wfn.org | News in brief

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

* Swedish Bishop Ake Kastlund laid to rest. Bishop Ake Kastlund of the
Church of Sweden who passed away on 3 August 1999, was laid to rest in
Vaster†s on 26 August 1999. Kastlund, who died at the age of 83, was the
first Director of Church of Sweden Aid and thus closely linked to the
work of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). He also served as
chairperson of the LWF Commission on World Service from 1970 to 1977.
Among those attending Kastlund's funeral was Bishop Medardo E. Gomez
Soto from the Salvadoran Lutheran Synod. On 6 August 1986, Kastlund,
then Bishop of the Church of Sweden, consecrated Medardo Gomez as the
first bishop of the Lutheran church of El Salvador at the height of the
war in that country, an event that was a national historic highlight.
Among other activities, the late Swedish bishop worked for the LWF in
Latin America from 1952-56. He leaves behind his widow Ethel and four
children with families. Paying tribute to the late bishop, the LWF
General Secretary Dr. Ishmael Noko said: "Bishop Kastlund was a strong
advocate for the hungry and weak in the world. He chose to be 'Christ's
beggar' on behalf of the displaced, refugees and victims of disasters.
His faith was translated into Lutherhjalpens (Church of Sweden Aid)
programs of love and mercy."

* New president for church in Taiwan. Rev. Peter Yang began on 9 August
1999, his new responsibilities as the president of the Taiwan Lutheran
Church (TLC). He was elected at the church's annual General Assembly
last June. Rev Yang replaces Rev. Tung-chieh Chuang who has served as
president for the last six years. The Lutheran World Federation (LWF)
member church has a membership of 5,800 people.

* Slovak church loses key pastor. The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg
Confession in the Slovak Republic has lost one of its key pastors, the
Rev. Ondrej Prostrednik. Rev Prostrednik, aged 68, passed away on 27
August 1999 following a cerebral hemorrhage. Along with his parish
responsibilities in Piestany, Prostrednik played a significant role in
re-establishing the Association of Evangelical Pastors in Slovakia, an
organization providing continuing education and retreats for Lutheran
pastors. He served as the executive secretary of this association from
1990 to 1998. The more than 329,000-member Evangelical Church of the
Augsburg Confession in the Slovak Republic hosted the 1999 Lutheran
World Federation (LWF) Council meeting.

* A church without a mission is dead. "Mission is not something extra,
which we local church members should or could do in addition. Mission is
such an indispensable sign of life in a church, that one can say: A
church without mission is a dead church," according to Horst Hirschler,
chairman of the LWF National Committee in Germany (DNK/LWB), in the
foreword to the committee's leaflet on "Mission Today" (Mission heute).
The DNK/LWB produced this new leaflet in response to a proposal from the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Ninth Assembly in Hong Kong in 1997.
"Mission Today" is intended to encourage discussions among persons
working in local churches, but also with people distant from the church
and people of other confessions or religions. Jesus' call to mission is
connected with his command to love one's neighbor, and the spiritual and
material needs of persons should be addressed together, says the
leaflet: "This is why churches are called upon, more than ever before,
to sponsor development projects". For the churches' witness to be
credible, they must be active in human rights issues and in overcoming
poverty and violence. The leaflet "Mission Today"can be ordered free of
charge from the DNK/LWB office, P.O. Box 51 04 09, DE-30634 Hanover,
Germany. (German language only)

* Genetically engineered plants should not be cultivated on church
property. Genetically engineered plants should not be cultivated on
church property, since the harmful health and environmental consequences
cannot be avoided with certainty. Clauses such as this should be
included in contracts for the leasing of church property, according to a
recommendation from the Association of Environmental Officers (AGU) of
the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) member churches. With the help
of an expert in the area of testing, authorization and use of
genetically altered organisms in agriculture, the Chamber for
Environmental Issues of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brunswick has
been studying the question of the cultivation of genetically altered
plant species on church-owned land. In a recent statement, the Chamber
concludes that risks to health and to the environment, from the
cultivation of economically useful plants, which have been altered by
genetic engineering, cannot be excluded. However, it points out that the
risks in the case of different plant species may vary. The selection of
species for planting should be left to the leaseholders; however, in
cases where harmful side effects are suspected, a church land office may
forbid the planting of plant species altered through genetic
engineering. A minority of the Chamber members voted against this
position, and instead favored an advice in principle against the use of
plant species altered by genetic engineering and an unconditional
preference for alternative solutions.

* Bilateral Swedish-Polish cooperation. During his visit to Poland from
26 to 29 August 1999, Archbishop Karl Gustav Hammar of the Church of
Sweden was the guest of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg
Confession and its head bishop, Jan Szarek. Conversations in the church
consistory, the Christian Theological Academy and the Ecumenical Council
of Churches in Poland, as well as meetings with the Catholic primate of
Poland, Archbishop Jozef Glemp, the Swedish ambassador, Stefan Noreen,
the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Jozef Kowalcyk, and other Polish
representatives of political, cultural and church life, gave Hammar a
view of the changed situation in Poland. During his four-day visit,
prospects for bilateral cooperation were discussed. Also featured was
the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification on
31 October in Augsburg, Germany, and what this meant for the church in
Sweden and Poland. It emerged from the discussions that both churches
are optimistic about the future of ecumenical Lutheran-Catholic
dialogue.

* New Evangelical worship book to be introduced. At a worship
celebration in the City Church (Stadtkirche) in Wittenberg, Germany, on
the first Sunday of Advent this year (28 November 1999), the new
"Evangelical Worship Book" will be introduced. This will become the
definitive edition for 15 of the 24 Protestant Land churches in Germany.
A first version of this new worship book has been tried out in a few
churches since 1990 under the title "Liturgical Renewal (Erneuerte
Agende)". Evaluation of what was learned from this testing phase bore
fruit for the new "Evangelical Worship Book", which will now become the
basis for worship in the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany
(VELKD) and the Evangelical Church of the Union.

* Dom Helder Camara is dead. In the Brazilian Bishop Dom Helder Camara,
the worldwide church has lost a courageous advocate for the poor. The
former Catholic Archbishop of Olinda and Recife passed away in August
aged 90 years. Camara was known throughout the world as one of the
leading representatives of Latin American liberation theology. "When I
give bread to a hungry person, I am called a saint, but when I ask why
the hungry people have no bread, I am called a Communist." With these
words Camara used to respond to the accusation that he was a "red
bishop". Born in 1909, Dom Helder Camara was named by the Pope as
Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, one of the poorest dioceses in Brazil,
a few days after the military coup in 1964. He became a courageous
critic of the military dictatorship as well as "bishop of the poor".
While the military kept strict watch, he opened his bishop's palace as a
shelter for the homeless while he himself lived in a small apartment. He
distributed the land belonging to his diocese to landless farmers who
had been driven out by the big landowners.

* A great loss for the ecumenical family in Austria. The Austrian church
Councillor (Oberkirchenrat) and university professor Dr. Johannes
Dantine passed away after a severe illness on 24 August 1999 in Vienna
aged 61. Dantine gave particular support to the ecumenical movement and
educational issues in Austria. A Lutheran theologian, he had taught
systematic theology at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the
University of Vienna since 1977. His publications dealt with a false
understanding of the doctrine of the "Two Kingdoms", the time of
struggle against the State of the Confessing Church in Germany,
questions of social ethics, Jewish-Christian relations, and ecumenical
questions. As representative of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg
Confession in Austria to the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), the World
Council of Churches and the Leuenberg Fellowship, Dantine was esteemed
as a theologian far beyond the borders of Austria.

* New development agency in Germany. The president of the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF), Bishop Dr. Christian Krause, has been elected chairman
of the Board of Overseers of the newly constituted Evangelical
Development Service (EED) in Germany. The EED, which will begin its
activities in the year 2000, is a union of three well known German
development organizations overseas: the Protestant Association for
Cooperation in Development, the Churches' Development Service of the
Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), and the Ecumenical World Mission
Service of the Association of Churches and Missions in Germany.

(The LWF is a global communion of 128 member churches in 70 countries
representing 58 million of the world's 61.5 million Lutherans. Its
highest decision making body is the Assembly, held every six or seven
years. Between Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council
which meets annually, and its Executive Committee. The LWF secretariat
is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information is the information service of the Lutheran
World Federation (LWF). 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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Lutheran World Information
Assistant Editor, English: Pauline Mumia
E-mail: pmu@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/