the university's administration wants to build a huge, new, very expensive athletics complex. In my judgment, that will be a mistake. We will be digging ourselves into an even deeper hole of debt--and then forced to make even more cuts to our academic programs (further weakening the liberal arts).

Meanwhile, in light of the reporting by Mr. Masciotra, one wonders, "From where will the funding come?" Part of the administration's answer to that question, at least so far, has been: "We'll sell off what we consider to be our non-essential assets to raise the money."

And that is how a church-related academic institution eventually loses its soul.

To read the entire article, go here.

P.S. I also encourage you to read another piece on the Valpo situation that came out today. John Fea is a former Lilly Fellow at the university. To read his article, "What Is Going on at Valparaiso University?," go here.

P.P.S. Inside Higher Education also ran a piece today on the Valpo matter. To read it, go here.

A New York Times Article on the Valpo Controversy

The New York Times published an article today on the decision of Valparaiso University's board of directors to deaccession three paintings from the university's Brauer Museum. The article contains a link to the letter I wrote, opposing this decision. This letter was signed by more than 90 current and former Valparaiso University faculty members (75 current ones; 17 former ones; and two staff members who work at the Brauer).

I'm grateful for the service and leadership of John Ruff and Dick Brauer, who are dear friends and valued colleagues! Stop the sale!

To read the NYT article, go here.

Stop the Sale!

On February 8, 2023, in a campus-wide email, Valparaiso University’s president, Jose Padilla, announced that he and Valpo’s board of directors would be selling three masterpieces of art from the university’s Brauer Museum to provide funding for the renovation of two on-campus residential buildings. Here is a link to his statement.

In a subsequent statement, President Padilla said, “Our actions will be based on the best interests of our students, mission, and entire campus. Not just one small piece of it, especially when that piece is not part of our strategic plan and our core mission of educating students and giving them the best campus residential experience.” 

Both the decision and the justification for it deeply disturb me. As someone who regularly takes students to the Brauer Museum as a part of my teaching, and who frequently visits the Brauer for my own edification and enlightenment, and who works closely with people who support the mission of the Brauer, I consider that museum to be near the core of Valpo’s mission and a key feature of its unique identity. The artwork there relates directly to my vocation as a university professor of theology and the humanities. I have a particular interest in Christian theological interpretations of art, about which I have written in my book on fundamental theology. I am especially pleased that we have three central works  that demonstrate excellence in the visual arts, precisely the three pieces that the university board wants to sell. These three pieces comprise the anchor for the whole collection.

I should add that I had met privately with President Padilla in his office exactly one week before he made his announcement. It was my first face-to-face meeting with him. I presented him with my recently published edition of Schlink’s Ecumenical Dogmatics, I explained a little about it and my scholarly work in ecumenical theology, and I discussed matters of shared interest (e.g., politics). We had a very pleasant meeting. I wanted him to know that he could count on me to help him as a resource, especially with respect to Lutheran theology and the American church scene. 

My meeting and conversation with him that day would have been very different had I known about this  secret board decision. 

So on February 9, I began to write a letter to our faculty senate, to criticize this presidential/board decision. That letter, whose rough edges were polished with the help of a few others, was sent to the faculty. After only two days, 75 current faculty had signed it, as had 17 emeriti or retired faculty. To read the letter, go here. (At last week’s faculty senate meeting, President Padilla referred to the letter as “the Matthew Becker letter,” but it is not my letter. I may have written the first four drafts, but it was ultimately submitted as a letter from the faculty who signed it.)

For more details on this controversy, go here. 

The New York Times has assigned a reporter to the story. I learned today that her article will be coming out perhaps already next week.

Yesterday, at a special meeting of Valpo’s faculty senate, a few of us presented a memo, which we hope will become the basis for a senate resolution that would call upon the president and board to rescind their decision. Here is the content of that memo: 

1. The sale constitutes a gross violation of professional museum ethics. VU will be censured by professional organizations, lose credibility with those associations, and the museum will be unable to lend, borrow, or collaborate with other museums in the world. The president claims he has his own “ethic” to uphold—a confusion of ethics and expediency? Will that “ethic” trump ethical standards across all disciplines, professional schools, and university organizations? 

2. The sale violates the trust of artists, the public, donors, and faculty. The Brauer Museum is at the core of Valpo’s liberal arts identity. The three masterpieces anchor the collection and its international reputation. Artists want their work to be displayed in notable public collections. Donors expect their gifts to contribute to the strength of the museum in perpetuity. Faculty count on these works as crucial pedagogical resources. This action tramples on the generosity and trust of current and past donors. It conflicts with the strong support for the arts and humanities in the Lutheran intellectual tradition. What is the presidential and board rationale for breaking these basic and long-term trusts for the sake of short-term, perishable goods? 

3. The sale may be illegal. The sale clearly violates the terms of the trust agreement signed by the VU board president when the core collection was acquired in 1953. The Church painting was part of that gift; the other two paintings in question were purchased with funds from the restricted Sloan endowment fund. The president claims that will not be a legal problem. That remains to be seen. And, does it not matter that violating the trust is clearly unethical? 

4. This sale is a poor management of assets. To sell an asset of appreciating value and use it to buy something of depreciating value (dorms) is problematic. Furthermore, by selling these pieces through a private auction, Sotheby’s will be entitled to at least a 25% commission. Add in PR and legal fees, and that is a very poor return on the value of these assets. Selling university assets in a reckless and/or unethical manner has already resulted in the loss of major donors and negative press. More will come. This could also have a negative effect on our bond rating. Is this short-term sale really worth the net outcome, especially in view of Valpo’s long-term future? 

5. This sale seems very rushed. Do we understand why a dorm renovation suddenly rose to the top of the university’s priority list? What is the urgent necessity for this project? The administration could provide no concrete evidence. 

6. The process of making the decision to sell these masterpieces lacked transparency. The plan to select and sell the works has been conducted with deliberate secrecy. The paintings were selected purely for cash value, without any investigation into or concern for their importance to the museum and the community it serves. No one with any knowledge of the collection was consulted, as if the details of the works themselves were irrelevant to the process. This is a shocking way to approach the sale of university assets, and not a path to a sustainable future. 

7. The administration’s withholding of knowledge of the impending sale resulted in an unethical hiring process. Last summer, while in the process of finding and hiring Jonathan Canning, representatives of Christie’s Auction house were on campus. This information was withheld from the search committee, and more importantly from Canning when he accepted the job. Any association with this sale will be devastating to his career. The university asked Canning to participate in a sale that would violate his professional ethics. 

8. This impending sale represents a further attack on the arts and humanities at VU. Student response has been spontaneous, strong, and often emotional. They immediately connected this action to the administration’s ongoing dismantling of the arts on campus. Notably, among the nearly 400 signatories on the student petition, approximately half are STEM majors. The board/presidential decision is contrary to Valpo’s stated mission. 

I don’t know what will happen here. We want to stop the sale of the paintings.  Thankfully, for now at least, the masterpieces remain on the walls of the Brauer. But as I indicated at yesterday's senate meeting, my confidence about the leadership of the president and the board has been deeply shaken by the decision and by subsequent presidential behavior that I will not write about here. Indeed, I wasn’t able to control my emotions very well yesterday as I tried to thank the students who publicly spoke so eloquently, passionately, and persuasively about their reasons for opposing this decision. Those students give me hope. My heart is not the only one around this place that is broken right now.

If you want to sign a petition to stop this sale, please go here.