King and The Beloved Community

"We only deserve his legacy if we move even beyond these demands to something even greater -- the ultimate destination that King stood for: a Beloved Community. 


Dr. King recognized that it was not enough to march, that it was not enough to sit-in, or enjoy equal access. This was merely the absence of negatives. King called us to a community that has moved past demands, to true brotherhood and sisterhood. The Beloved Community is a stunning vision of total relatedness. In this society, the divides that we currently live by, are subsumed into a community of love. It is a vision, as he saw it, of black and white together. Today we would have to expand those boundaries to many other ethnicities and lives. 

But knowing this also explains why Dr. King strove unrelentingly to bring white Americans along with him, rather than excluding them, as some in his movement desired. It was not because he was soft, as some claimed, but the opposite, because he was hardened, possessed of a transcendent vision."


Excerpted from Martin Luther King Day: Let King Be King via @huffingtonpost

Guest Post from Professor Gary Simpson of Luther Seminary

OK—A Happy Constellation of Some UnHappy Things: Haiti, slavery, and earthquakes.

So, today, 1/11 is the two-year commemoration of the devastating 7.0 earthquake with its 52 aftershocks of 4.5 or greater. Yesterday, 1/12 was Human Trafficking Awareness Day invoking our prayers and action regarding the contemporary global situation of slavery of some 2.5 million persons.
Perhaps the greatest slave uprising in modern times was the one depicted in the five paintings on the Wikipedia entry for Haiti.

And now, two things for those who by nature and/or nurture tend to process things Lutheranly:
First, Lutheran philosopher, Georg Hegel (also a kind-a theologian—he was after all a Lutheran seminary grad and wrote four not-too-important books on theology) was quite taken by the Haitian slave revolution that lasted from 1791-Jan 1,1804. As a newspaper reporter, commentator, and publisher he kept his reading audience in Germany up to date on the latest happenings. And, the Haitian slave revolution was the phenomenon that he reflected upon philosophically in his most famous and most influential chapter of all time, Master and Slave in The Phenomenology of Spirit (a chapter that I find flawed, but what the heck, it outed slavery like little else philosophical-theological had ever done!).

And second, I commend to you a recent essay on Haiti by Lutheran Pr. John Nunes. John is the President and CEO of LWR, a fantastic leader and provocative theologian, and hails from Montego Bay, Jamaica. The essay is: "Seeing the Other Side: Critical Modernist Poetics and Postcolonial Haiti," Concordia Journal (Winter 2011). Yup, that’s right, John is an LCMS pastor, and also a PhD candidate in theology at LSTC and defending his dissertation in less than a week. Free access to his essay at:

http://issuu.com/concordiasem/docs/cjwinter11

Just some beautiful diatoms for your Saturday

Diatoms are single cell organisms that make a cell wall out of silica. They are sometimes called "algae living in glass houses." Turns out, they make 30% of the world's oxygen. They are also incredibly diverse in shape, almost like snowflakes. Their frustule (outer walls) are gorgeous.

Back in the day, clergy were also often scientists, and it was actually a Lutheran clergy person, the Francis Wolle (1894), who published the first account of the diatoms of North America. I love to learn of clergy who are "also" something else. Clergy should be leaders in inquiry and wonder in the world. I like that Wolle cared for a congregation AND cataloged diatoms with a microscope.

Thanks to Evelyn Gaiser for alerting me to this beautiful part of creation in the recent issue of Word and World: Theology for Christian Ministry.

Diatoms are also incredibly sensitive to the environment, and tell us much about how our environment is doing. Dr. Gaiser writes, "Diatoms are indeed a blessing in so many ways; they remind us of trustworthy sentinels of the state of our water resources, and by thinking like them, we should be able to more responsibly care for our threatened planet."

Love in society is named justice

I was honored recently when Lutheran World Relief asked to see if I'd be willing to be a guest blogger on their blog (blog.lwr.org). They plan to post a series of short blog posts that look at the sustainable development work of LWR from a Lutheran perspective.

Lutheran World Relief works to fight poverty and promote a more just and peaceful world by helping people help themselves. Your support provides the foundation for LWR’s work.

When the invitation e-mail arrived in my inbox, my immediate reaction was, "Lord have mercy. I've been so distracted by blogging about Tim Tebow and that silly hate-religion love-Jesus video, that I've neglected the weightier matters of justice." And it's true, so much of our media culture serves to distract us from the slow and steady development work groups like LWR are doing on our behalf, and through our giving. 

Father, forgive me. Seriously.

However, upon further reflection, I realized things weren't as bad as all that. In what follows, I'm going to share some ideas on what you can do to support the ministry of LWR. These are all things I do personally, most of them weekly if not monthly. I could do more. We all could, but these are a start.

ELCA clergy have, as part of their letters of call, a commitment to work for justice and peace on behalf of the poor and marginalized. Such ministry is always easier to list on a call letter than it is to actualize in daily life, but I can tell you the top ways I focus my ministry in a way that supports the work of LWR. 

I invite readers to adopt at least these practices as followers of Jesus who believe, together with ethicists like Niebuhr and King, that "love in society is named justice" (a phrase I just learned in a spectacular new book I'm reading by that greatest of contemporary theologians, James Cone).

So here's my list, in order of priority. If you do nothing else, do #1. Everything else is justice gravy.

#1--Set up monthly automatic giving to Lutheran World Relief. Give sacrificially. Imagine the effect we could have collectively if all of our giving to LWR exceeded our giving to our local congregation, or the amount we spend on Starbucks each week.

#2--Learn more about the difference between ministries that provide necessary and important emergency relief, like homeless shelters and food banks, and ministries that engage in sustainable development work that addresses the root causes of poverty.

#3--Participate. LWR has dozens of programs designed for local congregations and groups. Sign your group up to get alerts. 

#4--Decide LWR is going to be the primary social ministry of the church that you support, donate to, and advocate for. Tons of organizations are asking you for your money and your time. Guaranteed, dollar for dollar, LWR is at the top of the list of organizations that really make a difference in the world.

#5--Follow LWR on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever you hang out as a denizen of the digital domain. Reminders in your twitter feed or Facebook profile really will make a difference.