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“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 peace among nations, especially between Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine… For victims of and responders…

Performance based theories of salvation continue to plague the evangelical Protestant landscapes. Whether that be funded by a Reformed background (inclusive of Reformed proper, and Arminianism et al.), or Lutheran (either orthodox, and/or mainstream). When people are offered a notion of God wherein He is understood as a juridical God, one who relates to the world through a covenant of works/grace, or other like frameworks, at which point law-keeping sublimates grace into its image, those under this specter live a life of deep angst, always wondering if they are going to finally measure up (or persevere) unto the final reward:…

“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 peace among nations, especially between Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine… For peaceful resolution to post-election…

A genuine Christianity is not pluriform, it does not have multitudinous realities at its core. It is not a cluster of beliefs that likeminded people rally around. A genuine Christianity—its inner reality—is in fact a person; it is God for us in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. When people exit or walk away from this or that perceived form or expression of the “Christian existence,” they aren’t walking away from Christianity’s inner reality, per se, if in fact they believe that to be exhaustively represented in the form of that, as they have come to experience that, in this…

There is no Faith Lens post this week   “He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him he gave power to become the children of God” (RSV) ELCA Blogs

Linnea Peterson, Minneapolis, MN Warm-up Questions Have you ever tried to talk about something that happened to you and had someone refuse to believe you?  Do you think some people are believed more than others when they talk about their experiences? What do you think leads to that difference?  Believe Me A couple of months ago, pop star Britney Spears released a memoir, The Woman in Me, bringing her back into the national spotlight. Though her most popular songs came out over 20 years ago, Spears has received attention in recent years with the #FreeBritney movement, which was an effort…

The Eastern Liturgy: Christmas Joy Christ is born! Tell forth His fame! Christ from heaven! His love proclaim! Christ on earth! Exalt His name! Sing to the Lord, O world, with exultation! Break forth with glad thanksgiving, every nation! For He has triumphed gloriously! Man in God’s own likeness made, Man by Satan’s lies betrayed, Man by sting of death dismayed, Banished from hope of life and of salvation, By Christ today is made a new creation: For He has triumphed gloriously! God the Maker, when His foe Dragged us down to death and woe, Bowed the heavens and came…

  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day [God] rested from all his work.   Here in Genesis 2:1, we learn about the continuing of creation, flora and fauna, rest from the six days God created the skies and the earth and humanity.     We’ve heard this Scripture countless times, in pithy sentences, in expectation for an abstract time in the future where we would pause and reflect. But, when the appointed time comes, many of us continue ticking things off the to-do list, doing one last thing…

“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 peace among nations, especially in Israel/Palestine… For the volcanic eruption in Grindavik, Iceland… For those injured,…

What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be free? These are the types of questions that have often plagued the Christian theological dialogue for centuries. Indeed, these theoanthropological loci have been the source of much consternation and division; that is, depending on how disparate Christian thinkers conclude on an answer to these questions. Often, whether in the theological or philosophical realms, answering these questions are reduced to, generally, two disparate tribes: 1) Arminian/Libertarian Free Agency, and 2) Calvinism/Compatibilist Determinism. There are of course other iterations of expression along the continuum that these seemingly two polar…