This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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Our righteousness and the righteousness of our neighbor have nothing to do with what we eat or do not eat.
The whole Reformation, and the reason for Lutheran theology at all, is to improve preaching.
The following is an excerpt from “Crucifying Religion” written by Donavon Riley (1517 Publishing, 2019).
The creeds provide a means of unified confession that is biblically sound, transcending denominational lines of demarcation.
When the church has gone astray, it has been the responsible (not slavish) approach to history that has helped correct the course.
Our past, present, and future receive healing from Jesus’ wounds.
It was during one of these garbage burns, however, that I was bathed in a fresh remembrance of grace.
This creed is no mere squabble over words. Salvation is on the line.
I’d like to offer a short reflection on the theme of “worldliness” as it appears in his later work and how that’s connected to an item of his Lutheran heritage: the theology of the cross.
Baptism demolishes all boasting, for it is passively received and all that is received is pure gift. No one can, therefore, boast a better salvation than another.
Perhaps best known for his “wager,” Pascal is often associated with this curious argument for the existence of God and eternal blessedness.
Naturally each individual forgets the beam in his own eye and perceives only the mote in his neighbor’s. One will not bear with the faults of the other; each requires perfection of his fellow.