As we prepare for the first Joint Assembly of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, we know that there are some who, like our ancestors in the faith, may be just a little dispirited as we face the challenges of our times. But just as surely as God's Spirit inspired the fi rst generation of believers, that same Spirit is working in us to give us the words to speak to one another and to those who are seeking something-dare we say, "Someone"-to believe in.

Our coming "Together for the Love of the World" will be a visible sign of the Spirit working in and among us. It will be time to take counsel together for the common good of both our churches and for the common good of our world. It will be a time to set our fears aside and arise with "bold new decisions."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

Small wonder, given the harrowing times recently, that news about a long-running property fight over a picturesque church in northern Virginia escaped most people’s notice. But the story of the struggle over the historic Falls Church is nonetheless worth a closer look. It’s one more telling example of a little-acknowledged truth: though religious traditionalism may be losing today’s political and legal battles, it remains poised to win the wider war over what Christianity will look like tomorrow.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Virginia • Global South Churches & Primates • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology • Theology: Salvation (Soteriology) • Theology: Scripture

Editor's Note: The gay marriage debate has reached an apex nationally as the U.S. Supreme Court considers two cases that could expand the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples and extend a large set of rights, benefits and privileges to such couples. The court's decisions are expected this summer. In the meantime, The Post and Courier has invited two local clergy to share their views on the matter.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * South Carolina • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

At first, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., could see itself as exempt from the economic forces shaking seminaries and theological schools nationwide. Luther is the biggest seminary for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. Among its peers, it had a reputation for being innovative. Individual donors continued to give, and its local area -- in one of the country’s most Lutheran states -- was supportive.

Last fall, though, it all came crashing down. Enrollments were dropping. The seminary found it was running multimillion-dollar deficits, spending down its endowment and relying on loans. In December, its president, the Rev. Dr. Richard Bliese, resigned, as the seminary’s board began to look at options to trim at least $4 million from the seminary’s $27 million annual budget.

The results were announced...[not long ago]: layoffs for 18 of its 125 staff members, many effective within a few weeks; the voluntary departure of 8 of 44 faculty members at the end of the academic year, who will not be replaced; the termination of a master’s program in sacred music; and the decision to no longer admit Ph.D students for at least three years.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Education • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

Lutheran leaders have warned the Vatican that the creation of a structure to welcome conservative Lutherans into the Catholic Church would harm dialogue and damage ecumenical relations.

In 2009, Pope Benedict created a special church structure, called an ordinariate, to allow disgruntled Anglicans to convert to Catholicism while maintaining bits of their traditions and culture.

Ordinariates have been created in the U.S., England and Australia, attracting hundreds of conservative Anglicans who oppose female and gay bishops and who seek greater lines of authority.

In recent weeks, senior Vatican officials publicly suggested the creation of a similar structure for disaffected Lutherans; the idea was first floated last October by Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Vatican chief ecumenist.

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But see, how unkindly he turns away the humble request of his mother who addresses him with such great confidence. Now observe the nature of faith. What has it to rely on? Absolutely nothing, all is darkness. It feels its need and sees help nowhere; in addition, God turns against it like a stranger and does not recognize it, so that absolutely nothing is left. It is the same way with our conscience when we feel our sin and the lack of righteousness; or in the agony of death when we feel the lack of life; or in the dread of hell when eternal salvation seems to have left us. Then indeed there is humble longing and knocking, prayer and search, in order to be rid of sin, death and dread. And then he acts as if he had only begun to show us our sins, as if death were to continue, and hell never to cease. Just as he here treats his mother, by his refusal making the need greater and more distressing than it was before she came to him with her request; for now it seems everything is lost, since the one support on which she relied in her need is also gone.

This is where faith stands in the heat of battle. Now observe how his mother acts and here becomes our teacher. However harsh his words sound, however unkind he appears, she does not in her heart interpret this as anger, or as the opposite of kindness, but adheres firmly to the conviction that he is kind, refusing to give up this opinion because of the thrust she received, and unwilling to dishonor him in her heart by thinking him to be otherwise than kind and gracious--as they do who are without faith, who fall back at the first shock and think of God merely according to what they feel, like the horse and the mule, Ps 32, 9. For if Christ's mother had allowed those harsh words to frighten her she would have gone away silently and displeased; but in ordering the servants to do what he might tell them she proves that she has overcome the rebuff and still expects of him nothing but kindness.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Christology • Theology: Scripture

At its meeting in Auckland, the Anglican Consultative Council commended the new report of the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission (ALIC III) to the whole Communion, for study and action.

To Love and Serve the Lord focusses on diakonia (the ministry of service and mission, common to all Christians). Jointly produced by The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Anglican Communion for the third phase of their bilateral dialogue the publication offers a diverse array of stories about church ministries that are transforming relations between churches in both communions....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Health & Medicine • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

(LCMS News) On the 495th anniversary of the Reformation, Dr. Alister McGrath, professor at King’s College, London, called on confessional Lutherans around the world to continue to “unpack, interpret and translate” the words of Dr. Martin Luther in the contemporary culture.

Speaking on the topic of Witness (martyia) to Lutheran church leaders—who collectively represent more than 20 million Lutherans—from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Australia and North America, McGrath urged all Lutherans to “go back to this resource [Luther] to enrich the present-day mission.”

McGrath, a leading critic of the New Atheism and an advocate of the importance of theology in apologetics, mission, evangelism, spirituality and social engagement, is also a former atheist whose interest and eventual conversion to Christianity was due in part to his reading of Luther.

Serving as keynote speaker to the International Conference on Confessional Leadership, sponsored by The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, McGrath set the stage for a series of follow-up responses from pastors from Taiwan, Nigeria, Brazil and England regarding the relevance and importance of Luther and the Lutheran church in the 21st century.

A failure to share Luther’s insights and the enduring confessional Lutheran perspective with the 21st century, noted McGrath, will result in a “treasure chest” of doctrine that will “remain unopened because the language isn’t understood.”

“It’s much easier to withdraw and not engage with anyone else,” McGrath admitted, “but Luther is a witness to the more uncomfortable truth that we need to be there at the intersection of Christ and culture, bearing witness to the Gospel.”

Tomorrow (Nov. 1, All Saints’ Day), the conference will focus on the theme of Mercy (Diakonia).

Daily news briefs and updates from the conference are available at the Witness, Mercy, Life Together blog, LCMS Twitter, LCMS Facebook and KFUO Radio. The conference is made possible by a grant from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Apologetics

Parishioners of St Paul's Sarhadi Lutheran Church in Mardan, Khyber Pakhthunkwa are calling for the Government to restore their church back to it's "former glory." The church which was built in 1937 provides education and health services to the local community – Muslim and Christian alike – and provided substantial support to victims of floods and a major earthquake in recent years, regardless of their religious affiliation.

During a local "protest"on Friday afternoon (21st Sept), over the release of and anti-Muslim movie called "The innocence of Muslims", a mob broke into a church compound in Mardan near Pashawer, burnt down the church, and destroyed 27 homes in the church compound including the houses of two priests and the school head teacher. The mob burnt bibles and other religious artifacts including books with Islamic text and many question whether blasphemy charges will be laid against the those that have been caught.

The attack took place after the Government called a national holiday, purportedly in sympathy of protests against the film.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

Lahore Bishop Rt Rev Dr Alexander John Malik has strongly condemned the burning of a church in Mardan, reiterating that Pakistani Christians have nothing to do with the people who made the profane movie.

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A mob of hundreds of Muslim men attacked and burnt an 82-year-old church and an adjoining school in northwest Pakistan during a protest against an anti-Islam film, sparking concerns among the minority Christian community.

The mob broke through the gate of the St Paul's Lutheran Church inside the cantonment in Mardan city, 48 km from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa capital of Peshawar, on Friday while returning from a rally against the film Innocence Of Muslims.

According to reports from Christians in Mardan, the mob attacked and set on fire the church, St Paul's high school, a library, a computer laboratory and houses of four clergymen, including Bishop Peter Majeed.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Movies & Television • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Pakistan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”

Do you also wish to go away?

I considered this question during my years as a seminary student when I came to realize and understand the ELCA’s stance on homosexuality and the policies that supported that stance. In the late 1990s, when I was a student, gays and lesbians were not allowed to serve as pastors nor was there any support from the ELCA to bless same-sex unions. Could I become a pastor in a church with such policies and positions? As many of you know, I had a mentor in junior high and high school, a Lutheran pastor, whose homosexuality was revealed only when he revealed that he had AIDS. The congregation where he was serving decided to keep him on as their pastor until he was no longer able to serve, even though they would have had every right — under ELCA policies at the time — to dismiss him. Could I become a pastor in a church that had such a right and which, on many other occasions, acted on that right? Would becoming a pastor in the Lutheran church imply full support of the ELCA’s stance, becoming complicit in a system that denied gays and lesbians the opportunity to answer God’s call to serve as pastors in this church? Would becoming a pastor in this church mean becoming a part of a system that kept people like my mentor in the closet, that denied blessings to those who were in love, that perpetuated the cycle of ignorance and fear?

Do you also wish to go away?

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

The annual gathering of Pope Benedict’s former students has begun at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo and is examining the ecumenical dialogue the Catholic Church has with Lutherans and Anglicans.

“The fact that the Holy Father has chosen this theme for the meeting this year is a sign that the ecumenical question is of primary importance for him,” said participant Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna in an Aug. 30 interview with Vatican Radio.

“I think this is already a first essential concept, within the context of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, it is a strong sign that the Holy Father insists on the importance of these meetings between separated Christians.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • * Theology

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is responding to the needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan, where an estimated 150,000 Syrians -- 39,600 of which are registered with the United Nations as refugees -- have fled. As the conflict in Syria continues to worsen, some Syrians have also fled to Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey.

The Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and president of The Lutheran World Federation, has been in conversation with Jordanian officials about how Lutherans can best be involved in addressing the needs of Syrian refugees. He is helping to identify ways in which his church, the ELCA and The Lutheran World Federation can deepen their participation in relief efforts.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Lebanon • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

[The Rev. Eric] Greenwood, rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, says his denomination has its troubles. But it is still a force for good in the world.

“Everybody gets all excited about sex in the church,” he said. “But the good work that gets done in the name of God and our lord Jesus Christ, it will take your breath away.”

Nationwide, the numbers don’t look good for the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant denominations, most of which tend to hold more liberal beliefs. From 2000 to 2010, most suffered double-digit percentage declines in membership, leading some to wonder if those denominations can be saved in the future.

But in Nashville, those mainline churches have showed surprising strength and have grown in membership over the past decade.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ • * Theology

....rather than scour tarnished Weimar, we should read much deeper into Germany’s incomparably rich history, and in particular the indelible mark left by Martin Luther and the “mighty fortress” he built with his strain of Protestantism. Even today Germany, though religiously diverse and politically secular, defines itself and its mission through the writings and actions of the 16th century reformer, who left a succinct definition of Lutheran society in his treatise “The Freedom of a Christian,” which he summarized in two sentences: “A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none, and a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all.”

Consider Luther’s view on charity and the poor. He made the care of the poor an organized, civic obligation by proposing that a common chest be put in every German town; rather than skimp along with the traditional practice of almsgiving to the needy and deserving native poor, Luther proposed that they receive grants, or loans, from the chest. Each recipient would pledge to repay the borrowed amount after a timely recovery and return to self-sufficiency, thereby taking responsibility for both his neighbors and himself. This was love of one’s neighbor through shared civic responsibility, what the Lutherans still call “faith begetting charity.”

How little has changed in 500 years. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, a born-and-baptized daughter of an East German Lutheran pastor, clearly believes the age-old moral virtues and remedies are the best medicine for the euro crisis.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Currency Markets • Euro • European Central Bank • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Europe • --European Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2010 • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

We’ve become so accustomed to the narrative of “mainline decline” that it is difficult to get our minds around a more nuanced version of this story. How do you tell this story?

The ecumenical leaders achieved much more than they and their successors give them credit for. They led millions of American Protestants in directions demanded by the changing circumstances of the times and by their own theological tradition. These ecumenical leaders took a series of risks, asking their constituency to follow them in antiracist, anti-imperialist, feminist and multicultural directions that were understandably resisted by large segments of the white public, especially in the Protestant-intensive southern states.

It is true that the so-called mainstream lost numbers to churches that stood apart from or even opposed these initiatives, and ecumenical leaders simultaneously failed to persuade many of their own progeny that churches remained essential institutions in the advancement of these values.

But the fact remains that the public life of the United States moved farther in the directions advocated in 1960 by the Christian Century than in the directions then advocated by Christianity Today. It might be hyperbolic to say that ecumenists experienced a cultural victory and an organizational defeat, but there is something to that view. Ecumenists yielded much of the symbolic capital of Christianity to evangelicals, which is a significant loss. But ecumenists won much of the U.S. There are trade-offs.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Evangelicals • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ

Discussion among eurozone leaders about the future of their single currency has become an increasingly divisive affair. On the surface, religion has nothing to do with it - but could Protestant and Catholic leaders have deep-seated instincts that lead them to pull the eurozone in different directions, until it breaks?

Following the last European summit in Brussels there was much talk of defeat for Chancellor Merkel by what was described as a "new Latin Alliance" of Italy and Spain backed by France.

Many Germans protested that too much had been conceded by their government - and it might not be too far-fetched to see this as just the latest Protestant criticism of the Latin approach to matters monetary, which has deep roots in German culture, shaped by religious belief.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Personal Finance • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Europe • --European Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2010 • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Roman Catholic • * Theology

The Text of resolution A036 follows--

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 77th General Convention give thanks for the full communion agreement between The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2011; and be it further Resolved, That the Church acknowledge that there exist areas of theological divergence that hinder the fullest degree of communion possible; and be it further Resolved, That the Church commit itself to address those areas that hinder this
relationship, including but not limited to the diaconate and lay presidency of the Eucharist; and be it further Resolved, That the Church invite the ELCA to a new season of bilateral dialogue to discuss and address these matters; and be it further Resolved, That the General Convention request the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget, and Finance to consider a budget allocation of $60,000 for the implementation of this resolution.

You can read more there and you can see a picture there (thanks to David Simmons).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

Eight of the ten bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark on June 11 presented a ritual for same-sex marriage to the country's Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs.

Their action came in response to the Danish Parliament's decision on June 7 to change the marriage legislation so that from June 15 same-sex couples may be married in a civil ceremony or in the state church, the church's website Folkekirken.dk reported.

The ritual states that pastors who cannot theologically support same-sex marriage shall be free not to use the rite. Denmark's sovereign, Queen Margrethe II, is expected to approve the new ritual shortly. A rite for the blessing of civil same-sex marriages was also proposed by the bishops.


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After four meetings over the past 18 months, the Anglican Church in North America and The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) rejoice in affirming core teachings of the Christian faith they share. The two church bodies, together with the Lutheran Church—Canada, are jointly releasing a report today summarizing the areas of agreement.

Leaders from the two church bodies began meeting in the fall of 2010 to discuss theological and ecumenical issues for the purpose of increasing the level of mutual understanding and affirmations between them, and identifying potential areas of cooperative work. Because the Anglican Church in North America includes congregations in Canada as well as in the United States, a representative from Lutheran Church—Canada, an LCMS partner church, also participated in the discussions.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

A first meeting of representatives of the Anglican Church in North America and the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) was held Tuesday, March 27, at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA.

This gathering included representatives from the two denominations, including the leaders of both groups: Archbishop Robert Duncan and Bishop John Bradosky (NALC). The Anglican Church in North America was formed in 2009 as a new Anglican Province in North America. The NALC was formed in 2010 as a reconfiguration of Lutheranism in North America. Both bodies represent a biblical, confessional expression of their respective historic traditions.

The group was hosted by Trinity School for Ministry, a biblical and orthodox Christian seminary which trains men and women for lay and ordained ministry. A presentation was made by Bishop John Rodgers on historical Lutheran-Anglican dialogue. Bishop Rodgers was a regular participant in this work at both the international and national levels from 1969 to 1990.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

Major steps toward the dis-establishment of Norway's state church, the (Lutheran) Church of Norway, were passed by the government on March 16 in its weekly session with King Harald V.

Expected to be adopted by the Parliament (Storting) in May or June this year, the proposals will make changes in the country's constitution as well as in other church legislation, the Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs announced.

"I hope we have now prepared a good basis for the Church of Norway to be an open and inclusive national church, also in a multicultural and multi-religious setting," Minister Rigmor Aasrud (Labour Party), said in a news release.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Law & Legal Issues • Church/State Matters • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Norway • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

For Gene Edward Veith Jr., provost and professor of literature at Patrick Henry College, Martin Luther's doctrine of vocation undergirds a truly Christian theology of the family. Vocation, as he describes it, is "the way God works through human beings." In his latest book, Family Vocation: God's Calling in Marriage, Parenting, and Childhood (Crossway), Veith looks to Luther's ideals of loving and serving our neighbor, and to his view of the family as a "holy order" unto itself. Coauthored with daughter Mary J. Moerbe, a deaconess in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the book applies Luther's understanding to the various family vocations (marriage, parenthood, and childhood) and the "offices" within those vocations (husband, wife, father, mother, and child). Author and Her.meneutics blog contributor Caryn Rivadeneira spoke with father and daughter about Luther's vision of family life....

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Laity • * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

From here:

Since it is only through the external means ordained by Him that God has promised to communicate the grace and salvation purchased by Christ, the Christian Church must not remain at home with the means of grace entrusted to it, but go into the whole world with the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, Matt. 28:19, 20; Mark 16:15, 16. For the same reason also the churches at home should never forget that there is no other way of winning souls for the Church and keeping them with it than the faithful and diligent use of the divinely ordained means of grace. Whatever activities do not either directly apply the Word of God or subserve such application we condemn as "new methods," unchurchly activities, which do not build, but harm the Church (my emphasis).

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

The question now is whether these breakaway groups signal a seismic shift in American Protestantism, or just a few fissures in the theological terrain.

In some ways, the rifts are nothing new. American Protestants have been splintering since Roger Williams left Plymouth Colony in the 1630s, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist of religion at Boston University.

Yet the schisms counter a 20th-century trend in which ethnic and regional Protestant groups merged to form big-tent denominations such as the ELCA and PC(USA).

"What we may be experiencing at this point is the limit of that movement to draw a lot of diversity under one umbrella," said Ammerman, author of "Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and Their Partners."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Presbyterian

In a time when disdain for other faiths is commonplace, even blessed in some religious circles, how does a Bible study instructor contrast the teachings and doctrines of another tradition and his own without seeming intolerant? And conversely, can the increased sensitivity to multiculturalism and religious diversity in early 21st-century America gradually diminish the celebration of one faith tradition's distinctive place in the theological spectrum?

"If you're going to take your religion seriously, you should feel it's superior to others. Why else believe in it?" said Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "On the other hand, society does require a hands-off attitude toward other faiths in order for us to all live together. It's a dilemma."

Thomas, who was on staff at Concordia Seminary in Clayton for 18 years, said he believes the Bible studies at St. Paul's have stayed on the respectful side of the line. His goal with the classes, he said, is to explain the teachings of another religion and to ask why Lutherans don't believe the same thing.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • Other Faiths • Islam

They may not be as large as Catholics or as active as evangelicals, but white mainline Protestants have a big thing going for them this election cycle: they are divided, and possibly persuadable.

That's according to a new poll released Thursday (Feb. 2) that found white mainline Protestants are more evenly split between President Obama and his Republican challengers than other religious groups.

"They're the most important ignored religious group in the country," said Dan Cox, research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted the poll in partnership with Religion News Service.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • Office of the President • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Disciples of Christ • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian

Seven influential megachurch pastors took part in live unscripted discussions on different approaches to ministry in the second round of The Elephant Room – an event billed as "conversations you never thought you'd hear" from pastors.

Held in Aurora, Ill., and broadcast to over 70 locations around the U.S., the discussions were mediated by James MacDonald of Chicago's Harvest Bible Chapel and Mark Driscoll of Seattle's Mars Hill Church.

With nondenominational churches growing across the county, the role of denominations and church networks was the first topic discussed.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists • Disciples of Christ • Evangelicals • Lutheran • Methodist • Pentecostal • Presbyterian • Reformed • * Theology • Ecclesiology

In early September, as new students wandered onto the campus of Concordia Seminary in Clayton, they were joined by another group of theological rookies — mostly midcareer types — joining the school's program that allows students to train for the ministry online.

As the consultants, electricians, farmers and entrepreneurs in the Specific Ministry Program got to know one another in person, before reconnecting online from hundreds or thousands of miles away in the weeks that followed, one student had an orientation story that truly rocked.

David Ellefson was an honest-to-God founding member of the legendary thrash metal band Megadeth.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

Since I’ve been chairing a national Presbyterian Church (USA) committee on the Nature of the Church for the 21st century, I’ve been gaining a different perspective on many of the larger trends of our denomination. One thing that has been difficult to realize (and equally difficult to communicate to the larger church) is the young clergy crisis.

Why would I call it a crisis? We’ve known for a long time about the startling decline of young clergy. The drop-out rates don't help (I can't find hard and fast stats on this... but some claim that about 70% of young clergy drop out within the first five years of ministry, usually because of lack of support or financial reasons). The average age of a pastor in the PCUSA is 53. And I’ve realized that the age of our leadership might be much higher.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Aging / the Elderly • Middle Age • Young Adults • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

A list of the Episcopal Church’s 75 commissions, committees, agencies and boards spilled over eight PowerPoint slides during a recent presentation by its new chief operating officer, Bishop Stacy Sauls.

By his count, there are also nearly 50 departments and offices in the church’s New York headquarters, and 46 committees in its legislative body, the General Convention.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

Many of the proposals, which were compiled by a special church commission, seem in keeping with Christian mores: no investing in companies that manufacture guns or pornography; avoid investing in countries that are considered dictatorships or that present a risk to the environment.

The guidelines say investing in the alcohol industry is appropriate, so long as the beverages contain no more than 15 percent alcohol by volume.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • Stock Market • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Pastor Elke Rosenthal has a problem that Christian clergy elsewhere in Europe can only dream of.

While pews across the continent are emptying, her Lutheran congregation in this leafy suburb of Berlin has tripled in size in recent years, outgrowing its two small churches and eager to break ground for a much larger structure.

But the dream sometimes seems like a nightmare for the Resurrection Church parish, which has hit barriers every time it tries to expand.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

I share these two experiences alongside a comment I came across years ago: every church and every member of the clergy, over a span of time, needs to belong to a denomination. I serve as a district superintendent, and I am aware of the church's imperfections, and my own. I watch over 69 local churches and a few assorted institutions within our geographical boundaries, and we are at work on the development of a new church plant and the development of a missional church network. At any given time about 3-5 of these churches are in real crisis: they are in need of outside intervention, mediation, conflict resolution and spiritual guidance. A denomination, at its best, provides a framework for the protection of the clergy in a workplace and supervision of even the most powerful clergy leaders. In addition, a denomination works out the implications of a missional strategy in an area that is more nuanced than simply whatever the market can bear.

I share these experiences at a time when there is much rhetoric around moving energy, resources and attention to the local church. I love the local church. It is the basic context for the mission of making disciples for the transformation of the world. At the same time, the local church will, on occasion, be stronger as it accomplishes mission that is beyond its own capacity, and as it is accountable to a wisdom that is outside its own day to day movements.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists • Disciples of Christ • Lutheran • Methodist • Pentecostal • Presbyterian • Reformed • Roman Catholic • United Church of Christ • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Pastoral Theology

In an historic move, the Anglican diocese of Rupert’s Land has appointed a Lutheran pastor – the Rev. Paul Johnson – as dean of the diocese and incumbent for St. John’s Cathedral in Winnipeg.

This is the first time that a Lutheran pastor has been appointed dean in an Anglican cathedral in Canada. A dean is the priest in charge of a cathedral (“mother church”) and occupies a senior position in a diocese.

The Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) have been in full communion since 2001, which means that their clergy may serve in one another’s churches.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

According to the Vatican official on ecumenism, the Church and the World Lutheran Federation are preparing a Joint Declaration on the Reformation, in view of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's 95 Theses.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, announced this in an interview with the German Catholic agency KNA.

In this context, Vatican Radio reported Monday that Benedict XVI wants his Sept. 22-25 trip to Germany to have an ecumenical focus.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • Roman Catholic

Some national church denominations have changed their standards in recent years – stirring debate among congregations about whether to stay or find a new path.

In the central San Joaquin Valley, some congregations have chosen to leave their denominations because, they say, it doesn't represent their traditional values. The goodbyes have worked out for the churches, but they have been difficult.

The trend has reached three major denominations – the U.S. Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA) and most recently the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: San Joaquin • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Presbyterian • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

...as a Catholic I think that Luther was deeply mistaken. But I also understand that if you take theology seriously, as something with real cognitive content, then it will by its very nature exclude certain beliefs while entailing others. Thus, the Catholic Church affirms that Protestant denominations, like the Lutherans, are not real churches. That judgment inexorably follows from the Catholic belief in apostolic succession.

Not surprisingly, Baptists do not accept infant baptisms as legitimate, Judaism believes that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is unbiblical, Eastern Orthodoxy forbids its people from receiving the Eucharist at churches in communion with Rome, Muslims deny that Jesus is the Son of God, and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, “believes that the popish sacrifice of the mass is most abominably injurious to Christ’s one, only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of His elect.”

It is not clear what Mr. [Joshua] Green expects to find when he investigates the churches, synagogues, or mosques of political figures. In a nation of serious believers who are citizens of a government committed to religious freedom and other basic liberties, why does it surprise Mr. Green to find that differing religious points of view should arise and that the advocates of those views would issue doctrinal statements that are at points critical in nature?

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Media • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Roman Catholic

Q: Under the new policies, can a Lutheran church refuse to hire a gay pastor?

A: Hiring works a little different in the church than it does in other places. We don’t apply for jobs. And when you’re talking about spirituality, and where people are in their lives, it really takes a connection, like on a relationship level, that doesn’t necessarily come out in a regular job interview. It becomes very complicated.

Myself, if I knew a congregation didn’t welcome everyone, I would just say no to the (position). If I knew they really didn’t like female ministers, OK, you know what? I know that that’s how this community is. And perhaps if I was at the right point in my life, I might go. I’ve been the first woman pastor in a parish before. And yes, you can change people’s minds and you can show a different way. But sometimes you can’t. And I think that’s more how it will play out: people will just kind of know pockets or where they should and shouldn’t go.

Q: Do you think there will be a further split over this that no one is foreseeing?

A: There has already been a split over the past decade. We have had some parishes leave. Some have gone to the (Lutheran Church-Canada) most recently. There’s a new group called the Canadian Association of Lutheran Churches who have stepped aside on this issue and said, ‘We don’t want any part of a church that is blessing same-sex marriages or rostered clergy who are gay.’ So we’ve already lost some, and I think we’ll lose a few more. Some congregations, some pastors, and within each individual parish we’ll probably lose a few. But it’s a risk that the church is willing to take.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

The latest casualty of the long-running Protestant conflicts over the Bible and homosexuality is a massive network of social service agencies that work in areas ranging from adoption to disaster relief.

The theologically conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod announced this week that direct work with its larger and more liberal counterpart, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has become "difficult if not impossible," because of doctrinal differences, including the 2009 decision by liberal Lutherans to lift barriers for ordaining gays and lesbians.

Neither denomination would discuss the potential financial impact Wednesday. Many Lutheran-affiliated agencies receive substantial state and federal money through contracts and grants that would not be directly affected by any split. However, similar to Catholic Charities, Lutheran agencies are some of the biggest service providers in their communities and have been struggling to meet increased demand for help during the recession.

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

New York--After same-sex marriage becomes legal here on July 24, gay priests with partners in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island will head to the altar. They have to. Their bishop set a nine-month deadline for them to marry or stop living together.

Next door, meanwhile, the Episcopal bishop of New York says he also expects gay clergy in committed relationships to wed "in due course." Still, this longtime supporter of gay rights says churches in his diocese are off limits for gay weddings until he receives clearer liturgical guidance from the national denomination.

As more states legalize same-sex marriage, religious groups with ambiguous policies on homosexuality are divided over whether they should allow the ceremonies in local congregations. The decision is especially complex in the mainline Protestant denominations that have yet to fully resolve their disagreements over the Bible and homosexuality. Many have taken steps toward acceptance of gay ordination and same-gender couples without changing the official definition of marriage in church constitutions and canons. With the exception of the United Church of Christ, which approved gay marriage six years ago, none of the larger mainline churches has a national liturgy for same-sex weddings or even blessing ceremonies.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Sarah Kristin Dreier began July 5 in her new role as the legislative representative for international issues for both the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in an effort by both denominations to share resources.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

For years, Guy Erwin worked toward becoming a Lutheran minister, knowing the whole time his church wouldn't ordain him because he is gay.

Now Erwin, 53, is one of two California Lutheran University professors who were ordained recently because the Lutheran and Episcopal churches changed their policies on ordaining [non-celibate] gay and lesbian clergy.

"I had thought, 'Maybe it's too late for me,'" said Erwin, who was ordained at CLU in May. "But my friends said, 'The church has been calling you all these years.' It has ended up being a point of great joy."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Bishop Suheil Dawani, the Anglican bishop, hosted an ecumenical reception for local church leaders, and the Commission was addressed by His Beatitude Theophilos III, the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Commission spent one of its sessions with Bishop Dawani and Bishop Younan. At both this session and at the reception, members of the Commission heard of the struggles of Christians in Jerusalem and Palestine: of the strain of living a restricted life, of the lack of jobs and opportunities particularly for young people, and of lacking peace with justice for all in society, all of which lead many Christians to leave the holy land and diminish the witness of Christianity in the very places of its birth. At the same time, they heard of the dedication of the local churches to be the hands and feet of Christ: to advocate for a just peace among all, to seek good relations among all the faith communities, and to offer high quality education and health care to the whole society.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Primary Source • -- Reports & Communiques • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

Illinois' civil union law not only empowers clergy to officiate same-sex civil unions, it has inspired a long-awaited formal rite in Chicago's Episcopal Church and now compels many clergy in committed same-sex relationships to make them legal.

Chicago's Episcopal and Lutheran bishops this week unveiled new policies for openly gay pastors in committed relationships and those who want to officiate same-sex civil unions. Many clergy already informally blessed same-gender partnerships.

"Now with the possibility of civil recognition of lifelong unions, the blessing of unions from a Christian perspective will have a different character, where before it has been purely a pastoral matter," said Chicago Episcopal Bishop Jeffrey Lee.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

For the Elderton Lutheran Parish, the national church's 2009 vote to permit some gay clergy appeared to be a final sign that the denomination had pulled up its biblical roots. Last winter it left the 4.5 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for a new Lutheran body, as have seven other congregations from the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod. Another four are in the process of voting to leave.

"There is no hostility toward the ELCA. Yes, it was difficult, but it was a matter of understanding who we are as children of God," said the Rev. Joyce Dix-Weiers, pastor of the two linked congregations in such a remote part of unincorporated Armstrong County that the mailing address is Shelocta, Indiana County.

"The ordination... [question] was the tip of the iceberg. The question of how the church understands scriptural authority was the crux of the problem."

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

For orthodox theologians such as Larry Gember, pastor of St. James Lutheran Church in Greenfield, the ELCA’s decision went a step too far.

“The primary issue is not sexuality,” Gember, 59, said Wednesday. “It’s that the authority of Scripture is being undermined.”

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

In your time at the Seminary, you have doubtless learned many things, but I hope above all that you have had occasion for perception. I hope this, but I also expect that it’s true: that in some class, or in some conversation, or at some chapel service – when you were studying the lives and words of Christians of the past, or exegeting Holy Scripture, or learning about the practice of ministry, or even wading through theology assignments – at some point, the sun peeked through the clouds, the world lit up in a strange way, and it dawned on you that Jesus is not... not ordinary.

My first word of counsel, then, is simply this: remember that you saw that. Don’t try to recapture the feeling: that’s totally unimportant. Even if you can’t remember just exactly what you saw, even if you’ve not quite mastered the theological language needed to describe what you saw – remember that you saw it. Remember that it once dawned on you that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is more than you can handle, that we have no methodological nets or ecclesiastical boats that can hold all that he is and all that he means. Remember that you saw that, once – and don’t settle for a smaller Jesus.

We live among all kinds of pressures to scale Jesus down, to shoehorn him into categories familiar and easy to us. We are glad to have him tell us things we already know: that God is accepting, that we should remember those in need, that the Church should be compassionate and caring. We don’t mind him motivating us to do the things we already know we should be doing. We are delighted to make him into a symbol of our highest aspirations and our best ideals. But some time or other, I’d be willing to bet, here or elsewhere, in class or at worship, it has dawned on you that Jesus is more than any of that. Whether that perception was weak or strong, articulate or inarticulate, remember that you saw that, and don’t settle.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * South Carolina • * Theology • Christology • Pastoral Theology

On May 1, four groundbreaking churches celebrated 10 years of full communion in joint celebrations on the U.S.-Canadian border. The four are the Anglican Church of Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Two parishes, St. Paul’s Anglican in Fort Erie, Ont., and Holy Trinity Lutheran in Buffalo, N.Y., held simultaneous services at 3 p.m. to honour the call to a common mission first made in the Waterloo Declaration of 2001.

And the celebrations did not go unnoticed in the international church community. “The eyes of the world were on this service,” said the Rev. Donald McCoid, a member of the executive for ELCA ecumenical and inter-religious relations. At the close of ceremonies in Buffalo, he read out congratulatory statements from the general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation and the general secretary of the World Council of Churches , who commended the two denominations on their decade of working together in unity and Christian mission. “Years later, your churches have much to celebrate—shared ministries between Anglican, Episcopal and Lutheran parishes in Canada and the United States,” wrote the Rev. Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation. Of the courageous decisions that set this cooperation in motion, he said, “These were truly acts of faith.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

Also in 2009, Arcus gave the communications firm of Douglas Gould and Company a grant of $194,200 to provide communications support to both the UM Reconciling Ministries Network and Lutherans Concerned to assist their efforts “to advance the full inclusion of LGBT people in the United Methodist Church and in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.”

Here are several other Arcus grants from last year:

Church Divinity School of the Pacific: $404,351 “to develop official rites for the blessing of same-gender relationships within the Episcopal Church....”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

As the religious landscape continues to change in North America, many voices are seeking the attention of Christians. Mainline churches were the voice of Christianity for most of our U.S. history. Today, the media often views American evangelicals as speaking for Christianity on issues of faith and society.

Who are these people, the American evangelicals? They range from members of megachurches to devotees of TV evangelists to fundamentalists and conservative denominations. Evangelicals are our neighbors, family members and co-workers.

Some questions often posed about them by mainline church members include: "Do we have conversations with evangelicals? How do we differ from evangelicals?"

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Evangelicals • Lutheran • * Theology

The idea of a shared national office, possibly located in Ottawa, for the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), is receiving mixed reviews from respective executive councils. In fact, said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, leadership of the Anglican Church of Canada may need to “step back” and consider more carefully the benefits of a shared national office.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

One of the hottest college campuses in the U.S. for Jewish students is also one of the unlikeliest: a small Lutheran school erected around a soaring stone chapel with a cross on top.

In what is being called a testament to word of mouth in the Jewish community, approximately 34 percent of Muhlenberg College's 2,200 students are Jewish. And the biggest gains have come in the past five years or so.

Perhaps equally noteworthy is how Muhlenberg has responded, by offering a kosher menu at the student union, creating a partnership with the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and expanding its Hillel House, a social hub for Jews.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Education • Religion & Culture • Young Adults • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Other Faiths • Judaism

Six missionaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will return to the ministries they serve in Egypt by the end of March. The six were among 10 missionaries temporarily evacuated from Cairo Feb. 1 on flights arranged by the U.S. government, because of protests against the government of former President Hosni Mubarak.

The ELCA missionaries, along with one missionary from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), flew to Istanbul, Turkey, and eventually arrived in St. Paul, Minn. Most have been staying in ELCA apartments reserved for missionaries on home assignment while in the United States.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Egypt • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

Let's face it. Lent is in trouble.


Let me explain. Most of us have favorite holiday seasons. For some it's Christmas, with the family get-togethers and presents. For others it's the Fourth of July and summer, filled by a sense of national pride and beach vacations to boot. But each year at just about this time, it strikes me that very few of us would pick Lent, a season that seems to most of us as grim as the weather that usually attends it.

Think about it: crossing off days on the calendar until Ash Wednesday; leaving work just a little early, saying "I've got to get my Lenten shopping done;" advertisements on billboards and television reading "only 12 more days 'til the day of Ashes;" or little kids going to bed, asking their parents, "How much longer 'till Lent is here?" It just doesn't happen.


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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

The Rev. Frank G. Honeycutt, senior pastor of Ebenezer Lutheran Church in downtown Columbia, took a three-month sabbatical to write his latest book “The Truth Shall Make You Odd: Speaking with Pastoral Integrity in Awkward Situations.”
The title is drawn from a line by writer Flannery O’Connor, a Southerner who pondered faith and spirituality in her novels and short stories. Honeycutt employs his favorite authors and theologians and his own pastoral story to explore ways pastors and lay people can speak honestly and effectively about living out the Christian faith.

This week, Honeycutt answered questions from The State about his new book...:

Question:You suggest that too many pastors practice avoidance, failing to speak the biblical truth to parishioners about the nature of belief in Jesus Christ and what that means about living a Christian life. How does a pastor learn to speak with pastoral integrity?

Honeycutt: There is a huge siren call among clergy — myself included — to try and make everyone happy. Stanley Hauerwas (Duke Divinity School) has famously referred to the pastor as a “quivering mass of availability.”

Many of us arrived at seminary as “pleasers” and do not like to rock the boat. The challenge is sometimes trying to please people who really do not want what Jesus wants. That’s a rather toxic mix. “Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?” asks Saint Paul of the church in Galatia. There can be a lot of relational fallout to pastoral truth-telling that may require an immense amount of time to sort through. It’s easier to lie low on so many issues and count the years to retirement. Jesus is our pastoral guide here. He spoke the truth in love in his ministry. Both words are important. Truth and love. It is easy to speak the truth in any number of damaging ways that have little to do with love.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

O God, our refuge and our strength, who didst raise up thy servant Martin Luther to reform and renew thy Church in the light of thy word: Defend and purify the Church in our own day and grant that, through faith, we may boldly proclaim the riches of thy grace, which thou hast made known in Jesus Christ our Savior, who, with thee and the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Spirituality/Prayer • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

President Barack Obama announced Feb. 4 his intention to appoint the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), to the President's Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The advisory council brings together religious and secular leaders, as well as scholars and experts in fields related to the work of faith-based and neighborhood organizations, to make recommendations to the government on how to improve partnerships, according to a White House news release.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

Ten years ago this week, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Episcopal Church launched a relationship of shared mission and ministry in a worship service and ceremony at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

This relationship, known as full communion, is described in Called to Common Mission: A Lutheran Proposal for a Revision of the Concordat of Agreement adopted by both churches. The document states: "We do not know to what new, recovered, or continuing tasks of mission this Concordat will lead our churches, but we give thanks to God for leading us to this point. We entrust ourselves to that leading in the future, confident that our full communion will be a witness to the gift and goal already present in Christ, 'so that God may be all in all' (I Corinthians 15:28)."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

At the same time mainstream denominations lose thousands of members per year, churches such as Crosspoint are growing rapidly — 15 percent of all U.S. churches identified themselves as nondenominational this year, up from 5 percent a decade ago. A third dropped out of major denominations at some point.

Their members are attracted by worship style, particular church missions or friends in the congregation.

"They no longer see the denomination as anything that has relevance to them," said Scott Thumma, a religion sociology professor at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. He's compiling a list of nondenominational churches for the 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Study. "The whole complexion of organized religion is in flux."

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists • Disciples of Christ • Evangelicals • Lutheran • Methodist • Orthodox Church • Pentecostal • Presbyterian • Roman Catholic • United Church of Christ

The president of the Lutheran World Federation, Bishop Munib Younan has said before meeting Pope Benedict XVI that their churches should issue a common statement on Holy Communion to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation that Martin Luther began in 1517.

"Our [the Lutheran federation's] intention is to arrive at 2017 with a common Roman Catholic-Lutheran declaration on eucharistic hospitality," Younan told the Italian Protestant news agency NEV the day before his December 16 audience with the Pope.

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • Roman Catholic

The recession has finally caught up with churches.

After two years of treading water, more Protestant congregations have seen their Sunday collections drop this year.

Pastors blame high unemployment and a drop in per-capita giving by members. To make ends meet, churches have laid off staff and frozen salaries, put off major capital projects and cut back on programs. At the same time, more of their congregation members and neighbors are asking for help with basic needs such as paying the rent and buying groceries.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Pastoral Care • Stewardship • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian

The ordination of [non-celibate] gay clergy continues to create tension within Christian denominations in America.

The Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist Church, United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church and the American Baptist Church USA have experienced tremendous internal discord over the issue.

But perhaps the most dynamic schism today involving [non-celibate] gay ordination is within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Last month, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Colorado Springs publicly announced it had left the ELCA. Bethel Lutheran and Faith Lutheran have also quit the denomination.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

As faculty in a seminary of the church, we are especially conscious of the importance of intentional spiritual formation for pastoral ministry, the diaconate, and other forms of church leadership. Seminary students must receive the encouragement, urging, and instruction they need in order to find a stable and enlivening pattern of spiritual practice capable of sustaining them over the long haul in life and ministry.

-The LTSS Faculty, "Spirituality and Spiritual Formation"

Here are four questions:

How will you be spiritually sustained during your years in seminary and over the long haul in public ministry?

What is the spiritual life?

Why does Southern Seminary emphasize intentional spiritual formation?

Where do you begin?

Check the link for the answers.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * South Carolina • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

Most members of the 5,800-member Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, which has three campuses, were troubled by what they viewed as the liberal drift of the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Radical trust is what it means to be a Christian of the Lutheran flavor even though Lutherans, like everyone else would prefer a cross the t and dot the i system where God had to play by rules we understand and ultimately control. But to trust that God loves with no strings attached, no down payment required, because God's very nature is love means God's love is truly free.

--Lutheran Phil Heinze on the Living the Lectionary blog; a very appropriate thought for Reformation Sunday

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

(Anglican Journal) Canadian Lutheran churches appear to be faced with many of the same problems known to Canadian Anglicans.

These include shrinking congregations and an increased interest in weekly eucharist.

According to Susan Johnson, national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), this is leading Lutherans to look at such measures as the use of ordained pastors as “circuit riders” bringing the eucharist to a number of parishes. Speaking here at the Oct. 22-25 joint meeting of the Anglican House of Bishops and Lutheran Conference of Bishops, she added there has also been pressure to revive a practice of permitting lay people to preside at the sacrament, as some Lutheran churches did at one time.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

Parish ministry can be a lonely vocation. The “set-apartness” of the pastoral role, the effects of geographical isolation, and the time demands of congregational life can all conspire to make the parish feel like what the old spiritual calls “the lonesome valley.” And yet Jesus walked that same lonesome valley, and, through him, even the loneliness of ministry can become a source of beauty and communion. Hear Jeremy Troxler, director of the Thriving Rural Communities initiative, discuss the loneliness of rural, and all, ministry.

If you have the capacity and interest you can download this presentation via Itunes following the link here.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists • Disciples of Christ • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • Roman Catholic

Anyone who is justified on the basis of the Law . . . has within himself the power to acquire righteousness....If this is true, then it necessarily follows that Christ died to no purpose. For what need would a man have of Christ who loves him and gives Himself for him [if] he is able to obtain grace and eventually do good works and to merit eternal life. . . or surely be justified by performing the Law? Therefore let Christ be removed togetherwith all his blessings because he is completely useless. But why is Christ born, crucified and dead? Why does He become my High Priest, who loves me and gives an inestimable sacrifice, Himself, for me? Why does he do all this? Simply to no purpose at all if the
meaning of justification which the [false teachers] set forth is true, because I find righteousness in the Law or in myself, outside grace and outside Christ.


--one of the many passages I cam across preparing for this morning's sermon on Galatians 2 the second half from Luther's Galatians

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

Fierce fighting among some Lutherans culminated in Friday's formation of the North American Lutheran Church, the nation's newest church body. The church has strong ties to a little-known ministry in the Twin Cities and a new seminary in Brookings.

The battles have included scorching accusations of blasphemy, "devilish" behavior and the leader of a reform group declaring that last year's vote on gay clergy amounted to the biblical sign of the beast: 666.

It's not the sort of thing typically seen among Lutherans, the low-key Christians that Garrison Keillor jokes about on his radio show. They prefer to sit in back pews and project an image of grace and peace.

Read it all

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Hundreds of congregations have held votes on leaving the denomination. Others have cut off funding to the national church. Bishops in Africa have condemned the actions taken by their North American counterparts. And this week disaffected members are gathering to found a new breakaway denomination.

You would be forgiven for assuming that the denomination under discussion here is Anglican, but the battleground this time is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a denomination which — at least before its controversial August 2009 vote — counted more than 4.6 million members. But while the names are different, the crisis in the ELCA is remarkably similar to that rocking North American Anglicanism.

In August 2009, the ELCA narrowly voted to affirm couples living in same-sex relationships and further opened the ministry to non-celibate homosexual clergy. Members holding a historical interpretation of Scripture were outraged. For them, the authority of Scripture — a foundational tenet of the Lutheran Reformation — was being rejected in favour of cultural relativism.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

The first of six large group gatherings kicked off the four-day event with a live band, drama troupe, a "parade of Bishops," and keynote speaker — The Rev'd Canon William Cliff, Rector of The Collegiate Chapel of St. John the Evangelist at Huron University College and parish priest for Huron University College and the Anglican Community at the University of Western Ontario.

"I want scripture to come alive for you," exclaimed Cliff as he laid out three ground rules for the youth to follow for his presentations during the gathering and for when reading scripture in general. The rules included: The Gospel is always astonishing; The Gospel is never fair — "because the Gospel is about grace"; and God always acts first. "We are going to find the most unfair, grace-filled, astonishing reading in which God acts first," declared Cliff.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Teens / Youth • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

Lutherans world-wide are already buzzing about 2017, the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, commonly regarded as the starting point of the Reformation. But no one's quite sure about the right way to observe the occasion.

Should Lutherans celebrate the profound insights of a brilliant theologian into the gospel? Or should they lament the splintering of the Western church and the physical and spiritual intra-Christian wars that followed? Should Lutherans lord it over Catholics or should they apologize? Will Catholics ignore the anniversary and its significance altogether, or condemn it; or will they find a way to celebrate it too?

On top of all this, many believe, Christians are and remain in the grip of an "ecumenical winter." Despite the high hopes for church reconciliation and even reunion through most of the 20th century, the past 25 years have seen waning interest in ecumenism on the popular level, and scandal and schism consuming the churches' attention at the institutional level.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • Roman Catholic

Yes, evangelicals do have more retention of youth than mainline churches. But it is unfair to say that this is because evangelicals care more about keeping them. As someone who grew up as an evangelical and who is now in a mainline denomination, I see a different way of analyzing this trend. Rather than evangelicals caring more, they engage in the business of scaring more (sorry for the pun, it just worked well.)

Mainline denominations are uninterested in telling youth that they are going to burn in Hell if they don’t commit to Christianity and regularly come to church. Evangelicals, on the other hand, do. Mainline denominations are uninterested in guilting their members into attending; evangelicals see no problem with this. It’s a matter of philosophy. Evangelicals are consequentialists when it comes to youth formation–the end justifies the means. Mainline denominations are typically deontologists–if the means are not right, the action is wrong, even if good comes from it....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Youth Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ

As the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) fights to stay out of a legal battle over unpaid pension benefits, all sides agree on at least one point:

More is at stake than the millions of dollars owed to some 500 pensioners of Augsburg Fortress, the ELCA’s publishing arm.

Last month, the ELCA asked a federal court to be dropped from a suit filed by stakeholders in Augsburg’s recently dissolved pension plan. The ELCA contends it bears no responsibility under the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act because Augsburg Fortress’ pension program is a “church plan.” Church plans are exempted from ERISA requirements, which include sufficient funding to meet promised obligations.

Some Lutherans, however, don’t like what they’re seeing.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • Pensions • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

A global Lutheran assembly in Germany has asked for forgiveness for the 16th-century persecution of Anabaptists, the religious reformers whose modern-day descendants include Mennonites.

“We remember how Anabaptist Christians knew suffering and persecution, and we remember how some of our most honored Reformation leaders defended this persecution in the name of faithfulness,” said Bishop Mark Hanson, president of the Lutheran World Federation, at a joint service of repentance with Mennonites on Thursday (July 22).

Anabaptists, whose originally pejorative name means “re-baptizers,” stressed the need to baptize Christian believers, including those who had been baptized as infants. Both Protestants and Catholics persecuted Anabaptists as heretics, and many fled to America.

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

With a laying on of hands, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had until recently been barred from the church’s ministry.

The ceremony at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco was the first of several planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its convention last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships to serve the church.

“Today the church is speaking with a clear voice,” the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said at a news conference just before it began. “All people are welcome here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God.”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, known as the E.L.C.A., with 4.6 million members, is now the largest Protestant church in the United States to permit noncelibate gay ministers to serve in the ranks of its clergy — an issue that has caused wrenching divisions for it as well as for many other denominations.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay area and were barred from serving in the nation's largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church, but was later reinstated, will participate in the service.

The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last year to lift the policy requiring celibacy.

Churches can now hire noncelibate gay clergy who are in committed relationships.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

This assembly is today focusing on the gifts and needs of Asia – which means, ironically, that the imagery of bread is less apt and immediate than that of rice. That in itself reminds us that so often we try to give to the other what they do not want or need, what is not familiar or nourishing. Sharing the bread of truth means also attending to the truth of the other's actual condition. And much of what we European Christians ask forgiveness for is always going to be those moments in our history when we have offered a gift in a way that cannot be received – perhaps because it is bound to alien cultural assumptions, or more seriously because it is associated with practices of oppression and exploitation. In the Body of Christ, sooner or later, we cannot avoid the moment when we make our peace by recognising that we need each other; that we must learn to open our hands for the rice that our Asian neighbour offers.

In contrast to what the secular culture sometime seems to think, this turning to one another in recognition of mistakes and hurts is not a futile indulgence in meaningless collective guilt or an attempt to settle scores. It is rather that we come to see how our history together has often made us less and not more human, and acknowledge that the effects of that are still powerful in our lives now. So we begin to ask one another for nourishment, including the not always easy or welcome nourishment that comes from hearing the truth.

One other crucial focus today is, of course, the act of reconciliation with Christians of the Mennonite/Anabaptist tradition. It is in relation to this tradition that all the 'historic' confessional churches have perhaps most to repent, given the commitment of the Mennonite communities to non-violence....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

The 70-million strong Lutheran World Federation has struggled to live up to its own vision of inclusiveness regarding the role of women, the general secretary of the church grouping, the Rev. Ishmael Noko, has told LWF members.

"Equitable participation in God's mission is the hallmark of an inclusive communion. Member churches are therefore urged to take appropriate steps towards the ordination of women, and, where it is not the case, to put in place policies of equality," Noko said in his address to the LWF's highest governing body on 21 July in Stuttgart, Germany.

Noko, who is set to retire from his position in November after 16 years, was delivering his report to the Lutheran grouping's 11th assembly, taking place from 20 to 27 July.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Women • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

Lutherans from around the world are converging on the German city of Stuttgart for the 11th Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, where on July 22 Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will deliver the keynote address.

Williams, the spiritual leader of the 78-million-strong Anglican Communion, may offer advice in his keynote address on how to deal with the issue of clergy who are in same-sex relationships, as this issue has left his communion verging on a schism and has triggered fierce debate among Lutherans.

The Geneva-based LWF comprises 140 member churches in 79 countries, representing more than 70 million Christians, and it is expecting an estimated 1000 people, including 418 delegates from Lutheran churches, to participate in the Stuttgart assembly.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

Evangelicals care more than mainline Protestants about keeping their young people in the faith. This is the striking conclusion James Wellman reaches in his fascinating book, “Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest” (Oxford). Based on observations, interviews, and focus group discussions with people from 24 evangelical and 10 mainline churches, all vital churches with stable or growing memberships, this lively book compares these two religious cultures in many ways. How people think about youth and youth ministry emerges as a key difference: “For evangelicals, if children and youth are not enjoying church, it is the church’s fault and evangelical parents either find a new church or try to improve their youth ministry. For liberals, the tendency is the reverse; if youth do not find church interesting it is their problem. Evangelicals are simply more interested and invested in reproducing the faith in their children and youth and their churches reflect this priority.”

Even though evangelical and mainline churches both lose many young people to the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated, and even though both groups lose more young people than they did before, evangelical churches still lose fewer young people than liberal churches lose. Evangelical families emphasize religion more than mainline families do, and evangelical churches involve young people in a denser social web of youth groups, church camps, and church-based socializing, all of which increase the chances that a young person will remain in the fold as an adult. This is one reason that evangelical denominations have not suffered the same membership declines in recent decades that more liberal, mainline denominations have suffered.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Youth Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • Lutheran • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ

Resolution 8-08 was giving many people fits at the national convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

The title: "To Realign the National Synod Ministries Around Two Mission Boards."

It was a staid heading, but it represented a radical and historic change to the denomination structure.

Supporters said the proposed restructuring would decrease costs in an era of dramatic fiscal challenges throughout mainline Protestant Christendom. Critics felt the move would be a step toward a hierarchical structure more similar to the Catholic Church's.

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

After nearly a year of deliberation, Trinity Lutheran Church in Anniston decided this week against separating itself from its national denomination over the issue of allowing gay clergy to be in committed lifelong relationships.

Trinity has been discussing the issue since the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, or the ELCA, concluded with a vote at its 11th biennial Churchwide Assembly in August that openly gay and lesbian pastors living in “committed, lifelong and monogamous relationships” could serve in the clergy.

Before, clergy could be openly gay, but were required to remain celibate.

Heterosexual clergy are required to be celibate if single, monogamous if married.

While the debate over gay clergy and gay marriage in the church has been present in various religious denominations, it has especially become an issue in the Lutheran church as well as the Episcopal Church, which acted on the issue of gay clergy as well as gay marriage about a month before the ELCA’s decision. In July 2009, the Episcopal Church decided to lift a ban on ordaining gay bishops.

It is a divisive issue; 140 congregations have already separated themselves from the ELCA, out of more than 10,000 congregations across the country, said ELCA spokesman John Brooks.

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Denominations appear to have fallen on difficult times. Theological controversies over core Christian beliefs have weakened some denominations. Others have succumbed to classic liberalism. A handful of denominations have reaffirmed their commitment to theological orthodoxy, but even many once-growing conservative denominations have experienced difficult days. All in all, membership in 23 of the 25 largest Christian denominations is declining (the exceptions being the Assemblies of God and the Church of God).

The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) found that the percentage of Americans who self-identify as Christians decreased from 86 percent in a 1990 study to 76 percent in 2008. Much of the loss does seem located in large mainline denominations. At the same time, the ARIS indicated that nondenominational churches have steadily grown since 2001—and that self-identified evangelicals have increased in number. But it seems that denominations have not shared in the growth.

According to many church leaders, denominations are not fading away—they are actually inhibiting growth. I have heard many pastors denounce denominations as hindering more than helping their churches' mission. Others carp at wasteful spending, bureaucratic ineffectiveness, or structural redundancies; these objections seem to have gained adherents in an economic climate of pinching every penny. Loyalty to a denomination has declined and in some cases disappeared.

Meanwhile, many of the better-known churches in America today have no denominational affiliation....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists • Evangelicals • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian

In its August 2009 Churchwide Assembly, the Evangelical Lutheran Church decided formally to leave the Great Tradition of orthodox Christianity for a declining and desiccated liberal Protestantism. The decisions it made—accepting a weak and confused social statement on sexuality, allowing blessings of gay unions, ordaining gays and lesbians in partnered relationships, and requiring Lutherans to respect each other’s “bound conscience” on these issues—crossed the “line in the sand” that separates revisionist Christians from orthodox.

That result was a foregone conclusion for critical observers who had been watching the ELCA carefully since its inception in the late eighties. (Among them, of course, was Richard John Neuhaus, who saw clearly the trajectory yet to unfold.) What had been the promise of a renewed and robust Lutheranism in the merger of the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America was aborted before its birth, in 1988....

In the absence of a genuine confessional teaching authority, the ELCA has followed liberal Protestantism in adopting a working theology sharply different from its classical confessions. It has substituted the “Gospel of inclusion” for the classic “Gospel of redemption” that emphasizes repentance, forgiveness, and amendment of life. The former diminishes the importance of the Law as the source of both repentance and guidance for Christians. The god of self-esteem promises everyone acceptance just the way they are.

But the ELCA is far more interested in pressing forward the liberationist themes issuing from feminism, multiculturalism, anti-imperialism, and environmentalism. These themes constitute the non-negotiables in ELCA church life. The ELCA bishops recently participated in a workshop that featured a presentation titled “Power, Privilege, and Difference.” Being therefore educated about their propensities to be oppressive, the worthy bishops resolved to have “observers” at all their meetings to monitor for “PP&D” thinking. One might note that they employed no monitors for confessional theology, perhaps because there was nothing of significance to monitor.

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Lately, when the Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, president and founder of Interfaith Power and Light, preaches a sermon about the United States' dependence on fossil fuels and the possible shift toward renewable energy sources she turns to Luke chapter 5 and the metaphor that Jesus used when talking to the frustrated fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.

"When it's not working, put your nets on the other side of the boat," Bingham, also an Episcopal priest, said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., where Interfaith Power & Light, a national organization with 35 state affiliates aimed at mobilizing a religious response to global warming, is having its annual meeting.

"After a hundred years' of fossil fuels, it's time to look to alternatives. Put the nets on the other side of the boat. Wind, sun, geothermal … just like oil, gas and coal, they are God-given resources. What Jesus was saying was, when something isn't working, try something else."

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Energy, Natural Resources • Politics in General • Senate • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • Presbyterian • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

After a decade-long clergy shortage in America's pulpits, Christian denominations are now experiencing a clergy glut -- with some denominations reporting two ministers for every vacant pulpit.

"We have a serious surplus of ministers and candidates seeking calls," said Marcia Myers, director of the vocation office for the Presbyterian Church (USA), which has four ministers for every opening.

The cause of the sudden turnaround: blame the bad economy.

According to PC(USA) data, there are 532 vacancies for 2,271 ministers seeking positions. The Assemblies of God, United Methodist Church, Church of the Nazarene and other Protestant denominations also report significant surpluses.

Cash-strapped parishioners -- who were already aging and shrinking in number -- have given less to their churches, resulting in staff cuts. Meanwhile, older clergy who saw their retirement funds evaporate are delaying retirement, leaving fewer positions available to younger ministers.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

A gay Atlanta pastor and his partner who have been at the center of a battle over the treatment of gay clergy by the nation's largest Lutheran denomination are being reinstated to the denomination's clergy roster, church officials announced Tuesday.

The Rev. Bradley Schmeling and his partner, the Rev. Darin Easler, have been approved for reinstatement, the Chicago-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in America said in a news release. The approval came roughly eight months after the denomination voted to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, and just weeks after the ELCA's church council officially revised the church's policy on gay ministers.

Schmeling, who serves as pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church in Atlanta, was removed from the church's clergy roster in 2007 for being in a same-sex relationship with Easler. A disciplinary committee ruled that Schmeling was violating an ELCA policy regarding the sexual conduct of pastors.

"I'm grateful that this journey has come full circle and that the church has changed its policy," Schmeling said Tuesday.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

The Episcopal Church, like other mainline Protestant denominations, is not immune from the seismic political, sociological and economic shifts happening today. Most of us are experiencing "a time of no longer and a time of not yet"--an era of rapid, complex change; chronic anxiety; and heightened ambiguity. The comfort of the familiar is fading, and the movement toward an unknown future can feel terrifying.

In times like these, Christians expect religious leadership to help bridge the gap between the ideal and the real, and to equip followers to live out the Gospel in an environment of extreme polarities, i.e., poverty and wealth, insularity and inclusiveness, hostility and hospitality, homogeneity and diversity. The call "to love our neighbors as ourselves" is being drowned out by a barrage of shrill and hate-filled rhetoric. The distance between what Christians profess to believe and what they do seems wider than ever, creating a gap of dysfunction. There are few trusted religious leaders in the public square, whose rational voices, theological gravitas and moral authority can quell the incivility, incendiary rhetoric, and growing intolerance of differences. At a time when the leadership of the church is most needed, there is silence.

The mainline churches are finding themselves on the margins, declining in membership and donations. Some are in the grip of unresolved conflicts and divisions; others are locked in scandal. The main mission is hostage to a host of distracting issues. In short, the church is experiencing a crisis of leadership.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (ELCT) has distanced itself from the recognition of same-sex marriages by Lutheran churches in the US and Sweden.

The head of the ELCT, Bishop Alex Malasusa, said during his Easter Mass sermon at the Azania Front Church in Dar es Salaam that the local church did not support the decision because it was against God's word.

He said Lutheran churches in the US and Sweden had strayed from the Scriptures, and it was up to Africa to bring them back into line.

"ELCT has refused to recognise the decision to allow same-sex marriages because it is against the Holy Bible. It is in direct contravention of God's word, which has not changed," Bishop Malasusa said.

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Africa • Tanzania • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waukee is five miles down the road from Walnut Hills United Methodist Church in Urbandale.

But they have moved further apart, philosophically, since the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on April 3, 2009, to legalize same-sex marriage.

The dilemma for churches didn't start with the court's decision. Congregations have been praying and struggling for years. But in this last year, the debate sharpened, not only between denominations and congregations but often within individual churches.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

From here (the vote was 112-5):

Resolution on the agenda for consideration:

Whereas, this congregation believes that - the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith and life (C2.03) and as such must be our final authority in matters of faith and life, and

Whereas, the ELCA adopted at the August 2009 Churchwide Assembly the Social Statement of Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, sections of which are contrary to the orthodox understanding of Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, and

Whereas, the ELCA adopted at the August 2009 Churchwide Assembly to allow congregations to make decisions about ordination of individuals who are in publically accountable lifelong monogamous same gender relationships based upon bound consciousness rather than Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, and

Whereas, those changes in doctrine will alter the understanding and interpretation of Holy Scripture and The Lutheran Confessions from orthodox and Lutheran teaching as held by the former ELCA; therefore be it
Resolved, that the congregation of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church of 126 West Main Street, Dallastown, Pennsylvania, hereby terminate membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lower Susquehanna Synod, thereof, effective at the time of the second congregational vote and be it further

Resolved, that the congregation of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church of 126 West Main Street, Dallastown, Pennsylvania, hereby requests to be received into membership in Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Bishops in the nation's largest Lutheran denomination have approved preliminary steps to welcome a group of openly gay and lesbian ministers as official clergy with new liturgical rites.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Conference of Bishops approved a draft proposal on Monday (March 8) for the new rites, which include prayers and the laying on of hands by the local bishop, according to the denomination's news service.

The proposal only applies to 17 pastors who had followed normal ELCA procedures for education and ordination, but remained barred from the denomination's official clergy roster because of their sexuality. The clergy are all members of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a group devoted to gay rights in the ELCA.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

(The above is my title, you can see his by going to the link below--KSH)

The Christian churches in the United States are in trouble for all the usual reasons — human sinfulness and selfishness, the temptations of life in an affluent society, doctrinal and moral controversies and uncertainties and on and on and on — but also and to a surprisingly large degree they are in trouble because they are trying to address the problems of the twenty first century with a business model and a set of tools that date from the middle of the twentieth. The mainline churches in particular are organized like General Motors was organized in the 1950s: they have cost structures and operating procedures that simply don’t work today. They are organized around what I’ve been calling the blue social model, built by rules that don’t work anymore, and oriented to a set of ideas that are well past their sell-by date.

Without even questioning it, most churchgoers assume that a successful church has its own building and a full-time staff including one or more professionally trained leaders (ordained or not depending on the denomination). Perhaps no more than half of all congregations across the country can afford this at all; most manage only by neglecting maintenance on their buildings or otherwise by cutting corners. And even when they manage to make the payroll and keep the roof in repair, congregations spend most of their energy just keeping the show going from year to year. The life of the community centers around the attempt to maintain a model of congregational life that doesn’t work, can’t work, won’t work no matter how hard they try. People who don’t like futile tasks have a tendency to wander off and do other things and little by little the life and vitality (and the rising generations) drift away.

At the next level up, there is another level of ecclesiastical bureaucrats and officials staffing regional offices. When my dad was a young priest in the Episcopal diocese of North Carolina back in the late 1950s the bishop had a secretary and that was pretty much it for diocesan staff. These days the Episcopal church is in decline, with perhaps a third to a half or more of its parishes unable to meet their basic expenses and with members dying off or drifting away much faster than new people come through the door — but no respectable bishop would be caught dead with the pathetic staff with which Bishop Baker ran a healthy and growing diocese in North Carolina back in the 1950s. (Bishop Baker was impressive in another way; he could tie his handkerchief into the shape of a bunny rabbit, put it flat on the palm of his hand, and have it hop off. I was only six when he showed me this trick, but it was clear to me that this man had something special to offer. Since that time I’ve traveled all over the world and met bishops, archbishops, cardinals and even a pope — but none of them made quite the impression on me that Bishop Baker and his jumping handkerchief did.)

Bishops today in their sinking, decaying dioceses surround themselves with large staffs who hold frequent meetings and no doubt accomplish many wonderful things, although nobody outside the office ever quite knows what these are. And it isn’t just Anglicans. Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, UCC, the whole crowd has pretty much the same story to tell. Staffs grow; procedures flourish and become ever more complex; more and more years of school are required from an increasingly ‘professional’ church staff: everything gets better and better every year — except somehow the churches keep shrinking. Inside, the professionals are pretty busy jumping through hoops and writing memos to each other and grand sweeping statements of support for raising the minimum wage and other noble causes — but outside the regional headquarters and away from the hum of the computers and printers, local congregations lose members, watch their buildings fall year by year into greater disrepair, and in the end they close their doors.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • House of Deputies President • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils • TEC House of Deputies • TEC Parishes • TEC Polity & Canons • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

Since the first Protestants rowed to shore in Jamestown, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, they've been in charge. As recently as the 1950s, the president as well as seven of the nine members of the Supreme Court were Protestant Christians. Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal and other so-called mainline Protestant leaders called many of the shots on civil rights, school prayer, immigration, education and other key issues of the day. Then, in the late '60s, their numbers began to dwindle.

Today, only one member of the high court is Protestant (John Paul Stevens), and President Obama appears to have stopped attending church altogether at least outside of Camp David. Instead of dominating public debate, mainline Protestants find themselves struggling to reach a quorum. Half of their churches have fewer than a hundred members, and in nearly six of 10 congregations, it's the Church of the Blue Hair. Or No Hair. A quarter or more of their congregants are 65 or older. That's three times the number for their more conservative Evangelical cousins.

So what happened? How did America's most influential religious group become so marginal?

The conventional wisdom has been that the more conservative Catholic and Evangelical churches simply won over the hearts and minds of the American people. And, if there is a culture war, these more liberal Protestant groups surely must have lost.

But not so fast.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian

Four theologians began discussions in Geneva, Switzerland this week to define the guidelines of a new project promoted from within the Conference of European Churches. The initiative hopes to study how the different Churches understand unity.

According to a statement released by the Conference of European Churches (CEC), the project is investigating church unity as it relates to church identity at the theological, theoretical level as well as in church practices.

The four theologians taking part in the discussion are British Anglican Dr. Paul M. Collins from the University of Chichester, German Catholic Dr. Myriam Wijlens from University of Erfurt, Finnish Dr. Minna Hietamaki from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and Orthodox Dr. Viorel Ionita from the CEC's Churches in Dialogue Commission.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • Orthodox Church • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Ecclesiology

(ELCA News) Earthquake damage is said to be extensive in Santiago and Concepcion following the Feb. 27 severe earthquake in central Chile, according to Karen Anderson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Global Mission staff in Santiago.
The Feb. 27 earthquake measured 8.8 on the Richter scale. The Chilean government has reported at least 147 deaths in all of the country. A tsunami warning was issued for the entire Pacific basin as a result of the earthquake, including Hawaii and U.S. territories such as Guam and American Samoa.
According to news reports in Chile, the earthquake damaged 1.5 million homes, 500,000 "very seriously," Anderson wrote in an e-mail to the ELCA News Service. Phone service was not available.
"Many homes, especially in older parts of Santiago, were destroyed," she wrote. The international airport there suffered "major damage" and is closed, Anderson wrote.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • South America • Chile • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran