The Seminary Explores

Bridges, Gaps, Brews and Views: A Path to Interfaith Engagement

Interfaith Connection’s executive producer and host Jackie Fuller joins Katy Giebenhain for a conversation about Fuller’s interfaith work in the Washington, D.C. Metro area and the upcoming Religion Communication Congress 2020 which is sponsored by The Religion Communicators Council.

The March 17-21 Religion Communication Congress 2020 includes speakers:

• Wajahat Ali, CNN Contributor and Contributing Op-Ed Writer to The New York Times
• Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism
• Amelia Kegan, Legislative Director, Domestic Policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation
• Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, Senior Religion Fellow for the Sikh Coalition and a Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Center for Religion and Media and others.

Thank you to the Church of the Epiphany for kindly providing our interview site.

 

Students Lead the Way to Gun Sense

Seven years ago, Phoebe Doscher and her family experienced the shooting in Sandy Hook first hand. Phoebe’s younger sister attended elementary school there. Fortunately, she survived, but twenty other children and seven adults did not. When Phoebe arrived at Gettysburg College, the emotional impact of this experience came rushing back, and she resolved to respond by founding a chapter of Students Demand Action. Her top priority is “to get a conversation going” so that all sides can understand the need to take sensible steps--not the removal of all guns, but universal background checks and restrictions on automatic, military-style weapons.

Military Chaplains: Service to God and Country

Chaplain Palmer and Chaplain Meeker liken the role of Army chaplains to parish pastors insofar as they are responsible for Word and Sacrament but emphasize the role of “incarnational ministry” in their total involvement in the life of the soldier. Special challenges are the visits to families when a son or daughter is killed, and in recent years the need to address post-traumatic stress. For all this, chaplains must undergo a rigorous course of study in addition to basic training. Both Chaplains Meeker and Palmer encourage seminarians and others to consider a career in ministry to the military.

• Chaplain Glenn Palmer, Chief, Training Development Division, US Army Chaplain Center and School, Ft. Jackson SC
• Chaplain Karen Meeker, Chief, Recruiting Division, Office of Chief of Chaplains, Pentagon, Washington DC

The Top Stories in Religion 2019

Pastor Andrew Geib, Associate Pastor, St. James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, identified nine top stories in religion for the year 2019: ELCA Church Sanctuary issue, United Methodist possible split, Women in the Church, Collapse of Christianity, the burning of Notre Dame in Paris, and more. While the stories were mostly grim, he ends with word of hope for listeners.

West Virginia Author and Poet Laureate Marc Harshman

West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman joins Katy Giebenhain for a conversation about writing and reading and the iconic influences on both from Falling Water and the Asphodel Bookshop. Harshman holds degrees from Bethany College, Yale Divinity School, and the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of 14 children’s books including The Storm, a Smithsonian Notable Book, and eight collections of poetry including his latest, Woman in Red Anorak, Lynx House Press/University of Washington. He is, most recently, co-winner of the 2019 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award.

Many thanks to our host site for this interview, Waldo’s and Co. on the Square in Gettysburg and Facebook

Madagascar: Bellwether of Our Fragile Planet

Kristin Slaybaugh, Youth Minister at St. James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, who taught English in Madagascar, an island nation off the southwest coast of Africa, experienced a varied culture and many vibrant churches in a generally poor country. The wealth from significant resources such as vanilla and minerals has not been shared with the general populace.  Eco-tourism focuses on the remarkable variety of species found nowhere else on earth, such as the lemur. The challenges of poverty, expanding population, and corruption threaten this diversity.

Illegal slash and burn practice in the region west of Manantenina.

Photo Source

Why Is Ukraine Important?

Ukraine is more than a late-night punchline or a pawn in U.S. domestic politics.  It is a country rich in resources and history.  Dennis Carter, recently retired career foreign service officer after 38 years in the Department of State, including postings in Kuwait, Peru, France, Jordan, the United Kingdom, and Grenada takes deep into the the history and the importance of Ukraine on the world stage.  Strategically, it abuts western Russia. Other nations have coveted its territory for centuries because it is the “breadbasket of Europe, has rich mineral resources, and lately, technology. In recent years Ukraine has had to resist Russian incursions, especially a take-over of Crimea and threats to the Donbass region.

Also listen to our 2014 interview with Ambassador Lawrence Taylor on the conflict in Ukraine.

Town and Country Church Institute at ULS

Dr. Gilson Waldkoenig, Paulssen-Hale-Maurer Professor of Church in Society, and the Director of the Town and Country Church Institute at United Lutheran Seminary, asks that we expand our vision beyond the big-topic issues of the day, important as they are, and embrace three universal needs: energy (including climate); food and health, including water resources; and habitat, both for humans and for our non-human neighbors (“all creatures great and small”).

He suggests specific ways in which congregations are doing their part, for example, energy assessments of their buildings and their “footprints” on the ground; cultivating gardens or supporting a farm; and sponsoring fresh produce markets.

Woodcut by Wenceslas Hollar (1607-1677) illustrated Augsburg Confession VII

C.A.R.E.S. Cares for a Community’s Homeless

 

Gettysburg C.A.R.E.S. is a local, inter-church, homeless initiative with no national affiliation, but can serve as a model for churches everywhere who want to serve their communities in an area of dramatic need: overnight accommodations for the homeless. Founded by Pastor Michael Allwein, Senior Pastor, St. James Lutheran Church, Gettysburg, C.A.R.E.S involves a dozen churches and volunteers who host, supervise and serve breakfast to dozens of individuals every night from October to April. Individuals and families are housed overnight in churches and provided with breakfast, and in a Resource House next to St. James, given access to showers and computers. They are also served by a medical clinic, social workers, and a full-time director.

The correct File has been uploaded as of 11/19/19 7:12 am.  Sorry for the mix-up.

Ties that Bind: Religion in the “Great Partnership” between Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson

Dr. Christian B. Keller, Professor of History and General Dwight D. Eisenhower Chair of National Security, Department of National Security and Strategy, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA, and author of The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy, argues that the Christian connection between Lee and Jackson was a significant glue that bonded the two generals’ friendship, and this in turn supported their strong professional relationship. Although one was Episcopal and the other a Presbyterian, they were both firm believers in Divine Providence, and as evangelical providentialists, were not that different from many Americans of that era.