Without Grace Nature Cannot Be Perfect: Thoughts on an Irenaean Thomist Distinction
Helmut Thielicke offers an important anthropological distinction, one that stems early on from someone as astute as Irenaeus, and then becomes appropriated and modified by someone as seismic, in the Latin church, as Thomas Aquinas. If this is not understood as a basic theological-anthropological datum vis-à-vis some form of classical theism, engaging with the theological past into the present will become immediately unintelligible—which I would suggest is why so much of popular apologetics and theologics that we see pervasive, particularly in the online theological world, ends up being an exercise in futility. I digress. Let’s hear from Thielicke on this all-important…
February Update: Advocacy Connections
from the ELCA advocacy office in Washington, D.C. – the Rev. Amy E. Reumann, Senior Director Partial expanded content from Advocacy Connections: February 2022 2022 ELCA FEDERAL POLICY PRIORITIES | HOUSING IN FEDERAL BUDGET | AFGHAN REFUGEE ADVOCACY | FOREIGN ASSISTANCE | HOLY LAND CHURCH LEADERS’ CONCERN 2022 ELCA FEDERAL POLICY PRIORITIES: Our annual identification of policy priorities on the federal horizon for ELCA advocacy action is available. Find listing on the ELCA Advocacy Blog, with a downloadable version from the ELCA advocacy resource page. Shaped by the ELCA’s social teaching documents and the experiences of its congregations, ministries…
February 27, 2022–Highs and Lows
Maggie Falenschrek, St. Peter, MN Warm-up Question Think back on the last week. What were some of the high points? What were some of the low points? Highs and Lows The 2022 Beijing Olympics wrap up this week. The last few weeks have been full of amazing moments: great displays of jaw-dropping talent, individuals and teams who are at the absolute top of their game, even heart-warming displays of camaraderie and sportsmanship. When we watch the competition as viewers we tend to only see the highlights— those mountaintop moments of triumph. We don’t often get a full view of…
When the orthodox Protestant Theologians Become Recovering Catholics
At the end of the day all theological discourse must reduce to some reality. If the reality isn’t ultimately Jesus Christ, and the triune God He mediates, then you, by definition do not have a genuinely Christian theology. People can spend all their days, all their energies recovering natural law, natural theology so on and so forth, merely because they think this provides for the orthodox way of Protestant theology that history has to offer. Ultimately, though, Christian theology isn’t judged by a historicism like this, for that is what this mode is operating from. Christian theology, instead, is judged…
ELCA 2022 federal policy priorities for advocacy action
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…
February Update: UN and State Edition
Following are updates shared from submissions of the Lutheran Office for World Community and state public policy offices (sppos) in the ELCA Advocacy Network this month. Full list and map of sppos available. U.N. | Arizona | Colorado | Minnesota | New Mexico | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Wisconsin U.N. Lutheran Office for World Community (LOWC), United Nations, New York, N.Y. – ELCA.org/lowc Dennis Frado, Director The sixty-sixth session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) will take place from 14 to 25 March 2022. This year, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the…
The Contemporary Reformed Are Recovering Catholic Modes of Thinking and Thus Spirituality: The Genuine Protestant Way Against Analogia Entis
If you’re a Catholic or scholastic Protestant thinker, you’ll follow along with Erich Przywara’s dictum (following Thomas’) of ‘revelation perfecting revelation.’ You’ll see a continuity between the naked philosopher’s machinations, and what comes in perfection through God’s Self-revelation in Jesus Christ. You’ll maintain that humanity, since it is born into an iteration of God’s grace (which is an abstract creation), has the capacity, albeit, finite, to think towards the God of creation. On the other hand, if you’re a genuinely Protestant thinker who takes the noetic effects of the fall, who takes total depravity seriously, and who does not sublate…
February 20, 2022–
Andrew Tucker, Columbus, OH Warm-up Question What does it mean to have an enemy? Name some of the people, either individuals or communities, who could be considered enemies. Love Your Enemies The notion of enemies is all over the news. There’s military buildup at the Ukrainian border with Russia, making enemies of global neighbors. The annual battle with winter weather makes frozen precipitation and cold temperatures the enemies of our day-to-day lives. Many countries are enacting diplomatic boycotts of the Olympics, making enemies of athletes who often train together, regardless of their national origins. What I’ve found fascinating are the…
Journey of Justice and Joy: Lessons Learned From the Arch
By Kristen Opalinski The first time I met Archbishop Desmond Tutu was in the lead up to COP 17, the United Nations climate change conference (the seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties). The conference took place in Durban, South Africa, November 28 – December 9, 2011. I was in my second year serving as the communications officer for the Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa and I attended the conference on behalf of The Lutheran World Federation’s regional office. I was part of an interfaith delegation that was finalizing the first Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change in order to…
Against the Theologians of Glory
I’ve written against theologies of glory ever since (and before) I heard of them. A life verse of mine (among a gazillion) is the following: “For I’ve determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” This typifies the staurological life I live the Christian as, from the cruciformed life of the risen Christ’s (or at least the one I aim for). Because of this I have an acute allergy to anyone who chooses instead to be a theologian of glory. Jesus identifies theologians of glory this way: “I do not receive honor from men. But I know…