Prompts for Prayers of Intercession – March 20, 2022
These prompts are provided for worship leaders as they prepare the prayers of intercession for weekly worship. The prompts are prepared by several leaders in the ELCA and reflect current world and national events. You are encouraged to adapt and add other concerns for your local context, including staying informed of events and concerns in your synod. Worship resources for the crisis in Eastern Europe: Follow this link to access resources to assist worshiping communities as they respond to the crisis in Eastern Europe. Several prayers are provided that could be used during the prayers of intercession or at other…
Barth’s Christological Novum
Here is Barth talking about event, and how, as Samuel Adams says: “If the event contextualizes us, rather than being contextualized by us, then we can say that it is something new, since its origin is “outside” of us and has the nature of an “event. . . .”: God’s revelation in its objective reality is the person of Jesus Christ. In establishing this we have not explained revelation, or made it obvious, or brought it into a series of the other objects our knowledge. On the contrary, in establishing this and looking back at it we have described and…
March 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: March 2022 VAWA REAUTHORIZATION READY FOR SIGNATURE | FAITH NETWORKS AND STATE OF THE UNION | LEARN MORE ABOUT FAITH AND REPARATORY JUSTICE | GLOBAL COVID-19 VACCINES ACCESS | TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS DESIGNATIONS VAWA REAUTHORIZATION READY FOR SIGNATURE: Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is ready for the president’s signature, and we thank the many Lutherans who expressed support using the ELCA Action Alert! Both Vance Blackfox (Cherokee), Director, Indigenous Ministries & Tribal Relations, and…
Ecumenical Advocacy Days – with Scholarships!
Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD) is an annual gathering of Christian advocates and activists. People attending EAD worship, review advocacy best practices, dive deeper into issues of their selection around the central theme, take Lobby Day action, and network with people of faith passionate about the difference policy can make in peoples’ lives. Lutherans in attendance have denomination-specific opportunities to get to know one another and vision what we can do together! #EAD2022 is a virtual gathering, held Wednesday through Friday, April 25-27, 2022. The schedule is posted to advocacydays.org. THEME IN 2022 This year’s theme, “Fierce Urgency: Advancing Civil…
On Being a New PhD student in Theology
I am now a PhD student “beginning” (in scare quotes, because I’ve been studying said subject matter since 2002 in earnest) research on a doctrine of grace in what I am calling the Protestant Church Fathers juxtaposed with the grace-ologies of Thomas Torrance and Karl Barth. I am somewhat riffing on this topic of research from TFT’s own PhD dissertation entitled A Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers. I am finally undertaking this venture of study through the Concordia Academic Theology Consortium: Martin Luther School of Bible and Theology; the same institution (of the General Lutheran Church) that recently awarded me with…
Situation Report: Eastern Europe Crisis
Situation: On Feb. 24, armed conflict broke out between Russia and Ukraine, causing a humanitarian crisis. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 2 million people are seeking refuge in neighboring countries, including Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova. There are major humanitarian concerns for both internally displaced people and refugees. Response: Lutheran Disaster Response is supporting these member churches through Lutheran World Federation: German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in…
Prompts for Prayers of Intercession – March 13, 2022
These prompts are provided for worship leaders as they prepare the prayers of intercession for weekly worship. The prompts are prepared by several leaders in the ELCA and reflect current world and national events. You are encouraged to adapt and add other concerns for your local context, including staying informed of events and concerns in your synod. Intercession prompts: For all in crisis as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues… With gratitude for the first combined heart and thymus transplant, for all advances in the field of organ transplantation, for all organ donors… For all who suffer in the wake of…
The Hellenic, the Neo-Thomist Origins of Modernity
When Divine grace is separated from its reality in God, when grace becomes a thing, a substance, a quality infused into the accidents of humanity, it is only one small step removed from being integrated into the essence of what it means to be human. If this step is taken, and it has been in the ‘modern-turn,’ the turn-to-the-subject, the Gifter of grace no longer remains necessary, in a transcendent sense, as grace becomes materialized, immanentized, horizontalized into an ‘immanent frame,’ as Charles Taylor grammarizes. Indeed, Taylor writes with reference to what it means to be human in a frame wherein…
Lent Reflection 2: Vulnerable in the Wilderness
ELCA World Hunger’s 40 Days of Giving Lent 2022 In English and en Espanol Week 2: Wandering in the Wilderness “I must be on my way” (Luke 13:33). Read Genesis 15:1-12;17-18 Psalm 27 Philippians 3:17-4:1 Luke 12:31-35 Reflect As we saw in the reflection for Week 1, Lent is a story of the journey of God’s people. It is our story, or more appropriately the story of “God with us.” During Lent, we remember the ancient Hebrews’ journey from slavery in Egypt and a generation spent wandering in the wilderness, as recounted in the offering of the “first fruits” in…
Lent Reflection 1: Journey in the Wilderness
ELCA World Hunger’s 40 Days of Giving Lent 2022 Week 1: Journey in the Wilderness “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor” (Deuteronomy 26:5). Read Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Psalm 91:1-2, 9 -16 Romans 10:8b-13 Luke 4:1-13 Reflect We have a curious set of readings for this first Sunday of Lent. Biblical scholars believe that Deuteronomy 26:5-10 is a script for someone making an offering of what was called the “first fruits,” a religious practice for farming communities. Following the first harvest that the Israelites reaped in the Promised Land, they were to gather a basket of select produce from the fields and…