PART 3: THE WALL by Jean Peterson, WTS Archivist volunteer

The Wall

After Hitler’s defeat in 1945 World War II., the division of Germany into four parts meant East Germany was occupied by Soviet Communism. Travel restrictions were imposed by The Wall which was in place from 1961-1989.

In Berlin we saw a parish split by The Wall so members on the “other side” could not attend worship in their own congregation.  Families could not bury their dead in the church cemetery in their own family plots.

1982-1989 – The Peaceful Revolution

Following our attendance at the Saturday afternoon, January 13, 2013, Bach Motette concert worship at Thomaskirche in Leipzig, we were privileged to listen to and dialog with Lutheran Pastor Ulrich Seidel who had participated in the Leipzig Peaceful Revolution 1982-1989.  This peaceful protest was begun by Pastor Christian Fuehrer at St. Nicolaikirche in Leipzig.  This persistent protest eventually resulted in the pulling down of “the Wall” and the fall of Communist occupation in the Russian sector of East Germany.  (One point he made about their strategy is that people carried lit candles because this would preclude violence.  When you’re watching your candle to make sure you don’t burn yourself or start a fire, you’re not going to lash out at other people when they taunt you or attempt to incite your anger!)

Renate Skirl

            Our second tour hostess from Christian Tours, Renate Skirl, sat down with us one morning at the Colleg Wittenberg and told us her story as a child growing up as a Christian during the Communist regime.  By being a Christian and refusing to join “The Party,” she was isolated. ( Although there were about 12 in her confirmation class – taught by the pastor, the others participated in the Jugendweihe [communist confirmation] and were confirmed one year later.  She was the only person being confirmed in 1968 at the Castle Church in Wittenberg).  Such separation from peers is particularly difficult for a teenager who likes to be one of the “in-group!”  As an adult, when, as a divorced mom, she needed income, the fact that she didn’t list any Communist party affiliation could have prevented her from  getting  the job she had applied for. Fortunately someone who interviewed her liked her experience and her attitude, so she was hired for the position she wanted and was qualified for, anyway.   Now she has adult children and six grandchildren, one born just before Christmas 2012.

1989 – 2013

After The Wall came down, other than reuniting of family members, or going to visit relatives from whom they had been forcibly separated for forty years, there was not much “crossing of the lines” between East Germany and West Germany.   There is an invisible separation between East Germans and West Germans in terms of self-identity. There hasn’t been much desire for East Germans to leave their homeland and migrate to the West, nor for West Germans to move to the East, even though they are now free to do so.   They are loyal to the homes of their ancestors, and once freed to come and go as they pleased, they chose to stay to reclaim their homeland and national identity, to improve themselves and their lives.

On my husband and my tour to Berlin and Potsdam in 1994, we saw everywhere the landscape of bombed out buildings, which had not been repaired since 1945, and were further deteriorated by lack of upkeep during Communist occupation.   In 2013, we saw only one building in that condition – it had been left that way deliberately to show tourists and passers-by what had once been, before freed East Berliners had opportunity to repair or replace the damaged buildings.   Seeing a single building with bullet/bomb holes in it in 2013 didn’t have the same impact of “war zone damage” as did seeing blocks of buildings everywhere in that condition, in 1994.  What was impressive in 1994 was that, despite the exterior condition of these buildings, nearly all the windows displayed white lace curtains!

In a quarter of a century of relative freedom and growth, the East German people have not only renovated their physical infrastructure of bombed-out buildings; but have also gained self-respect and dignity, finding meaningful and fruitful employment.  Now at last they need not be ashamed, but proud to be German.  Even more to the point, they say, “I am proud to be East German.”

Proud to be German

      I respect the East German people greatly.  These, our hosts, were everyday, ordinary friendly people – with dignity, self-respect and integrity, just like any other people we know or meet or encounter anywhere here at home.  Often I forgot that I wasn’t at home in the USA and that I was actually abroad, on foreign soil– until we began to order food, or to ask assistance in the stores.  The language gap is more pronounced in East Germany, where older people learned Russian in school, whereas West Germans had learned English or French as second language and “serving tourist” language.  Most Americans visit Europe but don’t speak the languages of the European countries we visit. Some folks in East Germany still speak Russian, not English, as second language.

There is a Jewish population in Germany now, but understandably small.  Not many survivors or their families chose to return after World War II.  They had nothing left and no one to come back to–only terrifying memories.  We visited the Jewish Museum in Berlin very briefly, but found this to be one place in Germany where security precautions are still on high alert level.

We were told that tour guides in the concentration camps and other historic Holocaust sites (like White Rose, Flossenburg, and Buchenwald,) may sometimes seem reticent because it is too difficult to allow their emotions to become involved in what they are doing.  They need to stick to facts.  Most cannot last very long in this work – probably two or three years at a maximum.  It becomes too overwhelming, too emotionally draining.  It takes its toll.

Among the storytellers, we met with Renate Wind, who has lectured here at WTS on a couple of occasions, and was interviewed here by Persistent Voice staff last fall.  She spent about an hour and a half with us talking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the German Resistance movement of World War II., when we visited the Coliseum museum memorial at Nuremberg.

What impresses me is that the East German people are telling the story.  They are healing by telling it.  They are not hiding the facts.  They are not hiding the past.  They are not hiding their history.  They are not denying the facts and saying it didn’t happen.  These story-tellers are honest and open, and they are doing a superb job in educating – not only their children, but also our children, younger generations and tourists from foreign countries, including their former enemies.

It is very important that these landmarks, these prison camps and concentration camps and the atrocities, which happened here, are preserved and kept as reminders and memorials to those who suffered and died here, as tangible facts of history, so that people from everywhere will know what happened here and understand what is important and how much impact our human relationships have on each other!    We are all together one – one human family with same good strengths, hopes and aspirations, emotional feelings, and vulnerabilities, and weaknesses.  I saw us all as one in human nature.  In much of what we saw, we are one even as Lutheran Christians despite our differing national histories.

These story tellers and these museums and these landmarks must be kept in place now, for very soon those of us who remember the Nazi era – whether Nazi, Germans, enemies or “Allies,” – will be gone.  The men who actually fought in  World War ll are now in their 90’s, and those of us who were children in elementary school at that time are now in our 80’s, or late 70′s.  It will  be only  the stories we write, tell, and pass on to the younger generations that will educate people as to what happened.  If we do not hand down the stories, these realities will too soon be forgotten.

PERSISTENT FOR PEACE by Tammy Barthels, M.Div. Middler and Prof. Norma Cook Everist

“It is a delight to come home to Wartburg. Wartburg has strengthened me and formed me in who I am today.”

Dr. Winston Persaud introduced her Excellency Marie Jilo Barnett to the Wartburg community at a dinner given in her honor this Spring.  Appointed in 2008, she is Sierra Leone’s first female ambassador to Liberia, as well as to Core d’Ivoire. Marie studied at Wartburg from 1990 to 1994, when she received her M.Div. degree.

Reverend Barnett was passionate and invoked hope with each word that she spoke about teaching men and women to co-exist in the Image of God. “It is possible,” she said.

Ambassador Barnett is zealous about negotiating peace and promoting women. She was the first Lutheran woman to be ordained in Western Africa. Her position as Ambassador is about building bridges between Liberia and Sierra Leone; this, she said, is the essence of her appointment.

She encourages women to take action. “Do what you can. Avoid Chaos. Pray with one another, do not pray alone. Get everyone of all races and religions involved. Say ‘NO’ to injustice.”

Ambassador Barnett is called to serve. She did not campaign, nor did she join a political party. She is doing what she believes is hers to do. She depends on her faith and is strong in prayer. “Seek the kingdom and all will be given to you.” Her faith gives her the strength to sit on parliament and represent women and their rights.  She believes strength comes when women come together and support one another. She said, “We do not do it on our own.”  She is involved with a network of women: women lawyers, women doctors, and women from the market. “Together we make a difference. In the nothingness that we have, we share, and we have much.”

Marie has seen a lot of hardship and constantly worked in ministries of reconciliation.  She sees the need to build bridges of peace.  In her role now as Ambassador and also through Lutheran World Federation she has had many opportunities to serve.  “God has been with me everywhere I have been all over the world.”

Ambassador Barnett had worked with Laymeh Gbowoee, well-known Lutheran laywoman who led the peace-movement in Liberia. She said to Gbowe, “Don’t sit alone.” Barnett and other women supported the women from Liberia in the peace talks. Ambassador Barnett now works with Liberian President Serlief. Gbowe and Serlief both became Nobel Peace Prize recipients.

When asked what is most important for her theologically, Ambassador Barnett said, “Justification by grace through faith.  If we have faith, the Holy Spirit will guide us.” She told of times when she needed to speak publicly in crucial diplomatic situations.  “The Holy Spirit would guide my words.  Be strong in prayer.”

Marie’s husband, Tom, also received his M.Div from Wartburg in 1994 and now serves as the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierre Leone.  Dr. Dan Olson, WTS professor emeritus, preached at their ordination in Sierre Leone.  In a church of lay leadership, the Barnetts were the first to be ordained.   Marie served as pastor of Faith Community Lutheran Church, Freetown.

While at Wartburg Marie said that she and Tom were welcomed and supported as international students.  She said, “The international students saw some American students for whom ends did not meet.”  Together with others started the food pantry for students , which continues to this day.

When asked about the demands of her busy life, Marie responded, “When I’m helping people, I’m revived.”  She  concluded with Christ’s mandate: “Go and baptize all nations. Do not be afraid. I will be with you to the end of the age.”

From 1996 – 2002 Marie was a member of Parliament in Sierre Leonne, serving on various Committees asfollows:

1. Foreign Affairs and International

Cooperation Founded the Network of Women Ministers and Parliamentarians and served as Vice President.

2. Health and Environment Pioneered the settingup of the National AIDS Secretariate.

3. Education – Participated in the oversight that saw the University of Sierra Leone

locate campuses in the different Geographical Regions.

4. Defence – The only female member of the drafting committee of the much celebrated

“Lome Peace Accord” that brought lasting peace to Sierra Leone in 2002.

5. Works and Infrastructure – Pioneered the setting up of the Social Action for Poverty

Alleviation under the National Commission for Re-integration, Repatriation and Resettlement.

6. Social Welfare, Gender and Children

Set up the network of women Ministers

SUNITHA MORTHA: MISSION AND ACCOMPANIMENT by Carina Schiltz, second year M.Div.

SUNITHA MORTHA: MISSION AND ACCOMPANIMENT by Carina Schiltz, second year M.Div.

Sunitha Mortha, Director of Mission Formation in the Global Mission Unit of the ELCA, visited Wartburg this Spring and talked about our calling as followers of Christ and learning what it means to accompany others in a diverse world.

If you’ve attended a “Glocal Gathering” you might have heard Sunitha’s humorous, direct, and compassionate words. She highlighted the importance of going “back to the basics” and relating “God’s story, my story, and your story.” First of all, how do we understand God’s story? Based on this understanding, how do we place ourselves in this story? How do we view the “other” in relation to our understanding of the story? Sunitha said, “Now, try doing all this reflecting without putting yourself in God’s place.”

She went on to ask, “Where are the other Lutherans in the world?” Countries with more than five million include the usual answers: Germany, the United States and Sweden. But one also needs to include in that number, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Indonesia!

Sunitha asked the audience, “How does your church understand its place in God’s story? Are churches looking only inward? Do they think about what’s happening on synodical levels? Community levels? National levels? International levels? People, congregations, seminaries, synods are not separate: they work together. How does your congregation/seminary partner with other people and organizations? In other words…how does this relate to ‘mission’?”

One way people view mission is through their culture’s, community’s, or congregation’s narrative about origin and destination. This narrative informs how mission is understood and the purpose of mission. For an example, Sunitha explained that if the dominant destination narrative of a community is heaven/hell, there is a certain way one understands oneself and the “other” and where they belong. When there is a separating line between “us” and “them,” it is not difficult to see which place we’ll designate for “them”.

Those we categorize as “them” or “other” could be for any number of reasons, but the number one reason is that, somehow, they are “different” from us.

Diversity sometimes causes fight or flight because we are socialized to learn that the way we do things is the good/right/normal/true way. If “we” do things the “normal” way, what “the other” does is considered “abnormal.” Unfortunately, the history of missions has included the transfer of cultural and national values, which has been very damaging to the “receiving” culture. Those in the dominant culture see others as needing to “evolve” in order to “catch up.”

Hopefully, our communities and congregations can understand that the defining question in mission is not, “How does one categorize/define/change the other to be like us?”  but rather, “How does one engage the other?” First, we have to take out the barriers between “my” story and “your” story. There is much that informs a person’s being that is deeper than meets the eye.

Sunitha offered a very relevant caution: a danger in the ELCA, and in many facets of life, is to surround ourselves only with like-minded people, ideologies, theologies, and thereby focus only on ourselves, rather than resting in justification. While we cannot hold all our differences, uniqueness, cultures, sub-cultures, and everything in one’s being in tension with another’s, God can.

She asked, “What if your community doesn’t look diverse, or what if it has no ‘others’? There is plenty of diversity, whether it be invisible to the eye or visible; there are others, outsiders, and many people who need to hear the liberating proclamation of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If one’s congregation is not visibly diverse, one can think cross-generationally. “Start with what diversity is present,” she said. Accompaniment happens every day! Mission isn’t always about going “over there.”It’s about engagement, wherever one is.

If you want more information, visit the ELCA’s website on Glocal Gatherings near you.

http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Global-Mission/Engage-in-Global-Mission/Global-Events/Glocal-Mission-Gatherings.aspx

YOU HAVE STOLEN THEIR SOULS by Jean Peterson, WTS Archivist volunteer

YOU HAVE STOLEN THEIR SOULS by Jean Peterson, 2nd installment

By the time we visited the cemetery in Herrnhut, we had already visited the White Rose memorial museum in Munich, and had spent a long morning the day before at the Flossenburg concentration camp, where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed 9 April 1945.

When “new” prisoners were brought through the gates into Flossenburg concentration camp, if they asked when they would get out of this place, they were told frankly, “in about six weeks” … “You’ll be sent to the quarry to work, and in six weeks, you’ll be dead!”

At intake, the prisoners were herded into a large shower room, stripped of their clothing and any other personal possessions they had managed to retain until that time. They were stripped of their identity. They could no longer use their names. They were given numbers. At daily roll call, they had to answer immediately with that number. If they faltered, they had to start all over again. They were forced to stand at attention in all weather conditions. They were assigned ranks and a patch placed on their blue and white striped uniforms to identify them based on a hierarchical “caste system” classification, determined by who was considered most despicable or most to be degraded. There is now a sign at the shower room that says in essence, “You have stolen not only their clothes, but their souls.”

Professor em. Dan Olson writes about dehumanization: “The function of propaganda and spreading prejudice against groups of people is to dehumanize the ‘enemy,’ whoever that may be. Only when we look upon ‘the other’ as sub-human (as authorized by government propaganda or religious authorities), can ‘good’ people commit or tolerate such cruelties against the “inferior them” that we could not bring ourselves to do to other ‘human beings.’” (Dan Olson in “Evolution & Christian Understanding of Human Nature. 2002-2009 ) The groups of people who were dehumanized by the Nazis included not only prisoners of war (foreigners) but also Jews, the handicapped, homosexuals, “gypsies,’ and those of the “inner circle” who betrayed the Third Reich (“enemies of the State.”)

Children in U.S. schools during World War II were taught prejudice through government-authorized propaganda. We were taught that Germans and Japanese were evil – of the Devil. Posters caricaturized the enemy – particularly the “Japs” and Hitler. We were taught that Hitler was the most evil of men; but the “Japs” were far more dangerous. They were so “inhuman” that they glorified suicide and therefore were not afraid to go into combat to kill our men because they weren’t afraid to die in the process. They had no human feelings, or emotions, so they could tear us apart without giving it a second glance. We tend to overlook our inhumane treatment of the American Nisei in the containment camps in our Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in the United States.
In Neuendettelsau at the end of our trip, Sister Ruth spoke to us about the Deaconesses and teachers having been pressured by government (Third Reich) authorities into allowing their students to be loaded onto busses the government sent to take them away for “special education” or for “medical treatments” “for their good.” Martin Luther’s teaching that obeying the authority of government is a part of following the commandment to “Honor thy father and thy mother,” has been cited as a factor in their submission to government authority in this situation. Amidst tears of protest, children were torn away from those they trusted. One woman from town grabbed a child off the bus and kept him. I think they escaped or survived somehow, but I wondered what eventually became of them. The Sisters and teachers were deeply grieved later to learn that they had been betrayed, and that their wards had been tortured and executed in Holocaust.

Luther’s opinions on the Jews didn’t help. We Lutherans, collectively, still bear the guilt of believing what Luther wrote about the Jews. I came into the Lutheran Church as a young adult. I recall saying, “I’m not a genuine Lutheran, because I don’t agree with everything Luther wrote,” specifically, about the Jews. The ELCA recently issued an apology for Luther’s anti-Jewish remarks. Those apologies are words. How can simple words, much too late, salve or heal the wounds we (or our forebears) have inflicted on our neighbors for centuries?
German Resistance movements
Some of the German people did not sit passively by and accept Nazi Socialism and its atrocities. There was a resistance movement in Germany. This was the period of the emergence of the “Confessing Church.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer was prominent among these. Wartburg Seminary Professor Paul Leo belonged to the Confessing Church from the beginning. He was among those fortunate enough to escape the concentration camps and to have left Germany.

The young people, students in Germany did hear; did know what was happening. University students like White Rose martyrs in the German resistance movement risked their lives to spread the truth to the people who were being taken in by the Nazi propaganda. A young woman, Sophie Scholl, and her brother Hans Scholl gave their lives to the cause one Sunday afternoon by distributing leaflets to tell German citizens what was really happening. They were seized at the scene, “tried” on the spot, convicted, and executed within about two hours’ time, without even notification to their parents.

We worshipped at St. George Church in Eisenach on January 20 this year. An International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated annually on January 27, not only in Germany and neighboring countries of Eastern Europe, but world-wide. January 27,1945, was the day that the Dachau camp was liberated. Both President Obama and Pope Benedict published remarks on this occasion in 2013. Some groups mark April 6-7 as a day of Remembrance for Holocaust victims.

THE OPPOSITE OF INVISIBLE by Tera Lowe, 2nd year M.Div

How many times did I hear “Oh, you’re getting married in Jamaica? How exciting!” No, not exciting at all. Not the way you think. Exciting because I was  marrying a man I fell in love with eleven years ago, with whom I had lost contact but never forgot.  Now he has three children and I’m excited because I have no children and now I am able to be a step-mother. But not exciting, because I was able to spend only six weeks with them before I came back to school alone. We won’t all be together permanently for about five years. Not exciting because I was not having a “destination wedding.” I, a privileged white American, while I was there,  would be staying in the bush with no indoor plumbing with people who know what it is like to go to bed hungry.

In my world, I usually don’t receive a second glance when I’m out shopping, in a restaurant, or just walking around. I can go around as if I am invisible, only attracting attention and initiating conversations when I want to. But in Jamaica, I was the opposite of invisible.

In the span of six weeks, from the time I left the airport upon my arrival to the time I hopped in the taxi to return to the airport for my departure, I saw about five other white people. When I walked from shop to shop in the middle of Montego Bay, everyone looked at me because I wasn’t supposed to be there. When I stood still long enough, the store security guard usually came to stand next to me. When I paid for our purchases, the cashiers looked to my husband before looking at me, as if waiting for him, a Jamaican, to say that it was ok to interact with me. I was a female, white, American, and everyone knew that someone like me didn’t shop there.

No one was rude to me, but no one talked to me. People would stare at me, but nobody really made eye contact. This was the way it was not just in the inner city, but also in the bush where we lived. The house was not located on a major road that would lead from one tourist area to another, so there was no reason for a white person to pass by, even in a vehicle.

Children wanted to touch me and hug me, but adults would not speak to me unless I was introduced. I walked the same road a few times each week, and every time I would have to wave and say hello before anyone would acknowledge me. I was a sight to behold, I gathered by the response of people walking by to reach the river. If I was outside, heads would turn to look at me in the yard. If I was hollering to the kids I really drew the attention of a passersby, and even more so if I was outside hanging up laundry. I was doing the things a woman there would do, but I wasn’t a woman from there.

Jamaicans speak Patois, and they speak fast. Not knowing all of what the words mean, I could pick up on some of the conversation because it is mixed with a lot of English words. People having conversations with my husband would sometimes be particularly kind to me and speak English so I could be included.  But more often, as if I wasn’t there, they would speak in a way that I could not understand. I don’t think they meant to be rude; however, it made for some very lonely times when I would be standing in full view of the person speaking to my husband and not be able to participate in the conversation.

I thought long and I thought often of those who say things like, “If you are going to come to America, you have to learn the language.” I was in a country where, for the most part, I could speak the language, yet could not understand what was being said. The same can be said for those who speak English as a second language. In America we use words that do not carry the original meaning or have multiple meanings, and we have made up words by melding some words together. Speaking English doesn’t necessarily mean that you will understand me just because we are both in America.

Language wasn’t the only thing that caused me to feel invisible while in full view of all of Jamaica. My white privilege definitely caused me to stick out while also causing some distance between me and others. When I arrived, we had to buy a shower curtain for the outdoor bathing room so that the neighbors couldn’t see me out there. When the water stopped running in the drought conditions, I was not expected to go bathe in the river because I wasn’t used to being naked in front of strangers. Plates were purchased shortly after I arrived, but I was the only one served on a plate. These are just a few examples of ways that I was set apart from others because of who I am.

I would like to tell you that I would happily agree to give up all my modern conveniences and move to Jamaica to be with my husband and kids, but I don’t think I could. It was ok when I knew it was temporary, but the idea of living that way all the time is frightening. There would have to be some changes in their lives before I could move there, changes that would bring them out of their way of life and start to move them into mine. Like into a place with indoor plumbing, which would mean moving out of their home. They would do that for me, and in fact have agreed to move to the U.S. when they can, which means giving up everything they know and love. Could I do the same?

No matter if I give up everything I know or not, when I am there I could give up all but one thing: I cannot stop being a female, white, American. Even if I changed my citizenship, people would hear me speak and know where I’m from. They would see my skin and there would be expectations: they would think I expected certain actions and behaviors from them, and they would expect certain actions and behaviors from me in return. No matter how long I were to live there, no matter if everyone in the bush got to know me, no matter if I learned all the Patois and could keep up with and be a part of all conversations, I would still be the opposite of invisible. But maybe that’s just the way I would feel because when I’m there I am always going to be different.

PART 1: HEALING, HOPE. RESILIENCE: PROUD TO BE (EAST) GERMAN! by Jean E. Peterson, WTS

By Jean E. Peterson, ELCA Region 5 Archivist Volunteer, WTS

Our tour guide told us candidly that there was a time when his fellow citizens were so beaten down and shamed, with very little opportunity for self-realization, taking pride in one’s work, or developing any dignity or healthy self-respect, that they could not want to admit to their national identity as Germans.  He reminded us that only in the last quarter of the past century  have the East German people been able to say, not only, “I am Proud to be German,” but furthermore “I am Proud to be East German.”  Our guide, Christian Eggert is owner-operator of Christian Tours Europe and of College Wittenberg which was home for ten nights of our Wartburg Seminary J-term trip to Germany, “Germany:  Luther, Pietists, andBonhoeffer.”

Germany 1914-1932

To understand the significance of German people’s resilience and newfound pride in their present achievements, one must take into account the history of these people since 1914.  For 75 of those years, East Germany was under oppression of war or foreign domination.  As strongly as U. S. President Wilson was opposed to U.S. involvement in World War I., when it did eventually happen, Wilson was just as adamant that Germany should be punished for this war.  The Versailles Treaty demanded that all Germans take responsibility for that war. It made them pay heavy reparations to other nations for war damages, leading to excessive, impossible inflation for individuals and families.  This period of degradation, designed to suppress and humiliate the German people, gave birth to and facilitated the growth and domination of the National Socialist party, led by Adolph Hitler, who took office as Fuhrer in 1933.

1933-1945

Many times and in many places throughout our trip, we encountered signs or banners reading “1933-1945.”  The most impressive of these to me was a “broken” marker in the Herrnhut Cemetery, a stone carved in two pieces with a “crack” running diagonally through these numbers.

Of course, the ubiquitous display of 1933-1945 was meant to denote the rise and power of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Regime (Third Reich) in Germany.

1933-1945 also marks the emergence of the Confessing Church, and the German Resistance movement.  These years mark the span of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s significant ministry – from his speaking out on the radio against the Hitler Regime in February 1933, to his execution in April 1945.

Running concurrently with all these things, across the ocean, the years 1933-1945 define the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) administration in the USA.

For me, every time I saw “1933-1945,” I felt a strong personal twinge.  These were the first 12 years of my life!   Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only President I had ever known.   He was elected in 1932 and inaugurated in 1933 before I was born.  I was almost 12 when he died on 12 April 1945– a day I clearly remember.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged just three days prior to FDR’s death.

 

More of Jean Peterson’s reflections will follow in future blog posts.

SORTING THROUGH HUNGER MYTHS by Christa Fisher, M.Div. Middler

This past summer, while hosting the ELCA World Hunger Table at the Dane County Farmer’s Market, I met many people who questioned our mission of eradicating hunger.  It wasn’t the extent of the hunger epidemic they doubted – more than 1 billion people  are food-insufficient – rather they were skeptical of our ability to achieve our mission.  The question I commonly confronted was “How can ELCA World Hunger successfully reduce hunger when the demand for food far outweighs the supply?” This question is based on two faulty suppositions about the causes of hunger – overpopulation and an inadequate food supply.

There are many widely believed myths about hunger, yet the reality is that hunger is caused by poverty.  People are food insufficient when they lack the resources necessary to purchase or grow food for themselves or their families. While overpopulation and climate change may exacerbate global hunger, they are not primary causes.  People with financial means have access to food, regardless of their family size or the severity of weather in their local community.  Reducing poverty is fundamental to the fight against hunger.  Therefore, ELCA World Hunger’s anti-poverty ministries, such as increased access to education, job training, and micro-loan programs, are core components of our anti-hunger initiatives.

Holly Poole-Kavana of the Institute for Food and Development Policy debunks the top three hunger myths, demonstrating poverty to be the predominate cause of the global hunger epidemic.

Myth1: Not Enough Food to Go Around

Reality: Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world’s food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn’t even count many other commonly eaten foods – ­vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish.   The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food.  Even most “hungry countries” have enough food for all their people right now.  Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.

Myth2: Nature is to Blame for Famine

Reality: While human-made forces are making people increasingly vulnerable to nature’s vagaries, food is always available for those who can afford it.  Starvation during hard times hits only the poorest. Natural events rarely explain deaths; they are simply the final push over the brink. Human institutions and policies determine who eats and who starves during hard times. Likewise, in America many homeless die from the cold every winter, yet ultimate responsibility doesn’t lie with the weather. The real culprits are an economy that fails to offer everyone opportunities, and a society that places economic efficiency over compassion.

Myth 3: Too Many People

Reality: Birth rates are falling rapidly worldwide as remaining regions of the Third World begin the demographic transition – ­when birth rates drop in response to an earlier decline in death rates. Although rapid population growth remains a serious concern in many countries, nowhere does population density explain hunger. For every Bangladesh, a densely populated and hungry country, we find a Nigeria, Brazil or Bolivia, where abundant food resources coexist with hunger. Or we find a country like the Netherlands, where very little land per person has not prevented it from eliminating hunger and becoming a net exporter of food. Rapid population growth is not the root cause of hunger. Like hunger itself, it results from underlying inequities that deprive people, especially poor women, of economic opportunity and security.  (www.foodfirst.org/node/1480; April 9, 2006)

Christa, besides being a student at Wartburg, is currently employed as the ELCA World Hunger Intern for the ELCA South Central Synod of Wisconsin and this article was written as part of her work for the synod.

To learn more about the myths and root causes of hunger checkout World Hunger: Twelve Myths, 2^nd Edition by Francis Moore Lappe, Joseph Collins, and Peter Rosset (New York: Grove Press, 1998).

More information on ELCA World Hunger’s anti-poverty ministries can be found at http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Responding-to-the-World/ELCA-World-Hunger/Stories.aspx

A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE by Tammy Barthels, M.Div. Middler

A group of Wartburg women students met with Dr. Arnfriður Guðmundsdóttir, professor at the University of Iceland, over lunch while she visited the seminary and discussed women in ministry. Following is a summary of that discussion:

Our experience shapes our theology. People assume if we are interested in a topic it has been our experience, but that is not always necessarily true.

What is Feminist Theology and how do we raise this controversial topic? A feminist perspective does not mean women strive to be over men; it means working towards equality.

Changing behaviors and habits is difficult. There is a resistance to learning new theology. What are the issues? What are the fears? We need to begin by listening. What are the realities for men? What are the realities for women? We need to ask ourselves and each other, “What are our dreams for partnership with each other?”

Women need to be in solidarity with each other. “We need to stay awake!” said Arnfriður. Women need to work together, not against one another. Women need to find a common ground where they can meet.  Arnfriður suggested that perhaps that common ground is Liturgy. “There seems to be a large gap between the theology we are doing and the liturgy we are practicing.”

The group laughed when Professor Guðmundsdóttir spoke of a newspaper headline: “Too bad women can’t chant.”   She said, “The reality is we need to open up discussion with musicians to work with ordained women. We need music that is more appropriate for women’s voices.”

Times are changing, slowly, but Iceland has just experienced a new reality. For the first time in history Iceland has a woman presiding bishop. Actually there were three new bishops elected within this past year. The women clergy spoke to the bishop and asked: “How can we help you? We are not here to impose but we want to assist where we can.”

The truth be told, there is a shortage of positions for pastors in Iceland. “We need to become aware of this reality,” she said. She spoke also about the need to move from a hierarchical church towards a church of shared power and partnership.

Student Christa Fisher asked Professor Guðmundsdóttir: “Where do we go from here?” Arnfriður responded: “Continue to find opportunities where you can speak, for example the confirmation rally where you spoke, Christa. Speak to the young women; tell them our stories. Don’t give in or give up. It is all of our responsibilities to make a change!”

WHEN CHRIST BECOMES CHRISTA by Arnfríður Guðmundsdóttir

When Christ becomes Christa
The importance of a contextualization of the cross-event
By Arnfríður Guðmundsdóttir
Excerpts of a lecture presented at Wartburg Seminary, November 13, 2012

Full lecture here: When Christ becomes Christa

As a key symbol of the Christian faith, the cross symbolizes God’s participation in human suffering and death. An empty cross signifies, on the other hand, the resurrection, or the important message about the final victory of life, over suffering and death. When the cross is interpreted particularly in light of women’s experience, it signifies God’s compassion with women, who suffer, amongst other things, because of domestic and/or sexual violence. Sometimes this compassion (or co-suffering) is portrayed in a female body on the cross.

In the past the cross has sometimes been used to discourage people from resisting injustice. When the cross is understood as a symbol of kenosis  of patriarchy, the self-emptying of male dominating power, the power of the cross becomes the power of love instead of the power of control.

For centuries women’s has been justified, based on the idea of its salvific meaning. Despite the abuse of theological arguments in order to justify women’s suffering, women have been able to experience Jesus’ solidarity with them not only in their suffering but also in their fight against unjust causes of their suffering. This is why the christological question, “Who do you say I am?” receives a response with yet another dimension, when answered from the perspective of women’s experience of suffering. Hence, the Christ who sided with women as “the oppressed of the oppressed” reminds us that also today the knowledge of God is to be discerned in the midst of suffering. By identifying with the suffering women, the foreigner, the deserted, the sick, and the social outcast of our time, we are identifying with Christ among us.[i] At the same time we are participating in God’s ongoing struggle against injustice, inequality, and oppression.

The power of the cross is not to be understood on the basis of our knowledge of power as control. The power of the cross is the power of life, as both unexpected and ongoing.

Christa – a Crucified Woman

Since the mid-seventies a number of images of a crucified female Christ (often referred to as Christa) have stimulated interesting discussions about contemporary interpretations of the passion story. Christa-figures have pushed for important discussions about the meaning of the contextualization of the Christ-event, especially the gender-question.

Christ as Christa liberates not by condoning the suffering of abused women, or proclaiming that there is an innate redemptive quality in it; but by being present with and sharing in the brokenness, identifying this as the priority for God’s healing love, Christ gives hope, empowers and enables the process of resistance.[ii]

Indifference is truly something we should worry about in our western societies. All of us have probably heard stories about people passing by, instead of helping those who have been assaulted or hurt and need help. Those stories remind us of the story of the good Samaritan, when the priest and the Levite saw him lying there “half dead” and decided to pass by without helping him (Lúk 10.30-37). Too often people do hesitate to intervene when they are witnessing violence of some sort taking place next door – because they don’t want to intrude on people’s privacy. They also hesitate to intervene when somebody is being bullied, maybe because they are afraid of risking being bullied themselves.

Compassion- to be able to feel with somebody, can be passive, meaning to express solidarity,to listen to and to offer to go along with the one who is in pain, which can prove invaluable for the one who feels left alone in his or her suffering. But compassion can also be active, encouraging resistance and not submission to injustice. We have examples of both in the gospel stories. This is why imitatio Christi, or to follow Christ’s example, can either mean to suffer with the suffering one (com-passio) or to stand up and resist, hoping that eventually justice will prevail. Sometimes we need to be creative in order to come up with effective ways to practice nonviolent resistance, like Jesus certainly was.

There has always been a strong tendency to silence women’s experience, particularly their experience of oppression and abuse. Churches and other faith communities have been slow in responding to the danger many women are faced with, due to violence and abusive behavior. Initiatives by large church communities have signaled an increasing awareness of the problem. As a follow-up to the Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women 1988-1998, the World Council of Churches (WCC) decided to confront the challenge of violence directly, by establishing a Decade to Overcome Violence: Churches Seeking Reconciliation and Peace, (2001-2010).[iii] While the WCC focused on manifold expressions of violence, violence perpetrated against women and children was among their central concerns. Bishop Margot Kässmann in her book Overcoming Violence. The Challenge to the Churches in All Places: “The inability of churches to deal with domestic violence is one of clearest indicators of the urgency of a Decade to Overcome Violence for the churches.”[iv]

Following the WCC’s initiative, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), in its document Churches say ‘NO’ to Violence against Women. Action Plan for the Churches from 2002, called its member churches to act on behalf of violated women. By offering this contribution to the WCC decade against violence, LWF sought to direct the focus of the international church community to the effect violence is having on women in their home as well as in the church and the society at large. In the foreword to the document the General Secretary of LWF, Ishmael Noko, depicts violence against women as a theological problem, and not simply a social one. Noko writes: “When those who are victimized suffer, so does God. Let us work together to overcome all forms of violence that are an offense against God and humanity.”[v]

A cross from El Salvador was painted in memory of María Cristina Gómez. Here we see a close relationship between the cross event and the resurrection. Without the resurrection, the cross remains an example of one more victim of evil; of  one more person who lost her/his life life for a good cause.  That is why it is crucial to keep the close relationship between the cross and our hope for the final victory of life over death, good over evil.

María Gomez spent her life fighting for a better living conditions for women in El Salvador. She particularly cared about women who were victims of rape or suffered from domestic violence. Among other things, she taught them to read. Eventually Gómez was murdered by her opponents in the year of 1989. This cross is a sign of hope because of the story told by the pictures of the cross. It is a sign of hope for those who want to improve the living conditions of  victims of violence and abuse. This is not only a story of the power of evil amongst us, and the sufferings caused by it; but a story of the power of non-violent resistence. It is also an encouragement to follow to imitatio Christi, not to give up, but to stand up and resist evil, holding on to our hope that good will eventually prove stronger than evil.

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[i] Mt 25.31-46.

[ii]  Quoted by Clague, see ibid., 106.

[iii]  See: http://overcomingviolence.org/

[iv]  Kässmann, Overcoming Violence, 45.

[v]  Churches Say ‘No’ to Violence against Women. Action Plan for the Churches, 5.

ICELANDIC WOMEN TALK ABOUT THEIR MINISTRY by Tammy Barthels, M.Div. Middler

Three women pastors from Iceland were part of a group of 14 (12 pastors and 2 spouses) on Wartburg’s campus this past week for the Center for Global Theologies Icelandic Pastors Academy. They led and participated in many presentations. Midweek, Rev. Halldóra Þorvarðardóttir, Rev. Hulda Hrönn M. Helgadóttir, and Rev. Jóhanna Sigmarsdóttir led a lunch-time discussion on women in ministry, saying that women were always a part of the history of the church.

Hulda shared some background saying that many women were mentioned in the early letters of the church. She told a story of visiting a very old church building where many images were of women: angels depicted as women; Mary the Mother of Jesus; and female leaders of the church. Women held positions of prominence before the Church of Rome was built and a patriarchal influence became the norm. When did women vanish from the forefront of the church? This is uncertain; however in 1974 women started to return to leadership in Iceland and the first woman was ordained.

How have women’s roles changed in the church of Iceland? Today there are sixty women pastors in Iceland; approximately 40% of the pastors of the Lutheran Church in Iceland are women. Iceland has recently ordained their first woman bishop, Reverand Agnes Sigurðardóttir.

There was not a theological argument against women belonging in the church, but it was difficult because it was a male dominated field, said the Icelandic women. However, women saw it as natural to want to become ordained priests.
Halldora, a Dean of the Church of Iceland advised: “Be who you are. Don’t think about being a man or a woman, but be yourself. She said it is good to have women in leadership. It does however change the cooperative leadership. Women are not afraid to admit that they don’t know everything. Men don’t show their vulnerability; they need to look strong and can’t look fragile or they will appear weak. Men think of their roles differently.”

At the lunch meeting many men as well as women participated in the discussion. Both the women and men from Iceland agreed that there has been a change in the last decade. Women are now senior pastors and with a woman as Bishop, things will continue to change. They said, “This is the first time in history that we heard the Bishop talk about the weaknesses of a Bishop, maybe because she doesn’t have a ‘power struggle.’ There is no history behind her.” It is too early to judge if this will change the church of Iceland; however they are on a new path.

Where was the turning point for women in Iceland? They all agreed it came with the first women president of the country, elected in 1980. June 19th was designated as Women’s Day with women gathering in the streets to support women’s equality.

Halldora lifted up that equality is for both genders not just the women. “We need to remember that this is not about women taking over, but sharing in the roles of leadership. Equality will become a non-issue when we do not have to think, talk or do anything about it. Respect is the beginning of equality.”