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The Joseph Sittler Web site
is
dedicated to honoring the life and preserving and disseminating the work
of this pastor and theologian of the church. The contents of this site
are based largely on the holdings of the Sittler Archives at the
Lutheran School of Theology
 at Chicago (LSTC), under the sponsorship of
the Sittler Archives Committee and with the enormous assistance of the
Division for Higher Education and Schools of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA), for which we are most grateful.
We have used the phrase “The expanding scope
of grace” as the theme of this site, because Sittler’s understanding of
the scope of God’s grace was much wider, broader, and deeper than had
often been expressed previously. He saw God active in all spheres of
human life as well as throughout the cosmos, and he pondered the meaning
and significance of that. His understanding of God’s grace reached out
to include the environment, the arts, and the ordinary things of life.
Joseph Sittler died in 1987, but in our view, his expanded
 concept
of the universal nature of God’s grace in each aspect of each human
life, in the world, and in the universe are more needed now, both in the
church and in the world, than ever before.
Sittler did not write many books and
scholarly papers, but he preached, lectured, conducted workshops all
across the church and in most of its seminaries and colleges. So, much
of his contribution exists in tapes of speeches and sermons given over a
period of 50 years, many of which we have now been able to gather
together in the Sittler Archives at LSTC. He spent most of his career as
a faculty member in higher education. He loved the academic world, and saw all knowledge as appropriate for
Christians because everything exists under the Lordship of our God. He
was a special friend of campus ministry and of the church colleges, but
he was no ivory-tower academic cut off from the world. He
 wrote
in praise of Polish sausage in a little piece
entitled “Polish Sausage, St. Augustine, and the Moral Life,” and he was
as comfortable talking with an school crossing guard he happened to meet
as with a long-time colleague at the University of Chicago.
Reflecting Joe’s own institutional
relationships, the Sittler Committee that is appointed by LSTC to
oversee the Sittler Archives has representatives from Trinity Seminary
and from the University of Chicago Divinity School, as well as from LSTC
and the ELCA’s Division for Higher Education and Schools. The committee
worked with Barbara Sittler, representing the family, in establishing
the Archives initially.
On this Web site, you will find a
biography of Sittler, a catalogue of the holdings of
the Archive, and bibliography of his
writings as well as the works about Sittler that we know of. The
Committee welcomes your suggestions for improving the website, your
ideas about ways to make Joe’s ideas more widely known, and your
financial support in any amount to help underwrite the work of
disseminating we are anxious to do, as we have no other regular and
sustained source of support. You may contact the
Archives if you have a question
about archived material or wish to purchase a copy of material in the
Archives. Please contact the
Committee with your suggestions about improving the Web site, ideas,
or donations for the dissemination of Joe’s work, or leads to Sittler
material that is not in the Archive.
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