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By Richard J. Mammana The Episcopal Church’s 80th General Convention in Baltimore this summer was a watershed moment for relationships of Lutherans and Anglicans around the world. The triennial gathering was delayed by a year because of the global Covid pandemic, but the bicameral legislative process (one house for bishops and another for priests and lay deputies) has been in place since 1785. The General Convention makes decisions about the mission and governance of The Episcopal Church, the official name of which is the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America….

The Gospels of the New Testament witness all present Jesus via His historicity, and the facts of His life as they unfolded in particular frames of reference. John the evangelist ended his Gospel with the quip, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.” Clearly, Jesus was a historical personage, but this is not how the Christian has come to know Him at a first order; nor is it the way that the Evangelists…

Today’s blog post comes from Rev. Lisa Heffernan, ELCA Disability Ministries coordinator I’m just going to be honest here. All month I’ve been procrastinating on writing this blog post. Why? I’m not sure, I guess. Perhaps it’s because it asks for a bit of vulnerability on my part. You see, it’s October, and October is spina bifida awareness and disability awareness month. Spina bifida is the neural tube disorder I was born with, so I can tell you all that I am intimately “aware” of it every day. Do I hate it? No. Not at all. Are there challenges/frustrations that…

Josh Kestner, Clemson, SC Warm-up Question Who are some people that you look up to in your life? What have they done to make you respect them? Tell about a time when your faith and values did not line up with your experience of reality. How did you feel? What did you do? Resilient Women I am in awe of the Muslim women involved in protests surrounding the wearing of the hijab. They are heroes who are showing strength and resilience in the midst of persistent pushback. One of the things that has struck me is that there is no…

Death is so anti-climactic relative to the world at large. You can live 80 good years on this earth, and then simply die. Those you leave behind will grieve and mourn the absence, but the world at large keeps going as if nothing happened. And yet in the Kingdom of Heaven every death is charged full with God’s death for the world in Jesus Christ. There is no more death, in fact, in the Kingdom. In the Kingdom what was once death, in the fallen world, was put to death in the death of Christ. As a result, there is…

“Energy blackmail” The European Union is a world leader when it comes to replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. The World Economic Forum reported early in 2022 that the EU had “passed another milestone in the race towards a zero-carbon future,” sourcing 22 percent of its energy from renewables in 2020 – ahead of the 20% target the bloc had set in 2009. But that won’t be enough to keep Europe warm this winter, as a fuel crisis the likes of which hasn’t been seen since World War II grips the continent. Officials have warned of potential rolling blackouts, manufacturing…

from the ELCA advocacy office in Washington, D.C. – the Rev. Amy E. Reumann, Senior Director Partial expanded content from Advocacy Connections: October 2022 GLOBAL MALNUTRITION PREVENTION AND TREATMENT ACT PASSES!  |  DACA-RELATED DECISION STILL INDICATES NEED OF PERMANENT PROTECTIONS  |  INFLATION REDUCTION ACT AND CHURCH BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE  |  ACUTE AWARENESS OF DISASTER RESPONSE NEEDS  |  ELECTION DAY IS ALMOST HERE GLOBAL MALNUTRITION PREVENTION AND TREATMENT ACT PASSES: We celebrate that the bipartisan Global Malnutrition Prevention and Treatment Act recently passed the Senate following spring passage by the House and thank the many Lutherans who used their voices to encourage this…

It has become almost self-evident that the way Christian persons are to interpret Holy Scripture comes from reconstructing history; through philological acumen; the ability to understand grammatical syntax, etc. While all of this, and more, is important towards culling the heft and riches of Scripture’s intent, in relation to its reality, Jesus Christ, it is not the only way to frame, nor I will suggest, the primary way we should approach the interpretation of the Bible. And since I want this post to be meaningful, in a contemporary sense, I want to focus, once again, on how the above has…

Steve Peterson, Saulk Rapids, MN Warm-up Question Has there been a time in your life when you longed for someone, or God, to have a little mercy on you?   Lord Have Mercy Sometimes we experience a tension in life.  We want to see ourselves in a position of superiority, thinking of ourselves as better than “other kinds of people”.  But we also feel a pull toward humility and a stance of shared humanity with all people.  Resentment may come into play.  We are tempted to dehumanize those we resent, maybe even punish them. We think ourselves justified in considering…

CeCee Mills, Greensboro, NC Warm-up Questions What is the difference between being persistent and being annoying? How do you decide when to push harder and when to pull back? Persistence I keep thinking about the people’s determination in the Ukraine. It has been nearly eight months since the invasion began. Ukraine’s population is forty-four million compared to Russia’s one hundred forty-four million. I watch President Volodymyr Zelensky and I feel inspired. I am sure it was not a surprise that they were attacked – but I wonder what the citizens feel. I assume they feel displaced, angry, scared, and untethered….