LWI News in Brief No. 02/2006
- Commission Proposes Ending Norway's State-Church System - Historical Agreement Between Middle East Lutheran and Reformed Churches - Former Director of LWF Refugee Services Stewart Herman Dies - Zambian John Nduna to Head ACT International Coordinating Office - Lutheran Information Network Sub-regional Coordinator Pierre Djaboule Dies - Kristi Bangert Is Executive Director, ELCA Communication Services
Commission Proposes Ending Norway's State-Church System
A majority of members on a government-appointed multi-party commission with representatives of different denominations and religions has recommended abolishing the current state-church system in Norway.
The 20-member commission led by a former Christian Democrat government minister, Kare Gjonnes, presented "The State and the Church of Norway" report to the minister for culture and church affairs, Trond Giske on 31 January 2006, after nearly three years of work.
The year 2013 is seen as the earliest date for a change in the [Lutheran] Church of Norway's relations to the state, as any major changes would require a revision of the country's constitution.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 church and public bodies, institutions, organizations and parties are expected to have stated their view on the matter by the end of this year. A government report to the "Storting" (parliament) is expected in late 2008.
Church of Norway, a state church since the 1537 Lutheran reformation in Denmark-Norway, has over 3.9 million members, representing 85 per cent of the country's population. It has been a Lutheran World Federation (LWF) member church since 1947.
The other LWF member church in the Nordic country, the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Norway with nearly 22,000 members, held LWF associate membership since 1997, and changed to full membership in 2005. (218 words) (Ecumenical News International)
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Historical Agreement Between Middle East Lutheran and Reformed Churches
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) and Reformed (Presbyterian and congregational) churches in the Middle East, signed an agreement of full communion, 26 January 2006. ELCJHL Bishop, Dr Munib A. Younan was among the seven church representatives who signed "The Amman Declaration - A Historical Agreement Between the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Middle East" in the Jordanian capital. It was initiated by the Fellowship of the Middle East Evangelical Churches.
Younan, who was instrumental in getting the churches to unite and agree, stressed the agreement's significance, saying "the Christian church has a crucial role to play in the Middle East."
Other churches represented include the Synod of the Nile, Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Egypt; Synod of the Evangelical Church in Iran; National Evangelical Church in Kuwait; National Evangelical Union of Lebanon; National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon; and the Union of the Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East.
An ELCJHL news release noted, "The churches have mutually recognized one another's ministries and agreed upon a declaration of faith including beliefs in the Trinitarian God, justification by faith, the sacraments and the preaching of the gospel. They have agreed to mutual participation in one another's worship, concelebration of the Sacraments, common prophetic witness for justice and peace and other joint activities that will promote ecumenical and interfaith witness and service to God's people in our lands."
The 3,000-member ELCJHL joined the LWF in 1974. (248 words)
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Former Director of LWF Refugee Services Stewart Herman Dies
The Rev. Stewart W. Herman Jr, former director of refugee services with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) died on 16 February in Greenport, New York, following illness.
Herman, 96, a retired pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), joined the staff of the newly organized LWF in 1948 as director of its Service to Refugees, based at the Geneva headquarters. In 1952, he moved to New York as executive secretary of the Division of LWF Affairs in the National Lutheran Council, and as director of the LWF Committee on Latin America.
He was the first president of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC), from 1964 until 1971.
LWF General Secretary, Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko paid tribute to Herman as "a very able director and chairperson of several Lutheran and ecumenical initiatives, through which Lutheran churches sought to respond to human need around the world." The general secretary recalled he had invited Herman to the 1997 LWF Ninth Assembly in Hong Kong, China to join in the federation's 50th anniversary celebrations, but he could not attend due to poor health at the time.
"We are thankful to God for Dr Herman's exemplary life, lived among us as a translation of what he believed," Noko added.
Herman Jr grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of Lutheran pastor, Stewart Herman. In 1930 he earned a bachelor's degree from Gettysburg College, and a bachelor of divinity degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in 1934. He studied theology at the University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France, and pursued additional graduate studies in Göttingen and Berlin, Germany. He was pastor of the American Church in Berlin, 1936-1939. He subsequently worked with the World Council of Churches in the process of formation, 1945-1948, prior to joining the LWF. Upon retirement from the LSTC in 1971, he served as a trustee of the American Bible Society, and was active with the Union Chapel, an ecumenical summer ministry on Shelter Island, New York.
Herman is survived by his wife, Ethelyn, their four children and six grandchildren. (353 words)
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Zambian John Nduna to Head ACT International Coordinating Office
Zambian relief and development worker John Nduna, takes up his new appointment as director of the Geneva-based Coordination Office of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International on 1 April 2006.
ACT, the global alliance of churches and related agencies working to save lives and support communities in humanitarian emergencies worldwide, is based with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and World Council of Churches (WCC).
Nduna, 51, is currently director of the Nairobi, Kenya-based Church Ecumenical Action in Sudan (CEAS). His humanitarian field experience includes service to refugees with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the LWF Department for World Service (DWS) field offices in Africa.
Nduna graduated from the University of Zambia in 1979 with a bachelor's degree majoring in economics, leading to a banking career, 1980-1982. He worked as a training and projects' manager with the Zambia Small Industries Development Organization, 1983-1987. He was program coordinator with the UNHCR/Zambia refugee program, 1987-1989. From 1990 until 1993, he worked as project coordinator responsible for a settlement camp of Mozambican refugees under the LWF/DWS Zambia program, the Zambia Christian Refugee Service. In 1994 he moved to the LWF/DWS program in Mozambique as a repatriation and settlement officer. From 1995 until 1999, Nduna was emergency project coordinator for the Burundi refugee program of the LWF/DWS program in Tanzania, the Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service.
He joined the ACT Geneva staff in 1999, where he was appeals officer for Europe, Central Asia and Africa, until mid-2004. He is the fourth person to lead the organization since it was established in 1995.
Nduna and his wife, Sydia, have three children. (280 words)
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Lutheran Information Network Sub-Regional Coordinator Pierre Djaboule Dies
Mr Pierre Djaboule, a planning committee member and facilitator of the Africa Lutheran Communication and Information Network (ALCINET) died on 29 January following a short illness.
As an ALCINET representative for the Lutheran Communion in Western Africa (LUCWA), Djaboule, 60, was one of the key persons working toward the re-establishment of a viable information network for Lutheran churches in Africa. He had served with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon (EELC) for 37 years, and was the communication department coordinator, at the time of his death.
Djaboule was a headmaster and teacher in church primary schools for ten years, before joining the EELC Christian Multimedia Center in 1978, where he headed the Fulani language section of Sawtu Linjiila [Radio Voice of the Gospel] for about 16 years. At a funeral service in Ngaoundéré, northern Cameroon, the president of EELC, Rev. Dr Thomas Nyiwe, described Djaboule as a courageous and dedicated servant of the church, who had made a lasting contribution to communication and education in the church, country and the LUCWA region. Pierre Djaboule is survived by his wife, Patouma Marie, their seven children and one grandchild.
The 195,000-member EELC joined the LWF in 1971. (200 words
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Kristi Bangert Is Executive Director, ELCA Communication Services
Ms Kristi S. Bangert is the new executive director for the Communication Services unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
Bangert, 59, began her four-year term on 1 February. She joined the ELCA Communication Services unit in 1997, and was director for marketing, public relations and planning. She had served as the unit's interim executive director since November 2005. In her new role, she succeeds Rev. Eric C. Shafer, who concluded his service with the churchwide organization last November, and has accepted a call to serve as senior pastor, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
Born in Minneapolis, Bangert earned a bachelor's degree from Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota in 1967. She was director of development and public relations, Lutheran Deaconess Association, Valparaiso, Indiana, 1994-1997. From 1988 until 1994, she was associate vice-president, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) Foundation.
Bangert is an active member of the American Marketing Association and was a longtime member of the Association of Lutheran Development Executives (ALDE). She served on the ALDE board of directors and was president of the ALDE's Chicago chapter, 1990-1992.
Bangert and her husband, Rev. Mark P. Bangert, have five grown children. (202 words)
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(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 140 member churches in 78 countries all over the world, with a total membership of 66.2 million. The LWF acts on behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)
[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service. Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced with acknowledgment.]
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