News

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Angel Furlan, president of the Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Unida (United Evangelical Lutheran Church) in Argentina and Uruguay, said his church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will continue their long history of work together. Furlan, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, spoke to ELCA participants in...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Lutheran Disaster Response, a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), will move to the ELCA's churchwide offices here the week of July 13. The ministry began in 1988 in Allentown, Pa. "Sometimes it seems that the only constant...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is welcoming news that Hallmark Entertainment and the Jim Henson Company are joining the National Interfaith Cable Coalition (NICC) and Liberty Media Corporation in ownership of the Odyssey Channel on satellite and cable television. The ELCA is one of about...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- One Lutheran theologian identified physician-assisted suicide and welfare reform as two critical issues Christians will probably face in the 21st century. Another Lutheran theologian said Christians should be ready to discuss publicly any uneasy feelings they may have about biomedical ethics and technology. The eight seminaries of...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- "This does more than just open a new chapter in Lutheran-Roman Catholic relations. It really starts writing a new book," said the Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The council of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) approved a "Joint Declaration...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ELCA) -- "Full communion" between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) became official June 17 during the Presbyterian General Assembly when Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick declared official the vote of the presbyteries approving the accord. Kirkpatrick called the full communion agreement, which...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Gary M. Wollersheim, 47, was elected bishop of the Northern Illinois Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) during the synod's assembly June 19-20 at Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill. He received 355 votes to 72 for the Rev. Donna Hacker Smith and...

NEW YORK (ELCA) -- Life will be a little more livable for 50,000 isolated refugees in Kenya's arid north, thanks to a new grant of $625,000 to Lutheran World Relief in cooperation with Lutheran World Federation. The funding, to support financially-strapped Kakuma refugee camp in the year ahead, is from...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Memorable scenes from the classic 45-year-old movie "Martin Luther" are being used to highlight a new educational video on the 16th century German reformer. Lutheran Film Associates (LFA), a partnership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, has released "Luther Legacy,"...

The third paragraph from the end of the story, dateline Bismarck, N.D., should include the word "million" between "2.3" and "acres" to read: "Bismarck is close to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. We have done very little to look at the issue of poverty on Indian reservations," said Schauer. Standing...

BISMARCK, N.D. (ELCA) -- "Hundreds of farmers and ranchers are living on the brink of financial ruin in North Dakota," said Arlene Olson, a family farmer, south of Wing, N.D. "If something isn't done very soon, there won't be any family farmers left." Olson is a member of Bethlehem Lutheran...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- "People between the ages of 13 and 18 are serious about life. They are also self-reliant, stressed out and skeptical, but they are spiritual and survivors," said the Rev. Paul G. Hill, director of the Center for Youth Ministry, Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa. "They realize the...

The story entitled "Lutheran World Federation Approves Agreement with Roman Catholics" which ELCA News & Information issued on June 19, 1998, was compiled from reports by Roger R. Kahle, managing editor of The Lutheran (magazine of the ELCA), who was in Geneva covering the LWF Council's decisions regarding the Joint...

TUSKEGEE, Ala. (ELCA) -- "This event has given us native Africans a way to identify the barriers between Africans and African Americans. It has given me a deeper appreciation for the Lutheran church in its efforts to remove some of those barriers," said Dr. Alfred Amah, Peoples Community Lutheran Church,...

GENEVA (ELCA) -- By a unanimous vote here June 16, the 48-member council of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) approved the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" with the Roman Catholic Church. The Joint Declaration ends 400 years of condemnations on the principal doctrinal dispute of the Reformation, that...

SIOUX CITY, IOWA (ELCA) -- On Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 158 Southeast Asian people living in Nebraska and Iowa responded to the Rev. Tom B. LoVan's invitation to be baptized in a special service by a swimming pool at Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa. LoVan is a pastor of the...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- "As I stood in the middle of the 42 blocks of total devastation that was once Spencer, S.D., there was nothing I could immediately identify to be salvaged or saved," said the Rev. Gilbert B. Furst, associate director for Lutheran Disaster Response, a ministry of the Evangelical...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- There are 22 Lutherans in Congress, rather than the 23 earlier reported. The list of Lutherans in the 105th Congress of the United States has changed due to corrections made by the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs (LOGA), Washington, D.C. LOGA said U.S. Representative Paul E. Gillmor...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Details surrounding a festival worship service at Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel on Oct. 4 involved much of the discussion May 12 for a Lutheran-Reformed planning committee. The service will formally declare that, after 36 years of dialogues, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is entering into "full...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- "Nature knows neither grace nor mercy," said the Rev. Donald B. Green, Pittsburgh. "Sixteen tornadoes touched down in southwestern Pennsylvania June 2 accompanied by strong winds, damaging hail, heavy rains and flash flooding, two successive bands of violent storms traversed the region." Green is an assistant to...