Journals
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Promissio: A Journal of Confessing Theology
Theology is not freethinking but freed thinking, therewith bound to its liberating Lord. Therefore,
Promissio undertakes theology for the sake of informing and enabling the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order to do so, it operates within a zone in which constraint and freedom are neither separable nor confused.
The Bible constrains us because it bears to us the Word of God in which alone is found the freedom of the children of God.
The Christian tradition constrains us as the confessing of the liberating Word by our forebears in the faith who found this same freedom in the Bible.
The Lutheran Confessions constrain us as especially precious testimonies of the freedom these confessors found in the Bible.
Our contemporary context constrains us to proclaim the gospel anew, in such a way that it opens up to our contemporaries the glorious freedom of the children of God. Consequently, we do not simply repeat the theologies of the past; instead, we take up the task left to us by our predecessors and advance it for the sake of a contemporary proclamation.
But we always remember that our fallibility also constrains us. As theologians of the cross, we must never think we possess the truth and we must always be ready to change our minds. Confessing theology is strictly in service to proclamation, which alone creates faith where and when the Holy Spirit wills. So we are free to engage in the theological enterprise with passion, love, and humility.
ἡ γάρ ἀγάπη τοῦ Χριστοῦ συνέχει ὑμᾶς. (2 Cor. 5:14)
The Form of the Journal
The proclamation of the gospel constrains the teaching theologians and pastors of the church with crucial questions that test for integrity. Proclamation to whom? Proclamation by whom? Proclamation by what authority or in whose name? What makes the news of the gospel new? What makes the news good? What is the content of the proclamation? These are fundamental questions of confessing theology, the church’s ever new critical self-questioning and consequent confessing of what it has heard in the word of God.
The title of the journal, Promissio, points to the essential form of the word of God as the promise of forgiveness, life and salvation vouchsafed for us in the resurrection of Jesus the crucified Messiah. The subtitle of our journal points to the theological task as confessing concretely the liberating Lordship of Jesus with all that entails in the articles (articulations) of the faith in him for every new context as that has been heard afresh in the proclamation of the promising gospel. Promissio will be a journal that does confessing theology in continuity with the Lutheran Reformation by integrating the disciplines of theological exegesis of Scripture, church history, dogmatics and missiology that have been harmfully siloed in the modern period.
One central purpose of a theological journal with the foregoing commitments is to educate. Articles published in this journal will exemplify the highest standards of scholarship and therefore will scrupulously avoid jargon and neologisms, i.e., they will patiently explain the introduction of unfamiliar or technical terminology or non-English vocabulary. They will have a clear thesis developed by an introductory statement describing the issue or controversy involved in the article. They will have a succinct methodological discussion about how the thesis will be demonstrated. The body of the paper will accordingly present evidence and analysis in support of the thesis. Before concluding, the article will consider and respond to potential objections to its argument. The conclusion will not be a summary of what has been written but will, with logical force, exhibit the demonstration of the thesis. Articles will be prefaced by a précis and a series of keywords and followed by a brief biography of the author with contact information.
The journal will publish full and transparent retractions in the event of any violations of academic integrity. Articles will employ the Chicago Manual of Style with footnotes for documentation of sources with a minimum of extraneous commentary. Ad hominem is strictly to be avoided. In place of polemical style, this journal will make its arguments in an irenic tone whereby only fair-minded critique is both permitted and encouraged. The rule of charity in discussing a position apparently opposing one’s thesis requires that the opposing position be stated with such clarity, sympathy and full understanding that the opponent would recognize its argument in the description being made. On that basis, critique can and must be executed provided that it advances the argument. The academic purpose is to move the argument in theology forward for the edification of the church in its identity and mission, not to defeat a foe, real or imagined. We are to imitate Luther’s virtues, not his vices. The intellectual virtues of clarity in language, logic in reasoning, scope in research and transparency in the selection and marshaling of evidence are the minimum formal requirements for suitability for publication. Substantively, it is expected that articles conform to the purposes of the journal. Submissions may be declined if that expectation is not met.
Appeals to authority should be strictly disciplined by the hermeneutical circle in theology of the word of God and confessing faith and yet sensitive to varying if not divergent understandings of the divine word and of faith in it. Where such divergent understandings of authority may be at issue, they are for the sake of instruction to be posed hypothetically. For example: “If the Bible is the written word of God and faith trusts in the Bible’s inerrancy, then it follows in this case that…” Or, “if the oral kerygma is the word of God and faith is the existential decision to forgo any other securities, then it follows in this case that…” This hypothetical treatment of authority questions educates and illuminates for the reader what is at stake in varying understandings of authority in theology which is particularly important given the polarized state of North American Lutheranism. Likewise appeals to context must be excruciatingly particular, avoiding the sweeping generalization commonplace in the “genitive” theologies of today. Context is not be deployed as an ersatz authority but rather as specifying the articles relevant audience or constituency to which its theology is addressed.
The Content of the Journal
Promissio will be a quarterly journal. Each issue will be themed. The General Editor will commence the issue with an editorial on the theme. Three major articles, one each from systematic theology or church history, biblical studies, and missiology (“practical theology”), on the theme will constitute the body of the issue. A review essay, not necessarily coordinated with the theme, on a book worth discussing will be published (it need not be a new or current book but an important book which an ILT faculty member wishes to publicize). A regular feature will be a pastoral or student response to the issue, perhaps as a kind of roundtable with the authors. The forthcoming themes will be publicized to invite submissions, but the General Editor may also solicit authors and/or articles. ILT faculty will be given preference, all else being equal.
For the four issues beginning in January 2026, the following quarterly themes (all of which entail a definite critique of the predominant mentality of contemporary North American Christianity):
- What is theology and why do we need it? (an opportunity to discuss the philosophy of the journal)
- What is pastoral ministry and why is it best educated in theology? (an opportunity to articulate the mission of ILT)
- Why is Scripture the base language of faith? (an opportunity to renew dogmatic theology as theological exegesis of Scripture)
- How do creeds and confessions provide the grammar of the scriptural language of faith? (an opportunity to articulate the confessing tradition in which the journal stands).
Looking ahead to the second year of publication:
- The doctrine and proclamation of the Fatherhood of God
- The doctrine and proclamation of the divine Sonship of Jesus
- The doctrine and proclamation of the personhood of the Holy Spirit
- The doctrine and proclamation of the Holy Trinity
