News

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...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- =22Communicate Hope=22 will be the theme when up = to 4,400 members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America gather this year for Global Mission Events. =20 Three summer events are to be held July 9-12 at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse; July 16-19 at Rensselaer...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D., will host the 1998 Lutheran Summer Music program June 21 to July 19. Augustana is one of 28 colleges and universities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Lutheran Summer Music was first held in the summer of 1982 on the...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Donald D. Parsons, 58, has announced his resignation as bishop of the Alaska Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) effective June 30. The synod council has appointed the Rev. Larry J. Jorgenson to serve as interim bishop effective Aug. 1. Jorgenson is...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. James R. Stuck, 50, King of Glory Lutheran Church, Carmel, Ind., was elected bishop of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America during the synod's assembly June 4-5 in Fort Wayne, Ind. Stuck received 411 of the 625 votes cast on the...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Roger W. Fjeld, 64, president of Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, has announced his intention to retire as president and professor of church history at the end of 1998. Wartburg is one of eight seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Fjeld said...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Lita Brusick Johnson, 45, has been named director for World Hunger and Disaster Appeals of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). She serves as executive assistant to Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson of the ELCA. Johnson will begin her new responsibilities July 1. "Most people are...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is responding to a tornado that left six people dead, 150 people injured and destroyed all of Spencer, S.D., including St. Matthew Lutheran Church on May 30. Spencer, a town of about 300 people, is located 45 miles west of Sioux...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Action by Churches Together (ACT) reports 3,500 casualties as a result of the May 30 earthquake in northeastern Afghanistan. The figure may rise as information becomes available from more remote villages. The quake completely destroyed several of the 41 villages in the Badakshan Province, ACT reports. Shelter,...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The number of Lutherans in the 105th Congress of the United States remains unchanged. One member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is completing the term of another ELCA member. Lois Capps, 60, won a special election to complete her husband's first term in the U.S....

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Action by Churches Together (ACT) is expanding its current relief projects in parts of southern Sudan following calls from Sudanese church leaders to address the food needs of displaced people in the northern part of the Barh al Ghazal Province. Months of fighting has displaced about 348,000...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Southern Province of the Moravian Church in America approved a proposal for full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and set the stage for two more votes -- by the Northern Province of the Moravian Church, August 7-11 in Bethlehem, Pa., and by...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Two of the eight seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are planning commencement ceremonies in June for 1998 degree recipients: June 6 Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio Speaker: The Rev. Ronald F. Thiemann, dean and professor, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass. Place: Mees Auditorium, Capital...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has sent $20,000 to an ecumenical effort to aid victims of February earthquakes in Afghanistan. According to Action by Churches Together (ACT), 32,000 people in 24 villages in the Rostaq district were affected by the quakes. ACT reports the earthquakes killed...