CORE Voice Newsletter, Issue 1, January 2022
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In This Issue
- What's Missing from the New Augsburg Fortress Youth Curriculum?
- How to Take Over the Church
- What Is Dictating Your Activity?
- Attending Church May Save Lives
- How to Write a Pithy Prayer
- NALC Life Conference and the March for Life
- New Video Book Review for January
- Carl E. Braaten's Latest Book
- Pro Ecclesia 2022 Conference
Scroll Down for More
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How Did It Happen? The ELCA and Community Organizing – Part One
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A question I am often asked by people is this – How did it happen? How did LGBTQ+ values, priorities, and agenda completely take over the ELCA, and so quickly? The purpose of this article is to show how the principles of community organizing were used most effectively to bring about this change.
How did it happen? Part of the answer can be found in the fact that those who have been driving this are super focused and relentlessly dedicated. Part of the answer can also be found in the image of lily pads on a lake. Let’s say that the area of the surface of the lake that is covered by lily pads doubles each year. At first, the amount of increase is small. Then …
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A concerned member of the ELCA contacted me, asking me to do a review of a new curriculum from Augsburg Fortress’s Sparkhouse. That curriculum is entitled T.B.D.: Think. Believe. Do. Sparkhouse touts it as their newest youth curriculum. ...
In the videos that accompany each session, a young person wrestles with questions about the topic of the session. This is very interesting. Like many people today, both young and old, the character in each video turns to the internet, searching for an answer. As you would expect, answers come from all quarters. The internet search yields many quotes from the Bible. Quotes are also given by Luther, Augustine, Calvin, Bonhoeffer, St. Benedict, and other Christian teachers. Others come from more dubious places, like Bart Ehrman and Richard Dawkins. This is what you would expect from an internet search.
The question is where to turn. The answer is more than a little surprising. After pondering challenging statements, watching the video, and looking up two Bible verses, the students are immediately asked to formulate their own responses to the questions. The result is something very similar to the kind of “values clarification” that was practiced decades ago. It’s almost as if the students are told, “You’re on your own. The Bible is unclear and unreliable. The Christian tradition is too varied and contradictory. Who’s to say what is true. You need to chart your own path.” …
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by Pr. Brett Jenkins, NALC Dean of the Northeast Mission District within the Atlantic Mission Region and former member of the Board of Lutheran CORE
Passion… it is a word with a storied history in the Church. In my first ecclesial job as a youth minister, our church’s youth ministry decorated the youth room wall with the words “Faith, Passion, Service.” Upon visiting, a colleague commented, “Passion is something I think my youth already have plenty of… I’d think more about discouraging that.”
But this is not the way the Church Fathers spoke. They spoke of God’s divine eros that burned for lost humanity so completely it agape’d the world enough to give His only Son… to give Himself. Far from fearing passion, a Church whose largely convert members had drunk deeply of the wine of Roman success, who had tasted fruits imported from every corner of the conquered empire (now redubbed “the civilized world”), who had participated fully in the “good life,” the Pax Romana for which so many had given their lives in labor or battle, had come to realize that far from their passion being too great, it was too small. ...
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Intercessory Prayer, Part Two: How to Write Them
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Editor's Note: Cathy's first article on intercessory prayer can be found here.
Now I’ll take you through some of the process by which I compose the weekly intercessory prayers that are distributed to some folks via email and that are also available on the CORE website. I’ll use a concrete example: the prayers for February 27, 2022 – The Transfiguration of Our Lord, Cycle C.
That’s important: I write prayers that are specific to the season, festival, and cycle of the Church calendar. You’re not required to focus on these, but the Scripture readings appointed for any Sunday, and the significance of a feast day, will enrich and focus your petitions. ...
That leads to my final point: extemporaneous public prayer. Whether you’re a pastor, council person, Stephen minister, or a friend responding to a friend, you will be called upon, or be moved, to offer up prayer. This can strike terror in the heart. This is where we ramble, get lost in “Lord I just wanna,” or offer advice in the guise of prayer.
Here’s where the Romans come to the rescue again! The Roman Church perfected the ...
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Worship Attendance and Our National Mental Health Crisis
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Sometimes I come across an article that I’m convinced needs to be brought to your attention; and the sooner the better. That’s definitely the case with the article, in the November, 2021, issue of Christianity Today, entitled “Empty Pews Are an American Public Health Crisis.”
The “public health crisis” they are bringing to our attention is the toll decreased in-person worship attendance is taking on American public health. This crisis has been developing over many years. However, the Covid pandemic has, to an alarming degree, contributed, since early 2020, to the severity of this crisis. And it is a crisis in terms of not only mental, emotional and spiritual health, but physical health as well.
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Video Book Reviews - "Ethics" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
January 2022
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Lutheran CORE continues to provide monthly video reviews of books of interest and importance. Many thanks to NALC pastor Jeffray Greene for giving us a video review of the book Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. According to Pastor Greene, “The thoughts are profound and will cause you to think on a different level.” Pastor Greene acknowledges that “it is not an easy read,” and this is the third time he has read it, but he shares that “if you allow it to be digested, it will help you to further shape the understanding and wisdom that God gives through Scripture.”
Bonhoeffer did not focus on what he saw around him with eyes that judged the evil. Rather he ...
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Life Conference and March for Life!
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The NALC's Annual Life Conference will be held on January 20, 2022, in Culpeper, VA. Bp. Dan Selbo will preach and preside; the topic is "The Science of Life." Speakers include Dr. Roy Schwarz, M.D., Dr. Donna Harrison, M.D., and the Rev. Dr. Dennis Di Mauro. Click here for more information about this event. Culpeper is located 70 miles from Washington, D.C.
The National March for Life in Washington, D.C., will take place on January 21, 2022. It begins with a prayer service at DAR Constitution Hall. This year's theme is " Equality Begins in the WOMB." Information about all the events taking place that day can be found here. Lutherans will be attending!
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Pro Ecclesia 2022 Conference
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The Pro Ecclesia 2022 Conference
sponsored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology
Mixed Blessings: The Theologians Who Shaped Us
June 6-8 (Monday evening - Wednesday at noon)
Confirmed speakers
- Frederick Bauerschmidt, Loyola University Maryland, on “The Dumb Ox in the Room: Reckoning with Aquinas’ Legacy”
- Phillip Cary, Eastern University, on “Not Quite What Any of Us Want Him to Be: On Augustine”
- Carolyn Chau, King’s University College at Western University, on “The Gains and Losses of Charles Taylor: Where Taylor’s Moral Ontology Gets Us”
- David Luy, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, on “The Place of Christology in Dogmatic Theology: A Critical Engagement with Wolfhart Pannenberg”
- Charles Raith, Ascension Health, on “How My Mind Changed on Infant Baptism”
- Amy Schifrin, North American Lutheran Seminary/Trinity School for Ministry, “On Luther.”
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The ALPB's Latest Braaten Book
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From the keyboard of theologian, Carl E. Braaten:
The history of theology is like a bucket brigade; each generation passes on a bucket of theology received from the previous one, advancing, modifying, or even rejecting what they learned from their teachers. ... The unavoidable question is: what is the current generation of Lutheran theologians doing to pass on what they have received? What will they find worth retaining and promoting? Or, will they start all over again, as it were from scratch, leaving the massive theological legacy of their predecessors to remain dormant or dead? What is the future of Lutheran theology in America?
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NALC Life Conference - Culpeper, VA - January 20, 2022. Click here. See Flyer.
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2022 March for Life - Washington, DC - January 21, 2022. Click here. See Blurb.
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NALC Pastor's Conference - Orlando, February 15-17, 2022. Click here.
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Pro Ecclesia Conference - Baltimore, MD - June 6-8, 2022. Click here.
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The NEXUS Institute -June 12-18, 2022. Click here to register.
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If you prefer reading the print version (PDF format), please click the button below.
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© 2022 Lutheran Coalition for Renewal
PO Box 1741 Wausau, WI 54402-1741
1-888-810-4180
Lutheran CORE's mission:
- A Network for Confessing Lutherans
- A Voice for Biblical Truth
Our purpose can be summed up in two words– Network and Voice. As Network for confessing Lutherans, we support and connect Lutheran individuals and congregations who seek to live in accord with Biblical and confessional teachings and practices. As a Prophetic Voice, we advocate for Biblical authority and confessional fidelity among churches of the Lutheran community.
We communicate Biblical truth through our newsletter, mailings, and various forms of social media.
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