ProtestantBeliefs.com

In this election year, we are launching the #ELCAElectionActivator network, a facilitation of monthly virtual gatherings and email messages from the ELCA Witness in Society advocacy team to support and mutually equip our ELCA community in their localities interested in activities encouraging people to participate in the electoral process.   ACTIVE CITIZENS This church understands government as a means through which God works to preserve creation and build a more peaceful and just social order in a broken world. Our “civic participation is not simply voluntary, idealistic, or altruistic. The ELCA holds to the biblical idea that God calls God’s…

I think a lot of people involved in theological academics are driven by a competitiveness equal to professional athletes. There is this desire to over-excel in such a way that they out produce, or equally produce, by way of quantity and quality, with reference to their academic publishing (and other accolades). A constant need to prove to themselves, and others, that they are at the top of the game, and have achieved where most others have failed (or not even aspired to). The irony of this type of drivenness is that it is antithetical to a theology of the cross….

“For what shall we pray?” is a weekly post inviting individuals, groups, and congregations to lift up our world in prayer. This resource is prepared by a variety of leaders in the ELCA and includes prayer prompts, upcoming events and observances, and prayer suggestions from existing denominational worship materials. You are encouraged to use these resources as a starting point, and to adapt and add other concerns from your local context. More information about this resource can be found here.   Prayer prompts: For justice and peace among nations where war and violence rage, especially Palestine and Israel, Iran, Myanmar,…

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…

  As you make plans for worship in the autumn months, consider the following ways to explore All Creation Sings. Time after Pentecost-Autumn Sing “God’s Work, Our Hands” (ACS 1000) on September 8 in worship or at other congregational service events. Set to the tune EARTH AND ALL STARS, singers will readily learn this new text by Wayne Wold. Learn more about the hymn at https://elca.org/dayofservice. Explore the many creation-care activities in Kids Celebrate Creation. This is especially fitting if your congregation is focusing on care for the earth leading up to the commemoration of St. Francis on October 4….

To commemorate the 9th anniversary of the martyrdom of the Emanuel 9 – Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Lee Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson, our beloved siblings in Christ who were murdered by a self-professed white supremacist and ELCA parishioner while they were gathered for Bible study and prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (often referred to as Mother Emanuel) in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015 – Desta Goehner, Board President of the ELCA Association of White Lutherans for Racial Justice to share…

Faith as understood in a biblical frame, as Calvin, for example, understood so well, isn’t an abstract secular imaginary, but instead it is a living knowledge of God grounded in the faith of Christ for us. For the secularist faith is as subjective as the center of their own in-turned navel; a wishful thing that they can only hope might be the case. This is not the Christian ground for thinking faith. Faith isn’t a magic wand waved in order to bring nothing into something of our own fantastical imaginations. Faith is what the vicarious Man, Jesus Christ, has for…

“For what shall we pray?” is a weekly post inviting individuals, groups, and congregations to lift up our world in prayer. This resource is prepared by a variety of leaders in the ELCA and includes prayer prompts, upcoming events and observances, and prayer suggestions from existing denominational worship materials. You are encouraged to use these resources as a starting point, and to adapt and add other concerns from your local context. More information about this resource can be found here.   Prayer prompts: For justice and peace among nations where war and violence rage, especially Palestine and Israel, Iran, Myanmar,…

By Giovana Oaxaca World Refugee Day is observed annually on June 20th. This is a time to honor the courage and resilience of refugees worldwide. Because of growing displacement due to conflict, climate change, and insecurity around the world, it’s more important than ever before to raise awareness about the plight of refugees, to advocate for justice, and to show solidarity with refugees and those seeking legal recognition as refugees, such as asylum seekers. You can show solidarity with refugees by expressing that you believe in a world where refugees are welcomed. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,”…

Is God really knowable, secularly, in the vestiges of the created order? In other words, does God repose in the fallen order to the point that vain and profane people can come to have some type of vestigial knowledge of the living God? According to Thomas Aquinas, and other scholastics of similar ilk, the answer is a resounding: yes. Here is Thomas himself: as we have shown [q. 32, a. 1], the Trinity of persons cannot be demonstratively proven. But it is still congruous to place it in the light of some things which are more manifest to us. And…