Herb Brokering was a pastor, author, lyricist, speaker and hymn writer. He graduated from Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa, in 1945. He earned a master’s degree in child psychology from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, in 1947 and a bachelor of divinity degree in 1950 from the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary (now Trinity Lutheran Seminary), Columbus, Ohio. Brokering pursued graduate studies at the University of Kiel and the University of Erlangen in Germany, and at the University of Pittsburgh. He also taught at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, for several years.
While in Germany after World War II he worked with the Lutheran World Federation services to refugees. Brokering was a promoter of healing, justice and peace, leading more than 100 pilgrimages in his lifetime to places in Europe, the Middle East, China and India. The East German Ministry of Culture presented him with a peacemaking award. He authored more than 30 books and more than 100 lyrics for almost 60 composers. In his retirement Brokering served 11 years as a staff associate for Wheat Ridge Ministries, an independent Lutheran charitable organization that awards grants to health ministries.
Shortly before his death in 2009, Brokering established the Herbert and Lois Brokering Healing Arts Endowment Fund at Wartburg College to support activities promoting the healing arts.
Walter Bouman was a prominent Lutheran theologian and lecturer, retired professor of systematic theology and pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). He earned a bachelor’s degree and master of divinity from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and a doctorate in theology from University of Heidelberg. In 1956, he was ordained in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) and served as pastor of two LCMS congregations before joining the faculty of Concordia Teachers College, River Forest, Illinois in 1963.
In 1971, Walt began teaching systematic theology at the former Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary (ELTS), Columbus, Ohio. He became a pastor of the former American Lutheran Church (ALC) in 1977. In 1978, ELTS merged with the Hamma Divinity School, Springfield, Ohio, to create Trinity Lutheran Seminary.
He served on the Lutheran-Episcopal dialogues that led to a full-communion relationship for the ELCA and Episcopal Church. Bouman was a member of the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission, and a consultant to the Anglican-Lutheran dialogue in Canada and to the conversations between the Anglican churches of Britain and Ireland and the Scandinavian and Baltic Lutheran Churches. He retired in 1999 but continued to teach at Trinity as professor emeritus until April 2005.
Walt was author or co-author of 12 books, the most recent a book of reflections and prayers on the Augsburg Confession. He contributed to three encyclopedias and 10 books, including Exploring and Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed, and was the author of more than 200 journal articles, reviews, audiotapes and courses on videotape.
He passed away in August, 2005 of cancer.
