A Joseph Sittler Commemoration Event will be held Sunday, January 29. The Rev. Dr. James M. Childs, Jr. will serve during the commemoration as guest preacher at the 10:30 a.m. service and teacher during adult Sunday School 9:05 a.m.
Rev. Dr. Childs is Senior Research Professor and Assistant to the President for Special Projects and was previously the Joseph A. Sittler Professor of Theology and Ethics at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Bexley.
Joseph Sittler was born in Upper Sandusky in 1904, the son of a Lutheran pastor. A graduate of Wittenberg College and the Hamma Divinity School, he began his career as pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church, Cleveland, OH. For most of his life, however, he was a Professor of Theology at the Chicago Lutheran Seminary in Maywood, IL. then at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He ended his nearly 58-year career as theologian with fifteen years at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) as the Distinguished Professor in Residence.
Joe Sittler was a preacher to the intellectual community without peer. In his prime, he was said to have been the single most sought after university and college preacher in America. He gave the Beecher Lectures at Yale (The Ecology of Faith, 1961), and the Noble Lectures at Harvard, both devoted to preaching. In the late 1950′s, he was featured in a Life magazine article as one of America’s “Ten Most Influential Theologians. Many of his preaching themes are included in his later books, Grace Notes and Other Fragments (1981), and Gravity and Grace (1986).”
Such an assessment cannot begin to capture the true humanity of Joe Sittler. He delighted in Polish sausage, beer and conversation at Jimmy’s, a favorite establishment close to the University of Chicago and LSTC. He saw theological significance in the most ordinary activities of average folk in everyday life. He relished encounters with all sorts of people and never conveyed any hint of condescension. He had a marvelous sense of humor and could be astonishingly frank without ever offending.
Joe Sittler’s father was the pastor at St. Mark’s 1914 – 1917. The famous theologian, Joseph A. Sittler is a Son of this congregation.