Plymouth Magazine-Spring26-DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 8
Get to Know our Newest
Transition into Ministry Resident!
By Henry Langreder (he/him)
Favorite Book and/or author:
This is a tough question! True story: The
supposedly tough, Iowa football college
kids who moved our stuff off the moving
truck and into our house here in the
Des Moines area finally gave up bringing
our books into the house and started
tossing them into the garage. They said
they would never look at diaper boxes or
books the same way ever again.
Henry Langreder (he/him) is Plymouth’s
newest Transition into Ministry (TiM)
resident. We sent him some questions to
help us all get to know him a little better!
Favorite color: I’m kind of a rainbowloving kind of guy. I love all the colors.
My daughters have forced me to pick
a color to be my default color from
Paw Patrol and for when we play board
games. That color is green. So that means
I’m Rocky from Paw Patrol, which is
also funny because I’m not very handy
at all, though every once in a while I can
surprise myself.
Favorite Food or Meal: I do love
Schnitzel und Pommes, but when we go
out, which happens rarely, I always love
Thai food as well, especially crab rangoons.
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“A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles
Dickens is a classic that I come back to
again and again. One of my majors in
college was history so it checks a lot of
boxes plus Dickens has such detailed
character development.
I have half of an MA in German literature
(long story). One of my favorite books
from those studies is “Nathan der
Weise” (“Nathan the Wise”) from 1779
by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (what
a mouthful!), the son of a Lutheran
pastor and a child of the Enlightenment.
Set during the Crusades, an answer
must be given to the sultan about
which of the three Abrahamic faiths
( Judaism, Christianity or Islam) is the
true religion. Nathan, a Jew, famously
answers in the Parable of the Ring that
the ring (religion) that produces the most
humanity in its wearer is the true faith.
It is an argument for tolerance and the
peaceful coexistence of all faiths, and we
need to hear and live that message today
more than ever.
It’s probably German teacher malpractice
if I don’t mention “Faust” by Johann von
Goethe. It’s still relevant that if we make
a deal with devil to get something that
we want we will have to pay for it with
our souls.
“Quest for the Living God” is a
beautiful text by Elizabeth Johnson that
eloquently articulates a Christian faith
for all of us who live in the twenty-first
century. It would be a great text to read
during Lent or Easter!
Tell us a little about yourself and
your faith journey. What events or
experiences led you to Plymouth?
I grew up in a completely areligious
household in rural West Michigan.
During college I took “Introduction
to the Old Testament” with Dr.
Schmeichel as a first-year student and
was hooked. I took every class that he
and Dr. Dorrien offered in the religion
department at Kalamazoo College.
Liberal arts colleges can be dangerous
like that. I ended up with a double major
in history and religion with a teaching
minor in German. My history major had
medieval European history as its main
concentration, and perhaps that partially
explains how I ended up converting to
the Roman Catholic church. My father’s
family had connections to the Roman
church, the Evangelical & Reformed
church (an antecedent body of the
