Tag: action

The following is cross-posted from Living Lutheran. You can find the original post here. From words to action Congregation joins the Truth and Healing Movement By Isabell Retamoza | October 9, 2023 In April, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton launched the Truth and Healing Movement to increase the church’s understanding of the impacts of colonization on Indigenous people in past and present generations. Living Lutheran reached out to Richard A. Magnus, a retired pastor who attends Edina (Minn.) Community Lutheran (ECLC), to hear how the congregation’s work with the movement has affected members and the community. Living Lutheran: Could you tell me a little bit about…

By David Atkinson   For those closely following immigration issues and debates, every day can seem to be a bad news day.  The diatribes by anti-immigration officials and commentators become numbing with their angry repetition.  But the ingrained perspectives of the voting public can be even more troubling. We now enter the season when many organizations, on the far ends and in the middle of the political spectrum, are conducting polling to test 2024 themes and discover what might most motivate large blocs of voters.  Some of these surveys square with preconceived notions or confirm what we largely suspect.  Yet,…

On Thursday, April 20, 2023 the ELCA Church Council adopted the church’s sixteenth social message, titled “Earth’s Climate Crisis” — an action that acknowledges the urgency of this critical moment and our responsibility as Christians to respond decisively. On this Earth Day, 2023, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton released a video on the ELCA’s Facebook page highlighting this call to action. Eaton named this as a “moment of Kairos, a critical moment in time when God is calling for decisive action in history.” This action will need to happen in our congregations and communities, but also reach far beyond them, because…

The Eunomians, following the Arians (and Arius) maintained that there was a time when the Son was not. In other words, they maintained that the Logos of God was a creature; an exalted creature, but a creature nonetheless. So, when we see Jesus, we don’t actually see the Father in the face of the Son, we only see an exalted emissary of the singular (monadic) God of pure being. In a similar line of heresy, known as adoptionism, the Ebionites maintained that Jesus was just a man, already existent, that God adopted for His purposes to be His prophet. TF…

Support U.S. Funding of Augusta Victoria Hospital! Take action today. Background President Joe Biden visited Augusta Victoria Hospital on July 15 as part of a two-day presidential visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Biden’s visit to the hospital was the first visit of a sitting U.S. president to East Jerusalem. The president announced a $ 100 million multiyear commitment toward the East Jerusalem Hospital Network (EJHN), of which AVH is a member. Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) is the first and only hospital to provide radiation therapy for cancer patients in the Palestinian territories and the only medical facility in the West…

DOMESTIC  |  ENVIRONMENT  |  INTERNATIONAL  |  MIGRATION  |  MIDDLE EAST  |  CIVIC ENGAGEMENT  |  GETTING INVOLVED   Every public policy decision has an effect on us and on our neighbors, even neighbors living across the country or around the world. This compels us as church to “unite realism and vision, wisdom and courage, in its social responsibility. It needs constantly to discern when to support and when to confront society’s cultural patterns, values, and powers” (ELCA social statement Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective, p. 3). By building relationships with policymakers, taking joint action with values-sharing issue partners, writing comments…