Tag: First

Warm-up Question Tell a story about when you were genuinely surprised. Maybe you learned something shocking or experienced a surprise party. How did being surprised impact you? Left Behind in Paradise Another hurricane is coming. Even as parts of the country from Florida’s panhandle to the Appalachian mountains try to clean up from Hurricane Helene, younger sibling Hurricane Milton is already threatening life with similar ferocity. Those of us who live further away might think of these vacation destinations as wealth centers. Massive beach houses on the coast to log mansions on the Blue Ridge Parkway are annually rented by…

I remember when I was in Bible College, studying apologetics vis-à-vis worldview class, an axiom of sorts was presented to us in regard to a God-world relation: 1) God is prior to us ontologically, 2) humanity is prior to God epistemologically. Does the reader spy a problem with this arrangement; maybe an inherent dualism wherein there is seemingly both an abstract God from humanity, and an abstract humanity from God? When I first heard this axiom it intrigued me, but didn’t sit all that easy with me either. It took me awhile, like years, including going through seminary, and then…

God is love. Unfortunately, for some, this entails an inherent Marcionism. Simplistically, this entails the notion that the God of the Old Testament is not the same God we encounter in the New Testament in Jesus Christ. Often people cannot imagine how the “God of war and wrath” in the Old Testament could ever correspond with the God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ in the New Covenant. But I would simply say that without the God of the Old Testament the God of the New Testament makes absolutely no sense. Jesus came as the Prophet, Priest, King (triplex…

By Hannah Peterson, 2021-22 Hunger Advocacy Fellow [about the author] I am not a practicing Lutheran. Although many of my relatives and ancestors are, I grew up in a secular family, attending church only for Christmas Eve services and the occasional baptism or funeral. As you might imagine, it was an unusual path that led me to this year of being an ELCA Hunger Advocacy Fellow, of learning to navigate through new communities, new opportunities and new insights. “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way…