At a time in my life when I was particularly discouraged, someone (my father, I believe) introduced me to the writings and sermons of Dr. Rod Rosenbladt, a professor at Concordia University in Irvine, CA. Rod’s scholarship covered a myriad of subjects, but few concerns animated him more than speaking to those who’d had a damaging experience with American Big-E Evangelicalism, in particular the crushing legalism and bait-and-switch-ology one finds in more than a few of its corners. Rod saw the church for what it was, gave voice to the fallout — with tears in his eyes — but nevertheless pointed to a Good News beyond it.
I was doing youth ministry at the time and had been at it long enough to become acquainted with its principal downside. Namely, when you work for a Christian organization or church, you become a lightning rod for people’s feelings about organized religion — which of course are rarely neutral or mild. In the course of a casual interaction at a party, you can find yourself cast as a stand-in for whatever Pharisaical relative or teacher or televangelist offended the friend-of-a-friend before you. It’s no fun.
As you might expect, the arrows shot your way are almost never directed at Jesus himself. Doctrine comes under fire every now and then, but the inevitable target is The Church. The grievances lie with Christians rather than with Christ. Which makes sense, since we all know there’s no shortage of injustice done in the name of religion. It is not hard to find folks using religious language to disguise/bless all kinds of awfulness, making a big noise about love and forgiveness but delivering the opposite.
The gripes you field, in other words, are not invented or trumped up. If anything, the older you get, the more you realize that they’re understated. But as a young man who’d had a largely positive experience of Christianity, I found it all very dispiriting.
And so, at the precise moment when I most needed it, someone sent me Rod’s lecture, “The Gospel For Those Broken By the Church.” Looking back, his words worked a bit of a miracle in my heart and mind. They gave me renewed compassion for those whose anger exceeded my own and spoke to me in the places where I’d been burned myself. Rod’s words even provided part of the inspiration for starting Mockingbird. (Our original mission statement, in fact, was “to reach those who had been burned by the church”). I believe that lecture was heaven sent.
I was so moved that I reached out to Rod and asked if I could come visit him in California. He graciously agreed and let me — a complete stranger — shadow him for a couple of days, treating me to several long lunches and listening to my experiences with so much patience, answering my doubts with the assuredness and wisdom of the best of fathers. To be honest, the man kind of blew my mind (and also made me laugh). There is a reason his students called him Dad Rod.
Rod has been a constant luminary for what we do here at Mockingbird. So much so that we invited him to be the main speaker at one of our first conferences, way back in 2010 (recordings of which can be found here, here, as well as a roundtable discussion here). The talks he gave about sons and fathers at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham are the stuff of legend, having been passed around too many times to count. Then, of course, there’s the work of our friends at 1517, which in large part is the direct (and exponentially abundant!) fruit of Rod’s ministry.
Rod died yesterday — Friday, February 2nd, 2024. He will be dearly missed. I am so grateful that God put him in my life, and even more grateful that by the end of Rod’s life, I could call him not just teacher but friend. Glory be to God for Dr. Rod Rosenbladt, may he rest in peace.
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[…] so grateful to have known (and learned from) such a giant of the faith. We’ll certainly run some tributes in the coming days. May he rest in peace, glory be to […]
A gift to the church, and those broken by the church. Pointing us to the healer and lover of the church! Thanks for helping us honor this father.
Rod was a theological scholar. Yet, whenever I had the opportunity to hear him speak, Rod would inevitably shed tears when talking about what Jesus had done for him on the cross. He made the gospel a matter of the heart for those of us who had ears to hear.
Thank you DZ for sharing this. Amazing and what I needed to hear today.
Love this. Thank you Dave and all of Mbird for teaching us and instilling hope so well. Thank you, Dr. Rosenbladt, for your gentle, lovely words.