At least 39 dead, scores more infected as COVID-19 devastates Latino parishes in NY Lutheran Church

From New York-

Since late March, Pastor Fabián Árias​ of Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Midtown Manhattan has been busy making announcements of the dead, the sick, and comforting the bereaved because of the new coronavirus.

At least 39 people connected to his diverse, predominantly Latino church community, including 5% of his 250-member congregation, have died in the last month. Another 74 members of the church are also currently battling or have battled coronavirus infections.

“In this moment it’s a very, very difficult situation because the family [member] is sick or the family [member] has died,” Árias told The Christian Post in an interview Wednesday.

More here-

https://www.christianpost.com/news/at-least-39-dead-scores-more-infected-as-covid-19-devastates-latino-parishes-in-ny-lutheran-church-236727/?fbclid=IwAR0cjbaczwVelExZ-Avqu3YrsVpPxSijDBPd8S06J_tGC7O2pAKAlBou39I

Two Churches in Bluefield celebrate 100 years of friendship

From West Virginia-

On Christmas Day in 1919, the Christ Episcopal Church burnt down leaving congregation members without a place to worship. 

People of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Bluefield, WV, invited Christ Church members to share in their services for the following year and a half.

Bishop Reverend Robert F. Humphrey, of the Virginia Synod ELC, said he was grateful that he was able to be present for the anniversary. 

“It really is a remarkable celebration,” Rev. Humphrey said. “One absolutely worth noting and being present for.”

A whole century later, the two congregations shared yet another service, celebrating their long lasting friendship. 

Bishop Mike Klusmeyer of the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia and Reverend Chad Slater said watching people come together on Dec. 29, 2019, was powerful. 

More here-

https://www.wvnstv.com/news/congregation-members-in-bluefield-celebrate-100-years-of-friendship/ 

and here-

https://wvva.com/2019/12/29/bluefield-churches-celebrate-century-of-friendship/

An entire Lutheran denomination has declared itself a ‘sanctuary church body,’ signaling support for immigrants

From The Washington Post-

More than 500 years ago, a monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 theses outlining his grievances with the Roman Catholic Church to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany.

On Wednesday afternoon, members of the mainline Protestant denomination bearing Luther’s name taped 9.5 theses — expressing their concern for immigrants and refugees — to the door of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Milwaukee.

The action was part of a prayer vigil for migrant children and their families during the ELCA Churchwide Assembly this week at Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Center.

It took place on the same day the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America declared itself a “sanctuary church body,” signaling its support for immigrants.

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/08/08/an-entire-lutheran-denomination-has-declared-itself-sanctuary-church-body-signaling-support-immigrants/?fbclid=IwAR3qN0IbqDjMDUNIVQCOowxPe49N-4UDdx6eR6hxoli1hITSJkd8H8mxsNA

New partnership agreement for Welsh and Finnish churches

From Wales-

A FORMAL link has been agreed between the Anglican Diocese of St Asaph in Wales and the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of Helsinki in Finland. 

The Partnership was signed by the Bishops of both dioceses during the visit of a Finnish delegation to North Wales this week 

It will see spiritual, imaginative, sustainable, enriching and joyful links developed between the two Christian communities. 

Sixteen people from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland have been in North Wales meeting counterparts in the Diocese of St Asaph and discussing partnership opportunities. 

More here-

https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/17684921.new-partnership-agreement-for-welsh-and-finnish-churches/

Common ground: Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles and St. Stephen Lutheran Church become one congregation in Arbutus

From Baltimore-

Two congregations gathered in one church on Sunday, March 3. They gave thanks, broke bread, and then packed up.

So began the procession.

Congregants picked up hymnals, candles, communion supplies and other items from the sanctuary and walked out the doors of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles, located at 4922 Leeds Ave., singing as they strolled the 0.9 miles to St. Stephen Lutheran Church, at 901 Courtney Road.

Once inside the sanctuary, the space was rededicated as the new home for the two Christian communities, joined together as The Churches of Holy Apostles and St. Stephen.

“It was negating of ego and tradition and self,” said the Rev. Jim Perra, 38, the Episcopal priest from Holy Apostles who now oversees the new church community. “I think it’s breathtakingly beautiful that they made this hard and difficult choice.”

More here-

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/arbutus-lansdowne/ph-ca-at-church-0313-story.html

The Lutheran Pastor Calling for a Sexual Reformation

From The New Yorker-

Bolz-Weber had flown in from her home in Denver to promote her book “Shameless,” which was published last week. In it, she calls for a sexual reformation within Christianity, modelled on the arguments of Martin Luther, the theologian who launched the Protestant Reformation by nailing ninety-five theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in the sixteenth century. (One of the slogans of the church that Bolz-Weber founded in Denver, House for All Sinners and Saints, is “Nailing shit to the church door since 1517.”) Luther rebelled against the legalism that pervaded the Church during the Middle Ages, arguing that the focus on sinful conduct was unnecessary, because people were already redeemed through Christ’s sacrifice. “Luther saw the harm that the teachings of the Church were doing in the lives of those in his care,” Bolz-Weber told me. “He decided to be less loyal to the teachings than to their well-being.” For all of his faults—among them, rabid anti-Semitism—Luther’s theology centered around real life. “He talked about farting and drinking and he was kind of like Nadia,” the bishop Jim Gonia, who heads the Rocky Mountain Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, told me. Gonia summed up Luther’s idea like this: “Now that we don’t need to worry that we’re good enough for God, how do we direct our attention to our neighbor?”

More here-

https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-lutheran-pastor-calling-for-a-sexual-reformation?fbclid=IwAR1PwH5bQC_6zd21NUNvs2iIb55nAQQy7A2Ef_XNnUCjSaAxuxK94er13w8

US church leaders urge President to restore vital funding to East Jerusalem hospitals

From Lutheran World-

Leaders of Lutheran, Catholic and Episcopal (Anglican) churches in the United States have jointly called on the US President to restore vital funding for four church-associated medical institutions in East Jerusalem. By halting this humanitarian assistance “lives are being threatened unnecessarily,” they say in a joint statement issued today.

The five church leaders, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry (The Episcopal Church), Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops), Bishop William O. Gafkjen (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), and Bishop Joseph C. Bambera (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) say restoring the vital financial support “is a morally correct thing to do” so that patients can “continue to receive the treatment and care they need.”

One of the affected institutions is Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH), which is run by The Lutheran World Federation (LWF). For decades, AVH, St. John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital and Princess Basma Rehabilitation Centre (Anglican /Episcopal), and St. Joseph’s Hospital (Catholic) had been assured of US humanitarian assistance. Recently, President Donald Trump’s administration decided to discontinue such support as part of a wider move to curtail funding towards Palestinians.

More here-

https://www.lutheranworld.org/news/us-church-leaders-urge-president-restore-vital-funding-east-jerusalem-hospitals

Death and resurrection defines Christianity. The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber says that’s what the Christian church is currently experiencing

From Lancaster Online-

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a heavily tatted and sometimes profane Lutheran pastor. Her take on herself can be summed up this way: “All of the things that make me seem ‘not like a pastor’ are what allow me to be certain people’s pastor.”

Hard to argue with that. Clearly one size does not fit all. Polls show that while church membership is eroding, many people — especially younger people — consider themselves to be spiritual.
Bolz-Weber brings her unique view of ministry to Lampeter-Strasburg High School Performing Arts Center at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 28. Her visit is sponsored by the Parish Resource Center.

“She speaks to the changing church,” said Kate Good, PRC’s executive director. “She is seen as an authentic voice in Christianity.”

Bolz-Weber was involved in drugs and alcohol as a teenager and became sober at age 22. More than a decade later she graduated from college and divinity school and was ordained in the Lutheran church.
While Bolz-Weber’s approach appeals to many on the fringes of society, Good said PRC members, who are largely from mainline and Mennonite churches, were the catalysts who asked to bring Bolz-Weber to Lancaster.

More here-

God revealed through people with disabilities

From Living Lutheran-

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (John 9:2-3).

I was born with one arm. I was 10 when I heard my mom tell the story of bringing her newborn to worship, only to be confronted by another member who insisted that God was punishing one or both of my parents by sending them a child with one arm.

Experiences like this have left me asking: “Is that what the church thinks of people with disabilities?”

When congregations never talk about disability, it sends the message to people with disabilities and their loved ones that they don’t really matter to the church. And when congregations talk about disability thoughtlessly or unkindly, it sends another message—that people with disabilities aren’t really welcome.

I’m a lifelong Lutheran and a lifelong person with a disability, and I need both of those parts of my identity to be welcome in the church. It’s not just up to leaders like pastors and deacons to make a congregation welcoming to people with disabilities. Every member of the body of Christ has the responsibility and power to make every other member welcomed and included.

More here-

https://www.livinglutheran.org/2018/03/god-revealed-people-disabilities/

Transgender Pastor Is Welcomed Into Church With A New Name

From Huffington-

Many Bible stories recount how God changed followers’ names to recognize their new identities. In Genesis, Abram’s name was changed to Abraham to reflect his new identity as the father of the Jewish people. And in the Christian gospels, Jesus changed his follower Simon’s name to Peter to symbolize that the apostle would be the “rock” upon which the church was built.

Echoing that tradition, a Lutheran congregation in New Jersey recently marked a milestone in the life of its pastor with a renaming ceremony. On Sunday, parishioners watched their transgender pastor take on his new chosen name ― Peter.

It was a sacred way for Hoboken’s St. Matthew Trinity Lutheran Church to acknowledge and bless the Rev. Peter R. Beeson’s gender transition.

Beeson told HuffPost that it was also important for the congregation to demonstrate the “expansiveness of God’s compassion.”

More here-

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/transgender-pastor-peter-beeson_us_5a833097e4b02b66c5129ebf?platform=hootsuite

NORTH AMERICAN ANGLICAN AND LUTHERAN LEADERS OFFER ECUMENICAL REFLECTIONS

From Joy 105-

The Presiding Bishop of the US-based Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, and Archbishop Fred Hiltz of the Anglican Church of Canada, have joined with their Lutheran colleagues to offer a series of Lenten reflections. Together with Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and National Bishop Susan Johnson from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, they have prepared reflections for Ash Wednesday, the five weeks in Lent, Palm Sunday and the Triduum.

Each reflection begins with a series of four Bible readings from the Old and New Testaments, a Psalm and a Gospel – with three-sets for the Triduum. These are followed by a reflection by one of the bishops and a prayer. In the first of the reflections, for Ash Wednesday (14 February), Bishop Elizabeth Eaton writes about the need for racial equity in churches, saying: “We have been claimed in baptism, buried with Christ in a death like his, to be raised with Christ in a resurrection like his. We have already died the only death that really matters, and yet… We do not recognize the full humanity of others.”

More here-

http://joy105.com/index.php/2018/02/01/north-american-anglican-and-lutheran-leaders-offer-ecumenical-reflections/

Virginia youth pastor held in Thanksgiving slaying of family members

From Virginia-

A Virginia youth pastor has been arrested in the shooting deaths of his wife, stepdaughter and the stepdaughter’s boyfriend in their home on Thanksgiving Day, police said.

Christopher Gattis, 58, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Police arriving at the family's Chester, Va., home around 11:30 p.m. found the women’s bodies inside and the man’s body in the front yard, officials said.  

More here-

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/25/virginia-youth-pastor-held-in-thanksgiving-slaying-family-members.html

Lutherans, Catholics, Methodists, Reformed and Anglicans “drawn into deeper communion”

From ACNS-

An agreement between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches which settled one of the historic disagreement at the centre of the Reformation was the focus of a special service at Westminster Abbey today. On this day 500 years ago, Martin Luther kick-started the Reformation by posting his 95 theses on the door of All Saints’ Church – the Schlosskirche – in Wittenberg, Germany. Central to his argument was the theological principle that man can be reconciled to God – justification – through faith alone, rather than through good works, penance, or the buying of indulgences.

“When the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999, you resolved the underlying theological question of 1517, in a decisive moment for all churches in the search for unity and reconciliation,” the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said today during the service in Westminster Abbey.

More here-

http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2017/10/lutherans,-catholics-methodists-reformed-and-anglicans-drawn-into-deeper-communion.aspx

Amid decline, one Lutheran church strives to live up to its namesake’s spirit

From Religion News-

At a Bible study on a weekday evening, Lutheran minister Daniel Pugh paced before a group of 50 church members in cargo shorts and a plaid button-down shirt talking about Adam and Eve.

Clutching a hand-held remote he clicked through a PowerPoint presentation, telling members of Christ the King Lutheran Church that one way to interpret the story of Adam and Eve is as a coming-of-age allegory about a pair of carefree teens caught red-handed having sex.

In this, alternative reading of The Fall, the “forbidden fruit” offered to Eve in Chapter 3 may be a metaphor for sex, he said, and the “serpent” may be a metaphor for a penis.

Lutherans have certainly come a long way since their namesake, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany, 500 years ago this month, sparking the Protestant Reformation.

More here-

http://religionnews.com/2017/10/16/amid-decline-one-lutheran-church-strives-to-live-up-to-its-namesakes-spirit/

Top Lutheran bishop: If hell exists, ‘I think it’s empty’

From Chicago-

Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton heads the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, based in Chicago, has questioned her own beliefs at times but says, “There are some things we need to doubt so that we can come to a greater faith — I think that doubt is just an intensifying of one’s relationship with God.”

A lifelong Lutheran, Elizabeth Eaton was raised in Cleveland. “Being a Cleveland sports fan for now six decades, I am an example of faith.”

“I was a music education major in college” and thought about being a band director.

She didn’t always go to church back then (“Sunday morning coming after Saturday night is a bad arrangement in college”) and had some doubts of faith — “probably typical questions of someone in one’s early 20s about ‘Is there a God?’ ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ ”

She worked that out enough by the time she graduated that she enrolled at Harvard Divinity School, where “the question first wasn’t ‘Why are you some brand of Lutheran?’ It’s ‘Why believe anything?’ And then once you can say, ‘This is why I . . . believe something,’ then: ‘Why Christianity, as opposed to other world religions?’”

More here-

http://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/elizabeth-eaton-presiding-bishop-evangelical-lutheran-church-in-america-chicago-if-hell-exists-i-think-its-empty-face-to-faith-podcast/

Lutherans work to shed stuffy image and kick-start change

From Minnesota-

Redeemer Lutheran Church is not your typical Lutheran outpost. Summer means the bike store and coffee shop are humming, kids camp and Zumba classes are in gear, and the young adults renting its apartments are mentoring children in this north Minneapolis neighborhood.

It represents a new model for the Lutheran Church, which is transforming itself to attract younger and diverse members, be more relevant to neighbors below its steeples and shake its image as a Scandinavian bastion best known for hot dish, Jell-O and Ole and Lena.

Minnesota, with the largest number of Lutherans in the nation, will be instrumental in shaping the future of the faith. Time is of the essence: 37 percent of the churches in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — the largest denomination in Minnesota and the U.S. — now have fewer than 50 Sunday worshipers.

More here-

http://www.startribune.com/lutherans-work-to-shed-stuffy-image-and-kick-start-change/432012663/#1

ANGLICANS ON THE WITTENBERG TRAIL

From The Living Church-

Last year, beating the 2017 rush, three Anglican friends and I decided to spend a week visiting a handful of historic Martin Luther tourist sites in eastern Germany. We made a merry pilgrim band, I like to think: my housemate Aidan, a burly, tattooed Alaskan, was at that time two weeks away from his ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church and was, with his wife Melanie, a happy convert to Anglicanism from a Wesleyan Holiness background; I was (and am still) a former Baptist teaching at an Episcopal/Anglican seminary and was just beginning to discern a call to Holy Orders; and Fr. Russell, rounding out our posse, was and is a priest serving an Anglican parish in Basel, Switzerland. We all met up in Berlin and, after a quick stroll through the cathedral there — whose nave is surveyed from on high by four imposing statues of Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Calvin — drove on to Wittenberg, whose castle church doors, on which Luther is said to have nailed his Ninety-Five Theses, mark the legendary birthplace of the Reformation. It was nightfall by the time we arrived at our hotel, but the atmosphere of tourist anticipation, not only among the four of us, was electric.

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/07/03/anglicans-on-the-wittenberg-trail/

Episcopal, ELCA presiding bishops issue joint statement calling for prayer, fasting for hunger awareness

From ENS (with video links)

 Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have issued a joint statement calling for prayer, fasting and advocacy.

The statement, For Such a Time as This: A Call to Prayer, Fasting, and Advocacy, calls for fasting on the 21st of each month through December 2018, at which time the 115th Congress will conclude. 

The 21st of each month is targeted because by that time each month, 90% of SNAP (formerly food stamp) benefits have been used, thereby causing the last week of the month as the hungry week in America.

More here-

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2017/05/18/episcopal-elca-presiding-bishops-issue-joint-statement-calling-for-prayer-fasting-for-hunger-awareness/

Norwegian Church passes milestone in modification of its links with State

From The Church Times-

A LAW that will partially disestab­lish the Church of Norway from the State has come into force this New Year.

A Bill first passed eight years ago by Norway’s parliament altered the wording in the constitution. The phrase “the Evangelical-Lutheran religion will remain the state’s pub­lic religion” has been replaced with “the Church of Norway, an Evangelical-Lutheran Church, will remain Norway’s national Church and will be supported as such by the state”.

From 1 January, the Church of Norway’s 1250 clergy ceased to be civil servants employed and paid by the Government. Earlier, in 2012, the State had also relinquished its right to appoint bishops and deans, and to exercise any oversight on doc­trinal matters.

The constitutional shake-up, how­­ever, falls short of full disestab­lishment, as the King of Norway is still required to be a Lutheran, and, unlike any other denomination, chil­­dren auto­mat­ically be­­come mem­­bers of the Church of Norway if one of their parents is a member. Furthermore, the Church will con­­tinue to receive state funding, as do all other religious, and even hu­­manist, organisations.

More here-

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/6-january/news/world/norwegian-church-passes-milestone-in-modification-of-its-links-with-state

Church of the Epiphany, Christ the King Lutheran Church prep for merger

 From Western Massachusetts-

The congregations of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany and Christ the King Lutheran Church will officially join together to become one in the near future. 

Rev. Nathaniel Anderson, priest-in-charge for the Episcopal Church and pastor of Christ the King, told Reminder Publications for the past two and a half years he’s led both churches.

During that time, the two congregations have worshiped together on Sundays, completed social ministry with one another, helped raise money for the homeless, hosted feeding programs and concerts and have had joint Christian education, Anderson.

“Really anything that the church does we’ve been doing together the last two and a half years, which is a really positive experience,” he added.

Anderson said before he started as pastor for both churches, they were independent of one another.

More here-

http://thereminder.com/localnews/wilbrahamhampden/epiphanychristthekingmerger/