Bishop Munib Younan
As Bishop Munib Younan prepares to attend the prayer service at the Vatican with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres, he has asked that our friends and partners around the world pray for peace based on justice for both nations and peoples:
“We Christians have the power of prayer. Prayer will change us – it will not change the mind of God, which is the mind of peace – but it will change us and change the minds of our leaders. It will show our leaders that our people in both Palestine and Israel don’t want any more hatred, they don’t want any more violence, they don’t want any more separation, they don’t want any more occupation, they don’t want any more blood shed. They want to live with their children and grandchildren lives of peace with justice.
I would ask all the Lutherans in the world support us in their prayers during Sunday services that God will change the minds of our leaders and people towards peace.” Continue reading “Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan Requests Prayers for Peace in the Holy Land”
Recently I have linked on my Facebook wall a First Things article of Collin Garbarino, titled “Why we don’t have Lutheran Baptists“, which in turn comments on another article of David Koyzis, in the same publication, titled ‘Calvinist Baptists, But No ‘Lutheran’ Baptists?’ Quite interesting reading, to be fair.
Having done that, I have also sent the link to my friend Gabriel Borlean, who is one of the few Romanian Lutherans that I know. Here is his response: Continue reading “RomGabe – “Why we don’t have Lutheran Baptists” – thoughts and reflections”
Mitri Raheb (Arabic: متري الراهب) is a Palestinian Christian, the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem (a member church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, or ELCJHL), and the founder and president of the Diyar Consortium, a group of Lutheran-based, ecumenically-oriented institutions serving the Bethlehem area. (Source, Wikipedia)
In June 2010 Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, gave a talk in Madison, WI entitled “Keys to Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”. The Bright Stars of Bethlehem, the US-based fund-raising organization for Christmas Lutheran Church and its ministries, has now posted the videos in seven parts.
I will post these in seven separate posts that will allow you to get a Palestinian perspective of the conflict in the Middle East.
Jaroslav Pelikan is undoubtedly on the the most important specialist in church history and historical theology of the last century. As it is well known, Pelikan is a late adherent to Orthodoxy, after living most of his ecclesial life as an ordained minister of the Lutheran Church.
I have written HERE about my meeting with him at Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem.
In the article below, that can be downloaded in PDF format, one of his long-term friends and former colleague, Robert L Wilken, talks about Pelikan’s road to Orthodoxy.
Wilken, Robert L, – Jaroslav Pelikan and the Road to Orthodoxy
I note here something that may sound very strange for the Romanian readership of this blog. The author of this article is a Lutheran converted to Catholicism and it was published in 2010 in Concordia Theological Quarterly, the theological journal of a Lutheran school, Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Continue reading “Jaroslav Pelikan’s Road to Orthodoxy”
This article was published by F18News on: 23 March 2010
By Felix Corley and Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service
After initially denying it, Officer Senichev (who refused to give his first name) of Kaluga Police in central Russia admitted to Forum 18 News Service that eleven armed officers with dogs had interrupted the 28 February Sunday morning service of St George’s Lutheran congregation. “We had a call on the hotline that extremist literature was there. We’re obliged by law to investigate all such calls.” He was unable to specify which Russian law requires the police to respond to anonymous calls. Continue reading “Ridiculous Russia – Lutherans Accused of Extremism by (Post)Soviet Militia in Kaluga”
Richard Niebuhr, in Christ and Culture, presents five possible models for the engagement of the church with the surrounding culture. These are:
Each of these models has its own strengths and limitations, and each may be more effective in a certain given context and at a certain given time than in others.
Persona 