Category: English

BSC for Church

Is it possible to use BSC to evaluate life in a congregation and stay at the same time strong in the Lutheran understanding of Church?

To figure it out I would need to look at various Theologies about the nature of the Church. Attempt to compare and contrast them and spell out a usable Ecclesiology for the beginning of 21st Century. I will then address contemporary leadership theories and evaluate whether the one I chose to look at are helpful in building up a church based on the Ecclesiology I spelled out in the first part.

Looking at BSC and Ecclesiology.

  • I need to look at Polity vs/or/and Theology.
  • Using BSC in a Lutheran Congregation
  • Using BSC in Church

Putting on a pan for parents

Idea of a youth program that meets once a week to cook a meal together and invites parents to come and eat with them.
—
In a church setting it could look like this:

4pm or after school – gather and decide what is needed.
4:30pm Go to the store
5:30pm Start cooking
6:30pm Dinner
7:15pm Optional Worship
7:45pm Program ends

Not everyone does everything. So there should be at least some time to do homework.

Ethical Thinking

1) What’s up

2) Code of conduct

  • Teach what is right
  • Confidentiality
  • Keep your family
  • Control your finances 
3) Biomedical ethics
  • Informed consent / refusal of service (Expect irrational behavior)
  • Do no harm
  • Do good
  • Be just
4) Ethics
  • Promote well-being
  • Minimize suffering in Society (utilitarian theory)
  • Just distribution with the help of Rawls “veil of ignorance”
  • My duty with or without God
  • What about the other? Listening skills to appreciate “ultimate strangeness”.
  • Virtues – wisdom, humility, justice, integrity.

First thoughts

I attempt to look at various Lutheran theologies about the nature of the church. I will compare and contrast them and try to spell out a usable Ecclesiology for the beginning of the 21st Century. I will then address few contemporary leadership theories and evaluate whether the theories I look at are helpful in a church which is based on the Ecclesiology I spelled out in the first part of the paper.

Another possibility would be to look at evaluation theory like BSC and ask if it is usable for the Ecclesiology I spelled out in the first part.

Sexual Violence in the Church

Sexual abuse by people in power has been reality in religious circles since the beginning of times. Joy A. Schroeder has written a book about how sexual violence in the Bible has been interpreted by the church through the ages, Dinah’s Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation.

Joy A. Schroeder wrote an article about sexual abuse in the middle ages in Lutheran Quarterly, 7 (1993): 171-190, called “Marguerite of Navarre Breaks Silence about Sixteenth Century Clergy Sexual Violence.”

The third text worth mentioning is by Marguerite de Navarre, The Heptameron, but stories twenty-two and twenty-three in that book address a sexual abuse of clergy.

Candidacy

Nine months ago I looked into what courses I will be lacking if I would decide to become a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Iceland. According to Icelandic Laws, only individuals finishing M.Div. or Cand. Theol. degree can become ordained pastors and the degree has to be in line with the Cand. Theol. degree offered in the University of Iceland. I consider the seminar credits at TLS as the same as the credits counted at the University in Iceland.

What I am missing:
Graduate Courses in Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures – 7,5 credits
Hebrew – 5 credits
Graduate Courses in New Testament – 9,5 credits
Greek – 10 credits

I would need to finish 32 credit hours of Biblical Studies, Greek and Hebrew to be academically qualified as a pastor in ELCI. It might be worth considering or …

Prayer

Part of my studies in Transformational Leadership at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio is writing prayers dealing with our life, happiness, success as well as frustrations. In April, having seen a bit to much of the other America, in New Orleans, Detroit and in a Food Pantry in mid-Ohio, this was my prayer.

Lord, where are you,
When I watch an abusive husband shout at his wife
in the waiting room at the food pantry.

Lord, where are you,
When I tell the old woman which recently lost her job,
that the application for food stamps we just compiled
will most likely be rejected.

Lord God, our creator,
where are you when I sit down with a young fella
who lost his future, his house, his girlfriend in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Almighty God,
I know you have called me to be your hands,
your mouth piece, your feet.

But God,
are you sure you called the right person.
I have immigration papers to fill out,
IRS complications to solve.
I have a daughter who needs time with me,
I have a son that is calling me too.
I have a wife that deserves my time.

God,
where are you,
why are you calling me
to deal with your mess.

Why don’t you leave me
to deal with mine.

Amen.

Innkoma

Það er athyglisvert í rannsókn PewResearch að katólska kirkjan í BNA, er eina trúarhreyfingin/lífskoðunin sem getur með sanni gert kröfu um að vera hreyfing allra stétta. En þegar tekjur Bandaríkjamanna eru greindar með hliðsjón af trúarafstöðu, er skipting katólikka sú sama og þegar öllum íbúum BNA er skipt upp. Þetta er ekki hægt að segja um aðra hópa. Reyndar komast múslímar nálægt meðaltalinu einnig.

Hins vegar er hlutfall verr stæðra fárhagslega í evangelískum kirkjum, hefðbundnum Afrísk-Amerískum söfnuðum og Vottum Jehóva mun hærra en landsmeðaltal. Hlutfall velstæðra er hins vegar hærra í “mainline” protestant kirkjum, hjá Hindúum, búddistum, gyðingum og hópunum þremur sem eru skilgreindir secular (atheist, agnostic, secular unaffiliated).

Þetta, í samhengi við misskiptinguna í BNA, gæti að hluta til útskýrt hvers vegna BNA passar alls ekki inn í líkön sem leitast við að útskýra samband GNP og trúhneigðar (Sjá graf hér). Aðrar útskýringar tengjast t.d. því að trúarþátttaka er ekki nauðsynlega trúartengd (sér í lagi hjá hindúum, gyðingum og í “mainline kirkjum”), heldur snýst ekki síður um sjálfsskilgreiningu og tenging við trúarhreyfingu er “substitute” fyrir stórfjölskylduna sem er ekki nauðsynlega til staðar.

Ef einhver lifir í von um að GNP fallið sé parabólískt og BNA sé sönnun þess, þá er það mun langsóttari skýring, þó henni sé e.t.v. haldið á lofti af einhverjum trúmönnum.

Tralfamadore

There were creatures who weren’t anything like machines. They weren’t dependable. They weren’t efficient. They weren’t predictable. They weren’t durable. And these poor creatures were obsessed by the idea that everything that existed had to have a purpose, and that some purposes were higher than others.These creatures spent most of their time trying to find out what their purpose was. And every time they found out what seemed to be a purpose of themselves, the purpose seemed so low that the creatures were filled with disgust and shame.And, rather than serve such a low purpose, the creatures would make a machine to serve it. This left the creatures free to serve higher purposes. But whenever they found a higher purpose, the purpose still wasn’t high enough.

And the machines did everything to expertly that they were finally given the job of finding out what the higher purpose of the creatures could be.

The machines reported in all honesty that the creatures couldn’t really be said to have any purpose at all.

The creatures thereupon began slaying each other, because they hated purposeless things above all else.

And they discovered that they weren’t even very good at slaying. So they turned that job over to the machines, too. And the machines finished up the job in less time than it takes to say, “Tralfamadore.”

By: Kurt Vonnegut from “The Sirens of Titan”

Halldor, you are Left-brained

Pétur Björgvin benti á próf.

Most left-brained people like you feel at ease in situations requiring verbal ability, attention to detail, and linear, analytical ability. Whether you know it or not, you are a much stronger written communicator than many, able to get your ideas across better than others.

It’s also likely that you are methodical and efficient at many things that you do. You could also be good at math, particularly algebra, which is based on very strict rules that make sense to your logical mind.

Ég er ekki undrandi 🙂

Muslims in Europe – Called to be Neighbors

This text was originally written for a course in World Religion. It is pasted here if someone is interested. In my teacher’s remarks he pointed out that it is far from flawless, mostly due to my fragile English, and is uneven in quality at times. But I think it has some relevance anyway. Continue reading Muslims in Europe – Called to be Neighbors