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Paul Tillich exercised a major influence on twentieth century Christian thought. In this brief introduction to his work, Dr. Daniel Peterson makes the case for Tillich's broader relevance again as a theologian who can take us beyond the extremes of fundamentalist religion and empty skepticism to a deeper religious faith or spiritual path open to doubt and questioning.

Models of Atonement breaks new ground in the science-theology dialogue, going beyond questions about the doctrine of creation to speak about God's work of new creation through Christ in a world described by science. The book builds on the author's earlier work that addressed questions about origins, divine action and scientific knowledge in the context of a theology of the cross. It discusses the concepts of original sin and the work of Christ which reconciles all things to God in ways that take seriously today's evolutionary and cosmic realities. By doing this it provides a useful resource for those called to proclaim and teach the Christian message in today's world.

Torbjorg (Thea) Nilsdatter Ronning (1865-1898), was born on a farm outside the town of Bo in Telemark, Norway. Thea and her two brothers, Nils Nilson and Halvor Nilson, immigrated to America in the 1880s. All three distinguished themselves in God's service. Nils and Halvor were well known in their new land. But not their sister. Thea Ronning had a burning desire to minister to Chinese women whose lives by all accounts were filled with oppression and cruelty. This is a story of how she learned of the needs in China, the establishment of the mission society that sent her, and the Ladies Aids from whom she had to garner interest and support. The women in the Midwestern Norwegian-American churches supported her and the entire mission with their gatherings, their dinners, bazaars, surprise parties, and fishponds, at a time when a few nickels could make the difference between life and death in China. Their work to bring the gospel to women in China through women like Thea shows that the lady missionary's vocation was a worthy profession, one she and her other women colleagues, married and unmarried, filled with passion and unrelenting zeal to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ and salvation to the Chinese women.

This book is designed as a guide for readers who want to become more confident and effective in communicating the meaning of God's Word clearly to listeners. Reading scripture aloud involves a great many considerations by the reader: knowledge and understanding, faith, respect, spirit and heart, vocal skill, and physical control. Though reading individual words on the printed page might seem an easy task, communicating the profound meaning of the words clearly can be an exciting challenge. Lay readers and lectors are here given a simple process to follow when preparing their readings so they feel comfortable reading with variety, expressiveness, and, most of all, with clear understanding.

Choirs are an important component of leadership for congregational worship. In some communities, persons are recruited to be choir directors, but they have not been prepared for the job. This modest handbook is designed to help new or untrained choir directors improve both themselves and their choir and also increase the personal satisfaction of teaching and performing choral music. The book addresses key areas of competence ranging from auditions to rehearsals to vocal training, enunciation, warm-ups, conducting, score preparation, motivation and management, and performance and recordings and much more.

The captivating biography of Alma Christina Lind Swensson will inspire every reader. Her work at Bethany College and Bethany Lutheran Church in Lindsborg, Kansas, demonstrated that women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provided leadership in the church, both locally and nationally. Born in Broddarp, Sweden, Alma Christina Lind journeyed to America with her father, mother, and brother, where they settled in Illinois. Though Alma, as the oldest daughter, should have been expected to help her mother with chores around the house, Alma was instead allowed to nurture her budding musical talents, which led to her position as organist at the 900-member Swedish Lutheran Church when she was just twelve years old. Marrying Carl Aaron Swensson in 1880 took her to Lindsborg Kansas, where Carl and Alma would leave their lasting marks. Carl had been called to be pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church and upon arrival in Lindsborg Alma was appointed church organist. They were instrumental in establishing Bethany College in the small prairie town. Carl became the president of the college as well as pastor of the large congregation, and Alma would establish the well-known, annual Messiah Festival and in their home, co-founded a national women s organization. This account of Alma Christina Lind Swensson portrays a woman who was strong and sure of herself and her mission. She brought a community together through her musical talents and gracious hospitality, and showed the world how a little town had the ability to put itself on the map.

Bugenhagen's Jonah makes several significant contributions to Reformation studies. It is the first book published in English about Bugenhagen in over 80 years. It integrates diverse fields of study (including biblical interpretation, ecclesiology, worship, social reform and church history), draws upon the latest international scholarship, and translates original sources. Finally, the emphasis on Bugenhagen as a public theologian highlights the relationship between faith and daily life for every age

A bridge-builder. An ambassador of reconciliation. A prophetic voice, speaking truth to power. An advocate for justice, peace, and non-violence. A witness to the liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ. A servant for the suffering. Those words describe the Rt. Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and president of The Lutheran World Federation. In the world in which he lives where Palestinians struggle for life and coexistence with their neighbor Israelis one might imagine that despair and hopelessness dominate. However, in reading Bishop Younan s writings readers will find unending hope for a future of peace and goodwill, along with an optimistic determination to be part of the solution for this troubled Holy Land. This collection of writings, speeches, and sermons reveals Bishop Younan s context, his perspective, and his hope. Readers will find his theology to be contextual deeply rooted in his daily reality as a Palestinian Christian while at the same time being universal, offering insights and principles that apply to other situations in vastly different parts of the world.

The author's five decades of personal experience leads him to conclude that it is possible to be a witness to the Gospel and be a friend to Muslims at the same time. The author outlines key factors in the Muslim understanding of the Gospel, examines some bridges, and defines the art of sharing. He concludes by assessing the possibilities of such a mission.

This is an important study of spirituality in a world of confused and conflicting definitions of the spiritual. Christian spirituality flows from an understanding of who God is and how God acts in creation. It is a personal and communal recognition of God in one's life and a life awareness and celebration of that presence of God. Anyone who wonders how the Christian faith shapes life will find a great value in this book.

The work required to produce a denominational service book and hymnal is multifaceted both because of the nature of its contents and because worship is the focal point of the life of the church. To produce the Lutheran Book of Worship the participating churches established the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, which in turn established subcommittees, working committees and task forces. The author has produced an historical account and analysis of that process has mastered endless details, all the while keeping the larger picture in view. This book is a mother lode of information on the development of Lutheran Book of Worship.

Bengt Hoffman elevates Christian spirituality and spiritual formation as proper subjects for serious theological study. This book reveals Luther's mystical experience of God in a prayerful life to be essential in the development of his theology. It shows how the spiritual life is essential to Luther's understanding of the gospel. Balanced by his emphasis on the external Word Luther's experience of the divine was a critical influence on his understanding of faith and salvation.

The essays in this book describe, from several perspectives, the role of the bishop in leading the church. The writers, from their global perspective, bear witness to the fact that the role of the bishop is an ever-changing one as bishops work in the world as it is. Rather than focusing on what will be an anachronistic concept of leadership, the writers hold up the evangelical principle that leadership in the church must be subject to the gospel.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer s life spanned four decades of the early twentieth century and was shaped within the crucible of two European wars and an economic depression. Born in 1906 and raised in an upper middle class German family, he was educated to be a pastor, further trained as a theologian, involved in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and was finally hanged by the Nazis only days before the end of World War II. His life story is more than one more tragic episode in the history and horrors of the Holocaust. Bonhoeffer s life cannot be simply summarized as only one of trauma and tragedy. His was also a life filled with great blessing, even when requiring great courage and incredible sacrifice. His relationships were life-giving and his experiences were rich. The authenticity of Bonhoeffer s Christian faith and the integrity of his theology continues to inspire people. During that time when most people understandably struggled to protect their own lives, as well as the lives of those they loved, he often ventured by faith into uncertain territory, risking his reputation and life to advocate for others. Rarely does one encounter an individual whose inner convictions and outward actions so consistently and courageously match-up

Our churches affirm that death cannot destroy the communion with God of those redeemed and justified. The nature of the life that the justified departed share with God cannot be described in great detail and, in this life, it remains a great mystery. Nevertheless, Catholics and Lutherans share the sure and certain hope that the justified departed are in Christ and enjoy the rest that belongs to those who have run the race. This common statement of Round XI offers fresh insights into some issues that proved contentious in the debates of the sixteenth century. Among the issues explored in this dialogue were continuity in the communion of saints, prayers for or about the dead, the meaning of death, purgation, an interim state between death and the final general judgment, and the promise of resurrection. Agreements are affirmed on the basis of new insights, as readers will discover in this statement of Round XI.

Pluralism as such is not the enemy of the gospel. Preaching the Christian message will always encounter a world with many religions, world-views, ideologies, and lifestyles. The earliest generation of Christians found themselves in a pluralistic situation. They were witnessing to Jews as well as to Greeks and Romans in the great melting pot of Hellenistic culture. Religious pluralism does pose a threat when it becomes an ideological dogma that asserts that all religions are equally valid and lead to the same goal.

The 2010 Hein-Fry lecture topic was Hearing the Word: Teaching the Bible in the Parish (and Beyond). This theme was chosen in order to engage the crucial conversation concerning various approaches to Scripture and what resources and challenges those approaches bring to diverse North American contexts. The hope for these lectures is that they raise awareness about the various ways the church has traditionally interpreted the Bible as well as explore a mixture of contemporary approaches to scriptural interpretation. Five scholars affiliated with the ELCA were invited to offer lectures out of their particular perspectives and scholarship. Each lecturer traveled to three sites where each delivered major presentations exploring important and innovative Lutheran perspectives on biblical interpretation, making a case for the promise of one, some, or even all of them.

The 2009 Hein-Fry lecture topic was Hearing the Word: Lutheran Perspectives on Biblical Interpretation. This theme was chosen in order to engage the crucial conversation concerning various approaches to Scripture and what resources and challenges those approaches bring to diverse North American contexts. The hope for these lectures is that they raise awareness about the various ways the church has traditionally interpreted the Bible as well as explore a mixture of contemporary approaches to scriptural interpretation. Five scholars affiliated with the ELCA were invited to offer lectures out of their particular perspectives and scholarship. Each lecturer traveled to three sites where each delivered major presentations exploring important and innovative Lutheran perspectives on biblical interpretation, making a case for the promise of one, some, or even all of them.

Dr. Gerhard Forde (1927-2005) has exercised a significant influence on the life of the Lutheran church in America and beyond over the past several decades. During a teaching career of thirty-four years, twenty-nine of them at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, it is estimated that he taught theology to over three thousand pastors. But Forde s substantial theological work brought him to the attention of the church far beyond the circle of his students. His literary production includes over one hundred books, articles, reviews, and cassettes. Forde s emphasis was what has come to be called radical Lutheranism. He argued that the God of the scriptures is an electing God, Godself doing through Christ and the proclamation of Christ all that is necessary to claim his own. Less frequently is Forde connected to the missional task of the church. It is possible to read Gerhard Forde s work without being conscious of mission, and thus conclude that it is an area that does not particularly concern him. The author, through careful research, identifies the insights in Forde s work that are helpful to the missional enterprise and allows them to make their contribution to the wider missiological conversation.

The Danish philosopher / theologian wrote for that solitary individual, the reader I call my own. He wrote for every thoughtful reader everywhere, in every time. Kierkegaard, indirectly offers three principal options that pervade the human condition. The human condition is a disability healed only by divine intervention based on one s eternal link to God. Dr. Anderson provides substance to make the readier sit up and think, yet he does it with language that can easily be handled.

Drawing on his long experience of mission, overseas and at home, Thomsen grapples with Christian theology and engagingly expounds how its deep themes relate with those of Buddhism and Islam. God in Christ must become the pattern for our living and evangelism. The key is to see others in the spirit and through the eyes of Christ. This is a bold introduction to Christian theology, to Islam and Buddhism and to the multiple ways these religions have and can interact on matters held in common but also on those distinctly different. It s a book that offers genuine hope on how to live creatively and imaginatively as a Christian in a multifaith world where trustworthy guideposts are few.

This book demonstrates the thesis that the central event of history called the Gospel event (the Son of God s incarnation, life, death, damnation, and resurrection for our salvation) has had so profound an impact on our world that it has spilled beyond the bounds chosen by God to contain it and convey it, namely divine revelation, the Holy Scriptures. Many aspects of the Gospel, such as God becoming man, the Creator sacrificing himself for the creature, the God-man dying and rising again, are in varying degrees of accuracy and completeness reflected in belletristic literature. Where the Gospel event may not have made an imprint on a specific literary work, it has had an impact on the Christian s perception of things. A Christian sees things including belletristic literature differently. Christian readers experience the joy of seeing familiar truths in unexpected settings and in new arrangements, the excitement of seeing much-loved doctrines in a fresh perspective. The author leads the reader to explore the Gospel aspects of eighteen literary works.

Those called to proclaim the gospel in Northeast Asia face a seemingly impregnable wall of culture that is highly resistant to their message. The author tackles the question of why the great outlay of human and material resources over the centuries has not produced a greater receptivity to the gospel. He seeks answers in the theological categories of missio Dei, ecclesia Dei, and regnum Dei. Biblical, doctrinal, and theological considerations as well as church history and reformation history inform this study. Where does mission originate? What is God's intent for the church? As God comes into the world in love, what does his coming look like? Where does one find God's presence and how does one discern and build on that presence? These important questions for the articulation of mission are the foci of this book.

It is theologically imperative to face the issues of plurality of religions and poverty of the masses in South Asia. The questions of what does it mean to be a Christian and what is the relevance of church in this context are not merely matters of academic concern. Martin Luther's theology of the cross understands Jesus Christ as the sacrament and example. Luther's uncompromising claim that Jesus Christ is the final revelation of God on the cross for the sake of salvation and the inevitable implication of the cross enable believers to be open towards other faiths and seek existence only in reference to that of God s vulnerability. This book explores the significance of Luther's theologia crucis as a viable resource for contextual theology amidst plurality of faiths and the massive poverty in South Asia. Against the pluralistic theological position that denies uniqueness and finality to Jesus Christ, the author argues that the concerns of genuine sensitivity towards other religions, liberation, justice, and peace can be adequately addressed within the framework of Luther's theology of the cross.

The world-level Lutheran-Catholic Commission on Unity offers here a study-document opening fresh perspectives in ecumenical ecclesiology. To indicate further steps toward the visible unity of the Lutheran and Catholic churches, the commission s document treats (1) the church s apostolic character in continuity with its original foundation, (2) the apostolicity of its ordained ministry, and (3) the means it has for maintaining faith and teaching in that truth which the apostles communicated once and for all to the churches. On the church s apostolicity, the dialogue works within the horizon of the Lutheran-Catholic consensus on justification by the grace of Christ and agreement in confessing the work of the Holy Spirit in gathering believers into the church. From this basis and notwithstanding remaining differences, Lutherans and Catholics agree at a basic level on what makes a church apostolic and they acknowledge, each with characteristic accents, the true apostolicity of each other s churches. Concerning the ordained ministry, the study-document sets forth the complexity of the biblical witness and then relates notable changes over the centuries in the institutional ordering and theology of ministerial office. Today Lutherans and Catholics agree on the priesthood of the whole believing people and on ministry as instituted by God to serve this people, a ministry differentiated for service on both congregational and regional levels. Where Vatican Council II spoke of ministries such as the Lutheran as defective, the dialogue proposes that other Vatican II statements, together with the consensus on justification, point toward a more positive Catholic recognition of Lutheran ministries. On the means by which the churches remain in the truth of the apostolic gospel, the dialogue proposes a Lutheran-Catholic reconciled diversity on the biblical canon and on the relation of Scripture and tradition. While it goes on to acknowledge significant remaining differences.

The essays in this book, by distinguished musicologists, teachers, and church musicians, reflect the Lutheran musical heritage of the church and contribute new insights into the vibrant and diverse traditions of twenty-first century church music. Thine the Amen is a practical, instructional, and scholarly book. These essays contain something for everyone interested in sacred music, the teacher, the singer, or the listener.

The career of F. Samuel Janzow (1913-2001) was marked by roles as pastor, professor, and scholar. In all of these he served with great humility, from shepherding a small congregation in London during the blitz, to teaching countless college students, to his many editorial contributions to Lutheran Worship (1982). An ordained Lutheran pastor with a Ph.D in literary studies, he left the Church an amazing legacy.