Liturgy at Ground Level

(Excerpt) On the back yard of our parish lot is a patch of ground I drive by every day. It is the place where we have a bonfire of trees and greens on the Twelfth Night of Christmas. Each Ash Wednesday, if it is not covered by snow, it is a blackened smudge on the face of the lawn. By Easter, however, that patch seems the most alive. For there the green blade rises, unhindered by dead overgrowth, looking even greener against the charred earth

ΚΟΙΝO͂NIA: The Biblical Proclamation of ΚΟΙΝO͂NIA and its Relationship to the Proclamation and Celebration of the Lord\u27s Supper

Fellowship. What does it mean? How is one to “achieve it? Or, does one achieve it at all? What are the modern views concerning koin ͂οnia and do they parallel Paul’s use of the term in his writings? Where is the koin ͂οnia hall in the church? Pastors, theologians and lay people alike are challenged to answer these questions, either overtly or subtly, for true faith looks to root itself on solid, common, KOINON, ground. The task of this study is to pursue clarity regarding koin ͂οnia which may help in recognizing when it is spoken of in lesser, other, or even opposite ways

LCMS Identity and Mission in the American Urban Context: Engaging Conian Black Theology Through Strategic Lutheran Missiology

Seltz, Gregory P., “LCMS Identity and Mission in the American Urban Context: Engaging Conian Black Theology through Strategic Lutheran Missiology.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2017. 304 pp. This dissertation addresses the challenges of the American urban context by dialoging with James Cone’s Black Theology in order to construct an LCMS urban missiology. This LCMS urban missiology is a dynamic, Two-Kingdom, sacramental engagement strategy that addresses the issues endemic to the urban community for the sake of the community and for the sake of the Gospel. The American urban setting is fraught with challenges: identity politics, ethnic-sociological fragmentation, and the delegitimation-politicization of virtually all aspects of urban, public life. For faithful missiological engagement in the urban context, the LCMS needs to take such challenges seriously, by engaging in a racial critique of its missional practices and by relying upon its Two-Kingdom theology to form a unique missiological response. Through Bevan’s synthetic model of contextual theology, this dissertation dialogues with Conian Black Theology to offer a racial, missional critique of the LCMS and to construct an LCMS urban missiology that differs from the public missiological engagements of Evangelical Theology and Black Theology. This urban missiology analyzes and then builds upon the historical-social location of the LCMS in urban ministry, offers a Two-Kingdom response to Cone’s challenges, and presents a sacramental concrete understanding of missional practice that is not ultimately captive to specific political ideologies or policies. This LCMS urban missiological engagement is then used in a case study of the church’s missiological engagement in the racially charged events of Ferguson, Missouri

Current Lutheran Thought in America on Church-State Relations

The purpose of this thesis is to give a summary report of some of the thinking that Lutheran theologians in America have been doing on church-state relations since Conrad Sergendoff made that statement. Representative writers from the various Lutheran bodies have been consulted, although the scope of this report is necessarily not exhaustive

Empowering Confident Confessor-Servant Evangelists Twenty-First-Century Multicultural Mission Work

Amid such real tensions the church of Jesus Christ is challenged to be the body of Christ for others, to build bridges, to more boldly speak Christ’s message beyond the safety of its confessional walls

Economic equity in the Annapurna Conservation Area: Effects of government and community-based organizations

This research addresses the impact of community-based and government organizations on rural livelihoods in protected areas (PAs) by investigating whether benefits of such organizations involved in conservation and community development reach more marginalized members of communities in the Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA) of Nepal. I conduct a case study focusing on two villages within ACA, Kagbeni and Phalyek, examining how local groups interact with each other and with the government in trying to promote equity through the ACA Project primarily through indepth, unstructured interviews. Locally-created and locally-based groups in these communities appear to be successful in managing local resources and creating a support network for community members, filling in the role of more formal government institutions

The ground state spin of 180Ta is not 8+

Experimental (p, d) cross-sections are compared with calculations using Nilsson wave functions and the DWBA in order to locate the members of the low lying (1+, 1) and (8+, 8) rotational bands in 180Ta