I Was Surprised…: Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD

I Was Surprised…

A few days ago, I learned that an article I had written in 1982 with my professor and friend, C. George Fry, had been published in the Summer 2026 issue of the Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly. The article, “Lutheranism in the United States of America (1483–1983),” had been written for a seminary class and then quietly disappeared into a file cabinet. Forty-four years later, it unexpectedly resurfaced in a UPS package with complimentary copies of the journal inside.

I was surprised, to say the least.

The experience has caused me to reflect on the strange ways in which our lives unfold.

Most of us spend our time looking ahead. We think about the next project, the next responsibility, the next challenge, the next article, or, God forbid, the next book. Rarely do we imagine that something from the distant past will return and ask for our attention. Yet there it was: a paper written by a young seminarian who was still trying to find his voice and discern his vocation.

At the time, neither George nor I could have imagined where the years would lead. The decades that followed would bring further study, parish ministry, teaching, writing, friendships, disappointments, joys, and countless opportunities for growth. The young man who helped write that article in 1982 is not the same man who reads it today. Time has a way of changing us.

However, I was struck by how familiar parts of it felt. The questions that interested me then still interest me now. The love of history, the desire to understand the Church’s story, and the conviction that the past still speaks to the present were already there. Looking back, I could see the beginnings of a path that would eventually lead to Athanasius and Augustine, Durham and Cambridge, parish ministry and scholarship.

Perhaps what made the publication so gratifying was that I had not sought it. I was not revisiting old files in search of forgotten material. The article simply reappeared, and others judged it worthy of publication. There is a quiet affirmation in that. The work was not published because of anything I have done since. It was published because someone believed the work itself still had value.

There is also something fitting about its appearance in a historical journal. Historians spend much of their lives recovering forgotten voices and neglected documents. We preserve memory so that what has been lost might be found again. This time, however, I found myself on the receiving end of that process. An old manuscript, in reality, became a historical artifact, and its author discovered that he had become part of the history he once studied.

As I reflected on all of this, I found myself grateful—not merely for the publication, but for the reminder. Regardless of our desire for the immediate, vocations are not instantly built in dramatic moments. They are formed patiently over years and decades, one class, one conversation, one book, one friendship at a time. Looking back, we can often see connections that were invisible while we were living them.

A forty-four-year-old article is not likely to change the world. Nevertheless, it has reminded me of something important. The seeds planted in our youth often bear fruit in ways we never anticipate. Sometimes, by the grace of God, they bear fruit long after we have forgotten where they were planted.

That was the surprise.

It was a welcome one.

Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD