wfn.org | Hanson Named Vice President of Lutheran World Federation

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

September 27, 2002

HANSON NAMED VICE PRESIDENT OF LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION
02-229-FI

     WITTENBERG, Germany (ELCA) -- The Lutheran World Federation
(LWF) Council named the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), as a member of the LWF
Council.  Hanson will complete the unexpired term of the Rev. H.
George Anderson, former presiding bishop of the ELCA.  The council
then elected Hanson as the LWF's North American vice president, a
position Anderson also held until his retirement in 2001.
     "It's an honor and also a bit of a daunting task always to try
to fill in for my predecessor, Bishop George Anderson, who was such a
strong leader in global Lutheranism," said Hanson.  "I will try to
fill one of his shoes -- not both of his shoes."
     The council also welcomed the Rev. Raymond L. Schultz, national
bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and Alfonso
Corzo Garcia, a youth member from Iglesia Evangelica Luterana de
Colombia (the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia), among its 49
members.
     The LWF Council met Sept. 10-17 in Lutherstadt (Luther's city)
Wittenberg.  The council meets annually and is the chief legislative
authority of the LWF between world assemblies.	The next LWF Assembly
will be held July 21-31, 2003, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
     The LWF is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a global
communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition.  It has
136 member churches in 75 countries representing more than 61.7
million of the 65.4 million Lutherans worldwide.  Five vice
presidents represent Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South
America.
     "There is some poignancy to being in Wittenberg," said Hanson.
The meeting was originally to be held in Jerusalem, "the grounding
place of our Christian faith," he said, but was relocated to "the
birthplace of the Lutheran Reformation" because of continuing
violence and lack of security in the Middle East.
     "If we couldn't be in Jerusalem, it was appropriate that now
this reforming movement in the church catholic, which bears the name
Lutheran that is so global in its scope, would gather for this
meeting in Wittenberg," said Hanson.
     The LWF Council meeting held in "healthy tension" the desire of
Lutherans "to respond to the reality of the issues in the lives of
the member churches throughout the world, especially issues of
poverty, AIDS, war and the economic imbalance that is clearly a by-
product of the globalization of our economy," while being "very
attentive to the theology that unites and forms us as confessional
Lutherans," said Hanson.
     The council appointed Hanson to the LWF Program Committee for
Theology and Studies.  "There is a tendency for us in the North, who
have been shaped by doing theology in the academy, to think the whole
world should do theology that way," said Hanson.  "There is a
challenge for the LWF, which is still fairly dominated by the academy
in its approach to theology, to make space for those who do their
theology in a more contextually dialectic way," he said.
     Hanson said he had mixed emotions about being in Germany while
the United States marked the first anniversary of the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11.  "But it was good to be with people who
genuinely wanted to begin that day in worship and remembrance and
prayer for the people of the United States as well as the world," he
said.
     The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada will host the Tenth
LWF Assembly in Winnipeg, but "I hope the people of the United States
will see this as a North American undertaking," said Hanson.
     A "visitation program" will provide LWF members from around the
world with an opportunity to learn about the context of mission in
North America and to share experiences from their own churches, said
Hanson.  Events before the assembly are being planned in Canada, and
ELCA congregations are planning events for after the assembly.
     "We will be blessed with having folks from all over the world
come to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ and to share
stories of how God is at work in their life and mission," said
Hanson.  "We will be a stronger church because of that, as we are
already strengthened by companion synod relationships and our
memberships in the LWF and the World Council of Churches," he said.

LWF COUNCIL ADDRESSES U.S. CHURCHES

     Johannes Rau, president of the Federal Republic of Germany,
addressed the council and recalled the beginnings of the LWF through
its Lutheran World Service assistance to refugees, including German
refugees in the United States of America, Canada and Australia.  Rau
particularly thanked the LWF for standing in solidarity with
Christians in central eastern Europe during the Cold War period and
making them feel that they were part of a global community.
     In his address to the council, LWF President Christian Krause
recalled his post-September 11 visit to the ELCA, during which he
appealed to the church's bishops' conference not to follow the
tendency to adopt hostile images associated with an "axis of evil"
but instead strive for "an axis of hope."  The "war on terrorism"
must not be "misinterpreted as some kind of power struggle between
the religions," he said.
     Krause underscored the need for a new dialogue with North
America on the overall perception of violence since the terrorist
attacks.  He cited his experience in Indonesia last April where
Christian churches, which represent the minority population, have
been seeking and engaging in dialogue with Islamic leaders even after
a number of conflicts with fundamentalist Muslim groups.
     On Sept. 11, the LWF Council adopted a statement that said
dialogue among peoples, cultures and religions "is both the means and
objective of a genuine and effective response to terrorism."
Isolation and domination "is clearly not the answer" and military
means will not provide the security that we seek," said the council
members.  They stressed that it is only through mutual understanding
and solidarity, including active efforts to address social and
economic inequities, that the root causes of terrorism can be
removed.
     Before Iraq's Sept. 17 announcement that it would allow U.N.
nuclear weapons' inspectors into that country, the LWF Council asked
the government of Iraq to comply fully and without delay with
relevant U.N. resolutions.  It called on U.S. churches to appeal to
the U.S. government and other governments to refrain from considering
intensified military action against Iraq.  It also appealed to "the
international community to continue to seek further diplomatic means
of reducing the tensions between Iraq and other nations."
     After the council meeting, LWF General Secretary Ishmael Noko
said Iraq's announcement points out the significance of the LWF
requests.  "This matter should go through the United Nations," he
said.  "If the leadership of the United States would receive that
message from here, they would understand how significant it is to
listen to voices which may not carry any political or military
strength, but, nonetheless, are voices of wisdom and experience,"
Noko added.
     The LWF Council adopted a resolution on the protection of
children's rights that endorsed the United Nations General Assembly
Special Session on Children and the Convention of the Rights of the
Child.	It called on the two remaining governments that have not
ratified the Convention -- the United States and Somalia -- to do so.

ELCA WITTENBERG CENTER IS PRAISED

     Since 1999, the ELCA Division for Global Mission has operated
the ELCA Wittenberg Center in the shadow of the Schlosskirche (Castle
Church) where Martin Luther is to have posted his 95 theses and which
serves as Luther's final resting place.
     The Rev. Twila Schock and the Rev. William Swanson are ELCA
pastors, who serve as the center's directors.  They coordinate
English-language programs through the center to facilitate
relationships between ELCA members and churches and agencies in the
Wittenberg area and other areas of Germany.
     Dr. Paul Raabe, board chair of Luther Zentrum (Luther Center)
Wittenberg, commended the ELCA for establishing its own center in
Wittenberg.  He encouraged all Lutheran churches to see Wittenberg as
the "cultural, spiritual and academic center of world Lutheranism."
He urged other churches, especially fast-growing Lutheran churches of
the Southern Hemisphere, to follow the ELCA's lead and send
representatives to Wittenberg.
     The unification of German states was "a lucky break for
Lutheran churches as well," said Raabe.  Wittenberg was inaccessible
to many Lutherans for almost 50 years, he said, but now the town can
again be the destination of Lutheran pilgrims from around the world.
"It is time for Lutherans to rediscover Wittenberg," he said.
     Krause is also president of Luther Zentrum.  "We are happy that
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has a center here to
assist us," he said, inviting other LWF member churches to do the
same.  "So many of their members come here, looking for programs"
that relate to the history, places and institutions of Wittenberg, he
said.
-- -- --
     Information about the Wittenberg Center is available at
http://www.elca.org/ewbc/ on the ELCA Web site.

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