Who is Chris?
My name is Chris Duckworth.
I am a 34 year-old ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, serving as an Associate Pastor at a congregation inside the Washington beltway. I graduated from The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 2002. Other incarnations of my vocation include:
- 9-month full-time CPE Resident Chaplain at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia;
- Field Sales Representative for Augsburg Fortress Publishers (territory stretched from Northern Virgina through New England);
- Director of Alumni Relations at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia;
- Director of Youth Ministry at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, King of Prussia, PA; and
- Spanish teacher at Kensington High School in Philadelphia.
In addition to my BA in Latin American Studies from The College of William and Mary and my Master of Divinity with a Latino Ministry Concentration from LTSP, I've dabbled in M.B.A. and M.Ed. programs at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA.
In October 2002 I married Jessicah Krey, a beautiful woman, scholar, pastor, friend, baseball fan and unashamed liberal. Despite her loyalty to the abomination known as the Designated Hitter, I still love her. We have three children: Talitha, Cana, and Naaman.
I'm hopelessly Lutheran. Of course, what does it mean to be Lutheran? At its core Lutheran theology describes human nature, the church, and God in paradoxical terms - Sinner/Saint, Two Kingdoms, Law/Gospel, Justification by Grace through Faith, Theology of the Cross. These paradoxes avoid a black and white, either/or, absolutist approach to faith, but allows for nuance, ambiguity, and questions. Certainly there is much we can and do confidently say about our faith, but the reminder that we are simultaneously sinner and saint, or that God comes to us most clearly where we'd least expect a god to show up - in the suffering of the cross and world - checks our hubris and leads us to proclaim with Martin Luther, "We are all beggars. This is true."
Though Lutheranism can be dressed up in a variety of ways - particularly in the arenas of polity and liturgy - I believe that we should honor the received theological and liturgical traditions, and deviate from them only with great care and discernment. That is, as a ministry leader I try to take seriously both the Church's liturgical tradition and our Lutheran confessional heritage, convinced that these gifts are relevant and essential to our church's identity and ministry today, and not simply vestiges of a church gone by. Lutheran issues are one of the main topics of this blog, of course.
Though I am steering clear of politics on this blog, one of my religious and political passions is the separation of church and state, a tenet of American identity which safeguards the integrity and independence of both church and state. Sadly, many in the church and in politics seek to join what should be kept separate.
I also enjoy baseball (particularly of the Phillies variety), my family, reading (of the Dilbert and religion varieties), running (well, of the pipedream variety), writing (of various varieties), antiquing (of the I don't buy - I only look variety), and yes, blogging (of The Lutheran Zephyr variety).
Email: lutheranzephyr@gmail.com
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