What is it? – What Does This Mean?

When Martin Luther visited the churches of Saxony, he discovered that everyday people knew very little about the Christian faith. To help pastors and parents learn the basic truths of the Christian faith, he wrote a little book called The Small Catechism.

A catechism is a book which uses questions and answers to teach people about the faith. One of the most common questions Luther asked in his catechism is: “was ist das?” which means “what is it?” or “what does this mean?”

This blog is named for this question. My goal is to share the Christian faith in an organized way. I hope to provide for you a way to remember the details of what Christians believe, to make sense of more formal writings in Christian theology and understand how such teachings relate to each other. In scholarly language, this is called systematic theology.

In order to be straight with you, let me tell you a little bit of my background. I am a Confessional Lutheran clergyman, a member of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. I serve as the Electronic Resources Librarian at Concordia Theological Seminary, a graduate school of theology. We prepare pastors and deaconesses for service in the church and provide advanced education for missionaries and leaders of the church. Before coming to serve here, I served as a pastor for two small town Indiana Lutheran churches. I also served as the Archivist and Historian of the Missouri Synod’s Indiana District. I occasionally write for The Lutheran Witness magazine and other periodicals. I use my Facebook profile (https://www.facebook.com/cosmithb) as a way to be a reference librarian in the 21st Century, sharing resources my Facebook friends find useful.

Expect that my assumptions, viewpoint and leanings will come from that background. While my comments here will be faithful to the Bible, Lutheranism’s confessions as contained in the Book of Concord, and the doctrinal statements of my church body, this blog is not an official statement of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod or my seminary. These words are solely mine.

Comments are always welcome here or by email at cosmithb@gmail.com.