Carl braaten on elca churches

When Carl Braaten died several weeks ago, Doug Sweeney, the executive director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, contacted me to write a tribute for the Center’s website.

You can read it here. In this post on my own website I’d like to add a few more thoughts, personal and professional, about my friend and colleague through many years. As to friendship, Carl and Lavonne honored us with a memorable visit with us in Slovakia in the 1990s.

Believe me, he was a fun partier!

Carl not only promoted my professional vocation as a theologian, he saved my physical life.

Carl braaten on elca churches in boston

When I was struck down suddenly by a stroke at the conclusion of the Pro Ecclesia conference in Baltimore in 2017, he was first to recognize the danger which I was in and summoned an ambulance. His second wife, Beryl, held my stricken body in her arms, comforting me until the ambulance arrived.

I first heard about Carl from my college professor, James Childs, at Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne.

Chi