key: cord-301537-uu2aykoy
authors: Johnston Largen, Kristin
title: Two things can be true at once: Surviving Covid‐19
date: 2020-05-27
journal: Dialog
DOI: 10.1111/dial.12571
sha: 
doc_id: 301537
cord_uid: uu2aykoy

nan

As I sit in California, currently under a "stay at home" order to help stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been reflecting on worship, the role of the Church in providing healthcare, and our sacramental life. Colleagues have asked for my thoughts on liturgy in the midst of a public health crisis, so I have decided to put things on paper so that others may be included in the conversation. Many have already published resources on moving worship into the online environment, but a large percentage of those resources have approached it from a practical perspective rather than a theological or historical one.

The title of my essay is a riff on Luther' s 1527 open letter "Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague," which has made a resurgence during this health crisis. The letter has always been a favorite of mine: I assigned it during the four years I taught Introduction to Lutheranism, and it served as a conversation partner in my dissertation on liturgical rites of healing. Quotes from the letter have circulated around Facebook, especially as Luther (near the end of the letter) provides very practical advice during a plague. The main point of the letter is that pastors and city officials are to work together to physically and spiritually care for those affected by disease, and those who are not bound by such responsibility should be free to leave without burdening the conscience.

But before we use Luther's letter as our Urtext for the church's response during COVID-19, we must remember that it seems unthinkable for Luther (at least in the letter itself) that people would not be able to attend worship during a plague. Our situation is different, with local, state, and federal governments providing recommendations and orders to stay home and not gather in groups. Our understanding of science is also different, being on this side of the scientific revolution with a better grasp of how germs spread. Luther's science is not our science, so that must be considered when reading his specific recommendations on liturgical practices during health crises. On the other hand, the letter reminds us that the church must work alongside civil authorities in preventing a plague from spreading, which means that congregations must follow the orders not to gather. Attempting to spiritualize this pandemic as being the will of God-either as punishment or an opportunity to repent--is dangerous.

The theological and historical concerns that I raise below are as I interpret our Lutheran traditions, drawing on Luther and the Book of Concord. The practical suggestions that I offer that differ from our customary practices are understood to be in extremis-in an emergency like we are facing today. As Luther reminds his readers at the beginning of the letter, all Christians must "come to their own decision and conclusion" (Luther, 1968, p. 119 ).

Purpose"

One thing that must be addressed before reflecting on particular issue is to define worship from a theological perspective or, to use John Witvliet's (2006) modes of liturgical discourse, in terms of "deep meaning and purpose." For Lutherans the primary theological understanding of worship is as a dialogue between God and humans, or as Luther says in his Torgau sermon, "where our dear [God] may speak to us through [the] holy Word and we respond to [God] through prayer and praise" (Luther, 1959, p. 333 ; see also Luther, 2000, p. 397.84) . Distinct from some other Christian traditions, Lutheran worship is primarily about God coming to us through the means of grace, which are concrete and external ways that God make Godself known in the worship event. These are primarily preaching, the sacraments, absolution, and other liturgical practices.

At the same time, Lutheran worship also has a participatory response included in it. This is the second half of Luther's Torgau definition. Active participation ("full, active, conscious," as would be articulated four centuries later at the Second Vatican Council) is the other half of the dialogue between God and humans. Participation is a diverse thing, just as Christ was incarnated into a diverse human reality. The response is the response by the entire congregation, not just that of worship leaders or a select few. I think this should give us pause when we look at livestreaming (rather than web conferencing), as that calls into question the participatory ability of digital worship.

Unlike some theological traditions, Lutherans are under no obligation to go to worship. Yet, this question actually misses the point if we attend to our definition of worship-it is through worship that we know who God is and how God operates in the world. It contains external forms so that God's Word may exert its power more publicly (Luther, 2000, p. 399.94) . In fact, Luther (2000, p. 398.85) believes worship is so important that we should have it daily, but understands that Sunday as the chief day of the week is handed down from ancient times.

In her book @Worship: Liturgical Practices in Digital Worlds, liturgical theologian Teresa Berger (2018, p. 16) cautions us from too quickly succumbing to the false dichotomy of "real" and "virtual." Such distinction can equate "virtual" with "non-real," which automatically privileges faceto-face relationships and practices over technology mediated. God primarily operates through means (neighbor, preaching, sacraments) ; thus, technologically mediated communication can certainly be the medium of God's own communication.

Another theological concept that helps bridge the gap between the so-called "virtual" and "real" is one that was used during the Reformation to describe Christ's presence in the sacrament. Luther argued that, because of the Ascension, Christ had the attribute of ubiquity, meaning that he is available where he promised to be. For Luther and his disagreements with the Reformed, this meant that Christ is truly present as the elements of the Lord's Supper on every altar. This same logic can be used in the digital environment: Christ has promised to be present among gatherings of Christians and in the midst of those who suffer (the theology of the cross). If such is true, then Christ can be present online that transcends time and geography, just like Christ's presence in the sacrament. Theologian Deanna Thompson (2016; 2020, 26 March) follows this argument, claiming that virutal community is real community, mediating the Body of Christ.

One of the arguments that I heard in my previous work of helping faculty teach online is the assumption that online coursework and whole-person formation contradict one another, since the online environment is all about the mind. In my experience of teaching online, I know this is not true. Berger (2018, p. 19) affirms this by stating that the online environment definitely does have a physical effect on users.

The types of relationships that can occur online can be described as "low stakes," meaning that they are "not associated with any cost, friction or risk" (Simanowski, 2018, p. 9 ). Does such a "low threshold" (Berger, 2018, p. 36) for commitment allow one to flee from any sort of responsibility in the relationship, or does it allow for the freedom of openness without the increased possibility for negative consequences?

Constructing intentional community, as what (or should) already exist in our regular congregations, differs from the low stakes approach that one could see in Facebook. In our current situation, the online environment is operating parallel to the communities that would occur in person if the health crisis did not exist. Thus, such relationships are actually "high stakes" as this moment is temporary with the assumption that these relationships will continue outside technology.

The phrase that health officers are using is "social distancing," the clinical term that encourages people to stay out of public spaces or larger gatherings. While limiting contact and large groups is an important step in reducing the pandemic peak, the term creates another set of problems. It is physical distancing that can reduce the spread of germs, but we must continue social encounters in this crisis even while limiting physical encounters. Social networking and web conferencing technology, something I have been using since Spring Break to teach the remainder of the semester, can foster and assist us in maintaining our neighborliness in the midst of COVID-19. Maintaining both physical and social distancing can lead to isolation, which can make the health situation (especially mental health) worse.

In some of the discourse I have seen online in the last weeks, I have noticed a discrepancy in terminology. When it comes to using video-based technology to broadcast online, two terms usually appear: livestream and web conference. Although both of these practices use webcams and microphones, their level of interactivity is quite different.

The livestreaming approach is unidirectional, which is how one currently watches television and YouTube. The broadcaster creates the material, and those who watch consume the material. Participation at best is passive and could be analogous to a pre-Reformation understanding of the mass. The main role of the worshiper is to watch at the important moments, while simultaneously engaging in their own devotional practices.

Livestreaming (and admittedly web conferencing if the feature is enabled) allows for recording, meaning those unable to participate at the scheduled time could join in when they are able, but this can increase the individualism present in contemporary society today. Also, taking seriously the role of the Holy Spirit means that it would be nearly impossible to replicate the live action in a recording (Spadaro, 2014, p. 79) .

The web conferencing approach is bidirectional and multidirectional. It allows for both proclamation and response through the same online tool, which is not the case with livestreaming. The "congregation" is part of the interactivity just as the worship leaders. This better simulates the dialogical nature of Lutheran worship that I defined earlier.

In his letter, Luther (1968, p. 134 ) encouraged his readers to continue to participate in the weekly proclamation of the Word through the sermon. He understands that central to Christian life is the preaching and practice of God's Word (Luther, 2000, p 398.90) . Historically, the Service of the Word has been the primary Sunday liturgy for Lutherans. Some may wish to dispute this because our confessional documents and Luther himself assume a weekly celebration of the sacrament (see Melanchthon, 2000, p. 258.1; Luther, 2000, p. 472.49 ). But we know that this was the ideal, and various circumstances usually prevented or hampered attaining this ideal: a shortage of pastors in early American efforts, laity still feeling unworthy to receive, the assumption that frequent reception would diminish the sacrament's specialness.

The trend toward restoring weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper came with the early work done alongside the ecumenical liturgical renewal movement of the mid-twentiethcentury. 1 And still, among many Lutheran congregations, weekly communion is not yet the practiced norm, although it is assumed in the newest worship books. When visiting my family in Minnesota, the congregation where we worship still celebrates the sacrament twice a month.

This attempt to restoring weekly sacramental celebrations has in some places turned into an overcorrection, with the assumption that every time the congregation gathers, or even a subset of the congregation gathers, the liturgy is deficient if the sacrament is absent. This practice has led to a phenomenon that looks more like votive masses than regular worship, in which the Eucharistic liturgy appears to be for particular intentions ("votums") rather than the means of grace. The language around these votive (and sometimes private) masses becomes about mutual union and friendship, professing the faith we share, which is contrary to our understanding of the sacrament (Melanchthon, 2000, p. 270.68) .

These votive-like celebrations often separate the proclamation of the Word from the sacrament, such that the sacramen-tal elements become the primary action rather than maintaining the historic order and balance (see Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 1997, p. 38) . One problem identified by those who advocate for perpetual fasting during this pandemic is that the sacrament must be celebrated within the assembly, as articulated in the Use of the Means of Grace, principle 39 (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 1997, p. 44 ). Yet, this neglects the fact that the online environment is an assembly gathered for worship, while not raising objections to sacramental celebrations outside the assembly (e.g., church council meetings, retreats, etc.).

The best advice would be to fast from the sacrament as long as possible, even in the midst of desiring it. 2 The season of Lent provides a scheduled opportunity to do so, as we prepare ourselves for the annual celebration of Christ's death and resurrection (Lange, 2020, March 24) . As many congregations are already doing, these services of the word can easily take place in the online environment, especially through the communal nature of web conferencing. But the current health crisis may run many months; it already is running into Eastertide and after. This requires other solutions (see below).

Because of the centrality of the proclamation of the Word, Lutheran congregations have not replaced the Sunday liturgy with Daily Prayer; this was the custom in many Anglican parishes pre-1979 Prayer Book. Daily Prayer in its ideal form is daily worship that does not occur on Sundays, as the readings assigned are primarily from the other parts of Scripture. The three main offices-Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer-focus the gospel on the invariable canticles from Luke's Gospel, rather than the reading of a gospel lectionary text.

The Daily Prayer offices are also better suited for smaller gatherings rather than the presence of the entire worshipping congregation. This may make the most sense in the online environment, as the web conferencing technology works best with smaller groups, with these rites particularly suited as domestic (at home) rituals rather than in the worship space of the congregation. The music that accompanies Daily Prayer, especially the historic orders with the assigned chants, can be done with little-to-no accompaniment, and can easily be spread among many people (both rostered and lay) for leadership.

It is with the celebration of the Lord's Supper (Holy Communion, Eucharist) where we encounter the most difficulty in this public health crisis. Even many advocates for digitally mediated worship stop short of agreeing on "online communion." The main argument is that "the Christian faith is deeply incarnational, and that means wedded to physicality and matter. … [O]ffering communion online short-circuits the communal, embodied nature of the Eucharist" (Berger, 2018, p. 84) .

These critiques are important, as they lift up one of the many layers of meaning for the sacrament, namely, its physicality and incarnational nature. This physicality of the means of grace connect with our own physicality to remind us that our human/bodily nature is a God-given gift. The external nature of the sacraments provides the needed certainty to which our faith can cling/grasp (Luther, 2000, p. 461.37) .

When the sacramental elements are not possible in any way, the Words of Institution themselves serve the role of comfort and healing. The 1540 Brandenburg Church Order notes that lay people can use the Words of Institution without administering the elements (they could not do that) so that the sick could "feed on the Word" (Rittgers, 2012, p. 171) . This is a natural extension from Luther's claim that the sole source of comfort for Christians is the Word (Rittgers, 2012, p. 103) . The proclamation of the gospel, aural and edible, is in service of consolation (Treu, 1986, p. 18 ).

The Church's ministry to the sick has usually included bringing communion to those who are unable to attend Sunday worship. This tradition dates to the second-century writings of Justin Martyr in his description of Christianity to Roman officials. In narrating an outline for the Sunday liturgy, he describes the role of the deacons as the ones who bring the Lord's Supper to those who are absent (Chapters 65 and 67). The deacons, since they did not have the role to "consecrate" the sacrament (Justin assigns that to the "president of the assembly"), would have brought the already-consecrated elements as an extension of the assembly's Sunday worship.

This practice has continued to the present day and is seen in the current Lutheran tradition with LBW's "Distribution of Holy Communion to Those in Special Circumstances" and ELW's "Sending of Holy Communion." I think the LBW's title better lifts up the issues we face today-we are in "special circumstances" that require us to rethink our customary practices. And this reevaluation makes it necessary that we be creative, especially since our congregations are all dealing with different restrictions and situations.

Extending our practices of "special circumstances" would be the ideal solution for distributing communion during these times. In contexts that are not in a quarantine-like state where visits are still allowed, a minister of communion would bring the sacrament to individuals or small groups in their homes or other arranged places. The caveat is that in many places, the assembly is not gathering on Sunday mornings, so how would the extended distribution be extended from something that is not happening? If allowed under the civil orders, ministers of communion would gather with the pastor for a full Eucharistic liturgy (including the proclamation of the gospel), receive the sacraments themselves, and then carry them to those who are not allowed to be present. Preaching, which importantly connects to the distribution of the sacrament, could be recorded so that it could be played in the remote locations when the sacrament is distributed. It would be important that the minister gives the communion to the other person (and vice versa) so that the communal nature of communion continues.

The more difficult context is when gatherings in general are disbanded by order of civil officials. One might argue that churches could exempt themselves from such a situation (e.g., two kingdoms), but Luther (1968, p. 131) reminds us in his letter that part of the responsibility for both the body and soul means doing what it takes not to spread infection; in fact, it is considered sinful to not avoid places and persons in the case of possible infection.

Yet, there are possibilities even here. While maintaining physical distancing, it would be possible to deliver the sacrament to households, like permitted for food delivery. Even though the sacrament is not mere bread and wine as served at the table, Luther (2000, pp. 469.23-24, 474 .68) still calls it food (and medicine) for both the body and soul, nourishing us in a different mode than regular table food.

Again, pastors and ministers of communion would need to find a way to maintain the intimate connection between the proclamation of the gospel and the sacrament, so that we do not privilege one over the other. As suggested above, preaching could happen remotely through digital means and people would be able to receive communion. It is the distribution and reception-the "for you"-that is the central action of the sacrament, so ideally it would be someone else who distributes communion (Luther, 2000, p. 469.21; Formula of Concord, 2000, p. 602.54) . As Thomas Schattuer (2014, p. 209) notes, the Lutheran mass "culminated in the reception of the sacrament." This could occur among family members in a household, roommates in other situations, medical professionals and patients in a healthcare facility, and so on.

This is the most difficult part of the discussion on digital worship in a health crisis. I have read essays on both sides of the argument, and most seem to be talking past one another. The ideal response is, as I have stated above, to fast from receiving the sacrament. In the Small Catechism, Luther notes that the benefits of the sacrament are "forgiveness of sins, life and salvation," which makes it different from baptism (and the necessity of that for salvation). Yet, in the Large Catechism, Luther (2000, p. 469 .24) provides additional benefits: comfort, new strength, and refreshment. The sacrament also "a pure, wholesome, soothing medicine that aids you and gives life in both soul and body" (Luther, 2000, p. 474.68) . So while the Lord's Supper is not salvifically necessary, it certainly could be considered pastorally necessary.

Before musing on what Online Communion may look like, I want to offer three caveats. The first is that the sacrament remains unimpaired even if we handle or use it unworthily (Luther, 2000, p. 467.5; Formula of Concord, 2000, p. 597.24 ). This is not to excuse bad sacramental practice or to justify doing whatever we want with the Lord's Supper. Rather, it does provide some comfort as we attempt to adjust to an unthinkable situation in a public health crisis.

The second is that no one should deter someone from receiving the sacrament (Luther, 2000, p. 473.62) . Especially in times of pastoral necessity, the Lord's Supper should be received. Luther (1968, p. 134 ) saw this as a requirement for pastors to minister to the sick and dying. It is part of the full work of ministry in the midst of a health crisis: preaching, teaching, exhorting, consoling, visiting, and administering the sacrament (Luther, 1968, p. 136) . But, when visits are not allowed, the last two in this list of work must be rethought using the tools we have in our time.

The third is that we should not doubt that Christ the Word can certainly accomplish what he promises (Formula of Concord, 2000, p. 601.47) . This simple argument was central to Luther's disagreements with Zwingli at Marburg-if Jesus promises (as he states in the Words of Institution) to truly be present, then we should not doubt those words or attempt to construe them to mean something else.

So, is it possible to have Online Communion? I hesitate to answer in the definitive, but I provide here some theological rationale for doing so in extremis. By Online Communion I mean having worshippers gather in community through web conferencing with their own bread and cup as originating from their pantries. The two main objections that are raised by this are: (1) the Lord's Supper requires contact, and (2) it is akin to self-communion.

The first objection should not be taken lightly, as generations of Christians have gathered physically to participate as the ecclesial Body of Christ in the sacramental Body of Christ. Distribution is important in Lutheran theology, which regularly happens from person-to-person (see Luther, 2000, p. 470.34-35) . Unfortunately, in many dire situations, that is not possible and can be even dangerous; recall Luther's exhortation that ministers are also responsible for not spreading infection (Luther, 1968, p. 131 ).

An even stronger objection related to contact is that the sacramental event must happen in-person, which would preclude the sacraments happening remotely. Prior to the technological revolution, such remote sacramental event would be unthinkable and thus would not have come up in the theological discourse, certainly not during the Reformation. To me this is a question of "use" and "action," the two words that the Concordists identify as best expressing Luther's sacramental theology in his "Confession concerning Christ's Supper." The right use of the sacrament is reception and faith (Schattauer, 2014, p. 209) .

The sacrament cannot be present separate from its intended use (Formula of Concord, 2000, p. 595.15 ). This is the closest the Lutheran tradition comes to defining the "how" of the sacrament, as that was not the important question in debating the Lord's Supper (the "who," "what," and "why" were primary In the regular celebration of the Lord's Supper, it is the presiding minister who completes steps one through three, and then the recipient of the sacrament completes steps four and five. Yet, the Concordists do not appear to say anything about the necessity of the presiding minister doing one and three, only two-speaking (or singing) the Words of Institutionbecause of having the proper "ministry or office" (Formula of Concord, 2000, p. 607.77 ).

Christ's body and blood is truly present as the sacramental bread and wine in its use and action, which I would argue can extend over digital means in the midst of the online community. The Concordists insist on the language of use and action to prevent misuse of the sacrament through Eucharistic adoration/reservation and Corpus Christi processions (Formula of Concord, 2000, p. 611-612.108 ). Any adoration of Christ occurs when the community gathers for sacramental worship, not as adoration of the sacrament itself.

The distribution extra nos prevents self-communion, which is second objection. I find it peculiar that such objection is raised in regard to online communion, when generations of Lutheran pastors have communed themselves during the Eucharistic liturgy (rather than having an assisting minister commune them) without much objection. In fact, the Use of the Means of Grace, application 46A, permits such practice (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 1997, p. 50) .

The role of the presiding minister in all of this is to proclaim the Words of Institution, just like the preacher proclaims the gospel-both of these are understood as "showing forth" Christ (Melanchthon, 2000, p. 272.80) . 4 The presiding minister is not acting in persona Christi as a show or example of Christ's action at the Last Supper (Melanchthon, 2000, p. 271.72) . Rather, the presiding minister is to proclaim Christ through the audible and edible Word (aural and sacramental) because Christ is the Word. In his liturgical reforms, Luther underscores these ritually by requiring the Words of Institution to be spoken publicly and the eliminating the manual acts with the elements (Schattauer, 2014, pp. 211, 216) . Such reforms cause the Eucharistic liturgy to focus on "Christ's entire life and the meaning of that life for human salvation," rather than on reenacting a particular moment in Christ's life (Wandel, 2006, p. 100 ).

When this essay is published online, most people will still be under "stay at home" or quarantine orders, and that may also be the case once this essay is published in hardcopy. While community continues to happen through online means, Christians will be unable to gather in worship spaces for Easterthe culmination of the liturgical year-in order to protect the vulnerable among us. This new life proclaimed in the death and resurrection of Christ is a constant reminder that all Christians are called to care for the neighbor in both their physical and spiritual life.

During this time of being 'alone together,' I have been reflecting on the Lectionary, especially the Gospels for the second and third Sundays of Easter. Like Thomas, who missed the first appearance of resurrected Jesus in the locked room, we may doubt Christ's true presence unless we see and experience what has always happened in the past. Yet, Christ still comes to us, even when we do not experience church as in previous days. Like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we may not understand these events that have taken place, where our Easter expectations have been disrupted by things outside out control. Yet, Christ still comes to us, even when we cannot gather physically to break bread as we have in previous days.

Pastors, deacons and all Christians are responsible for the well-being of all people during this time, which may also include adjusting sacramental practice in extremis. The debate over online or virtual communion is not new, but the current health crisis has brought it to the foreground, and the ending of the COVID-19 pandemic will not stop the debate. As we continue to figure out how to be church in the 21 st -century, we will need to attend to the many layers of meaning inherent in our practices. Luther (2000, 472.49) argues that those who do not desire the sacrament actually despise it.

3 This is what Luther means by connecting the elements with the Word (Luther, 2000, pp. 468.10, 469.30) . 4 Although the Apology does seem to assume the presiding minister is the one who distributes, this does not necessarily align with today's practice as articulated in The Use of the Means of Grace, principle 41 (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 1997, p. 46 ).

Kyle Kenneth Schiefelbein-Guerrero https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9285-6161

Kyle Kenneth Schiefelbein-Guerrero Spadaro, A. (2014) . Cybertheology: Thinking Christianity in the era of the internet, M. Way (Trans.). New York: Fordham University. Thompson, D. (2016) . The virtual body of Christ in a suffering world.

Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Thompson, D. (2020, 26 March Lutherjahrbuch, 53, 7-25. Wandel, L. (2006) . The eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and liturgy. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Witvliet, J. (2006) . Teaching worship as a Christian practice: Musings on practical theology and pedagogy in seminaries and churchrelated colleagues. Reformed journal. https://reformedjournal. com/teaching-worship-as-a-christian-practice-musing-on-practicaltheology-and-pedagogy-in-seminaries-and-church-related-colleges/. DOI: 10.1111/dial.12555 Should Christians practice "Virtual Communion" in time of a plague?

Perhaps surprising to liturgical Christians, but surely surprising to the public at large, if they cared, is that during this Coronavirus-Covid-19 pandemic a parochial debate also has gone viral; well, viral within our subculture. This debate concerns whether Holy Communion is legitimate when done "virtually" over the internet. This debate is serious. Sometime it has been viscerally reactive, claiming that some pastors just want to do their "own thing" or even that such centering on the Eucharist implies fetishism. I am grateful to observe instead that the conversation has become more civil as the involuntary fasting from The Lord's Supper extends into many weeks. More often now "both" sides recognize that they argue from common conviction; that we dearly cherish (rather than fetishize) the Eucharist. Still, I fear that a higher love yet has been missing from much of the conversation. I would prefer not to join the public conversation insofar as the conversation already seems premised on privileging doctrine over human wholeness. I do not like these terms on which the debate is set: "Pro or Con, Care for Holy Things is more important than Care for Human Lives." It is a hidden premise with a faulty disjunction. It forgets that Lutheran doctrine has always carried within itself the quality of a quatenus, that we hold and must hold certain things doctrinally high insofar as they convey the promise of the gospel and that the gospel itself holds highest God's loving intention for the wholeness of human being, what the Gospel of John thematizes as Abundant Life.

So I join with a different premise. God's intention that the gospel be proclaimed in word and act to bless human beings with wholeness of life now and forever is the point. This requires that we are freed from self-preoccupation with ourselves so to serve others in the same love with which God embraces us all. Luther, of course, as in his treatise on why Christians should not flee in a time of plague, reminds us that self-care is required for other-care. That treatise defined in stark relief the ultimacy of the office of ministry's call to loosen and break the bonds of despair and anxiety as zealously as we can as loving service in itself and as reinforcing God's algorithmic formula in our temporal terms for the health/salvation (salus) of all; you know, "God's work, Our hands."

So much for prolegomena. But what about the weighty doctrinal loci that we also sincerely do hold dear (me included, if that is not clear to some) and bear on the presenting question? These include justification, the church, the sacraments, and the office of the ministry. These are the first and primary steps in the Augsburg Confession and, indeed, display a particular logic or trajectory we sometimes fail to see. Further inputs for our thinking include some basic anthropology and some beyond-basic metaphysics. Many on both sides have written fine constructive theology written on the matter in more general and popular terms. I will explore these Lutheran premises with an eye for those whose questions are more dogmatically impelled. I will conclude with a coda in praise of the mystical Body of Christ, our appreciation of which is regrettably understated, if at all extant. No mere editorial (however longish) such as this can explore fully these loci. But I hope I can add some nuance to a mutually respectful dissensus.

I have long sloganized that the vocation of the church is "the objectification of justification." Human beings are fickle folk. Emotional dis-ease routinely subsumes rational equanimity. Anxiety is a chronic condition. When stressors of many kinds set us off, we can be locked into moral and spiritual trauma. All the dis-ease (and diss-ease) is caused in some way by sin, ours or another's. PTSD, moral injury, and spiritual trauma are contemporary names for the manifestation of the ancient general category of sin. Depression and despair collude. One's whole physical and emotional and moral being is inhabited by these demons and only an-other can evict them. In other words, we are captive to our subjectivity and only an objective other can save us. Concomitantly, only an-other carrying An-Other's word in-with-under other objects objectively brings the saving grace Word spoken and acted to us.

The primal human need for a good word from outside oneself sets the initial logical ordering of the Augsburg Confession (CA). It makes sense, of course, for the first article to be about God. We start with the Ultimate, however abstract the concept may be. Then there is history, that is, sin and alienation. With Article II, in other words, the topic is more empirical, concrete, "objective." Not to belabor the point, but the Confession gets ever more "objective." Jesus is our real and accessible rescue from alienation (III). Justification is the Lutheran grammar to speak that (IV). The Church (V), then, is the historical and empirically objective "paying forward" of justification as the very Body of Christ that evokes the life of New Obedience (VI) and "is" Church only as and when it proclaims the Word and administers the Sacraments (VII). The trajectory in this ordering underscores that any rescue of humanity from its alienation from God and self must come from a historical palpable "Other."

Oswald Bayer (a Lutheran's Lutheran) states the same. The Augsburg Confession and the Smalcald Articles insist that justifying faith "comes in the promise of the gospel and the alien righteousness (iustitia aliena) of Christ that comes with it only in this manner must always receive proper emphasis." The gospel is never one's private possession. In other words, subjectivity cannot have the day (Martin Luther's Theology, A Contemporary Interpretation, 2008, p. 252). External markers constitute the sacramental event. In the Lord's Supper those are (a) "the social and concurrently naturalcultural moment" of shared eating and drinking; (b) the actualization of a "definitive communal relationship between God and humanity" taking place within a physical assembly; (c) convened by and "through the performative Word that has been addressed" to the assembly through bread and wine; (d) the whole action of which is empowered by the presence of the resurrected crucified Jesus (Bayer, pp. 252-253). Then the perhaps surprising remark: the public external character of this Word event and the private freedom of the individual "are correlates and empower and support one another." Religion is surely not a private affair. But neither is it a form of heteronomy. Alien righteousness must assume priority, but neither is it coercive. (Bayer, 253). Hold high the objective othernessthe alien-work of God. Yet do not dismiss the integrity of the communicant's trust and desire. Do it all with and within the objectivity of what is physical.

There are two points in this fine summary that bear especially on our subject. The first concerns the relationship of physicality, communication, and location. As much as we emphasize the priority of the objectified grace of God in the elements of water, bread, and wine, it is puzzling to suppose nevertheless that the finite object that conveys grace (finitum capax infiniti) is bounded. Bounded by what? Well, it has been said forcefully in this debate on "virtual" communion that it is only legitimate when one assembly gathers around one loaf. That assembly must be physical and gathered in one place.

But other scenarios that challenge that point are very familiar to us. Suppose that the assembly is physically present, but is numbered in the thousands or even tens of thousands, as with churchwide assemblies and youth gatherings. There, of course, no one questions the subjectivity of adolescents gathered around and given the body and blood in the forms of hundreds of loaves and hundreds of cups. One loaf and one cup are lifted up at the center table and thousands of morsels and sips are consumed by de facto house churches without walls around the stadium, even behind walls and in other rooms by "overflow crowds." Also, the distant eyes in the last row of the upper deck would not even be able to see the loaf and cup lifted were it not for the jumbo-tron screens hanging high over the arena. Communication happens in multiple modes, most personally at distances of less than six feet. After that, from ear-aids to massive amplifiers, blue-toothed bridges, and towers and satellites convey the same grace in and with sound and light waves; the same intended original intimacy of God's voice in human voice to human ears still says "for you."

Why start and stop with one loaf and one very local assembly? Of course we prefer that. In our subjectivity we prefer that. We respond more readily to the very familiar, to what has become intimate and intuitive. But infinity does not stop at walls; the real incarnate and divine Christ shows up in Emmaus, closed upper rooms, to Roman military converts, under the floorboards with WWII American prisoners in the Philippines (true story), and shares his incarnate divinity (communicatio idiomatum); wherever Christ pleases. Does the power of God, which for fickle human consciousness necessarily begins at the physical, end with the physical? Well, yes, actually, but for comfort's sake Christ does so even over great distances, metaphorically concomitant with entangled quantum particles. As Bayer avers, the sacramental action begins with the physical but addresses (and redresses) subjectivity. The sacrament cannot begin with subjectivity. But enfleshed grace means to go to and through subjectivity so to move and change the receiver the more into Christ. Remember (re-member), Christ counters Zwingli's astral-projection direction and, as promised always, comes to us.

The point of counter-precedents to the norm of one loaf in local assemblies in real time is very clear. What we already do already proves agreeable exceptions to the norm. We have already practiced-enthusiastically so!-virtual communion. And-of course!-we have always found ways to commune those who are sight and hearing impaired. We do not insist on an "ableist" assembly. The objective character of the Eucharist is never purely so. It cannot be, because communication is not like that. Thank goodness, still, the accent on the "other" is still more than on the receiver. New mass communication software platforms do not change that accent. If we argue that they do, we reveal our bondage to an Aristotelian metaphysical stipulation of Eucharistic conditions that fog our memory that Christ's promises hold wherever he wants to, including the space/time relative and quantum qualities of postmodernity.

Perhaps the real error in this debate is not that we lack real communication and presence to each other when communion happens over longer distances, but that we have attached the word "virtual" to it. Modalities have changed because metaphysical understandings have changed. We are not talking about donning headsets and entering into an alternate reality, as if being church is like going to the "Feelies" predicted by Orwell. We are talking about a real objectified message of forgiveness and liberation and re-union into a holy and incarnated comm-union that is just as real as the most localized assembly of two or three people in one space. Since the stone was moved, we have always said this; we have always prayed this. Our communion at the table happens with the saints and angels of all time and space. "With angels and archangels" we lift and consume bread and cup. Might we not be at that blinking point of awakened insight now of actually converging our metaphysics and communion practices with the mystical poetry we have sung for millennia? Let us just say it. The Eucharist has always been "virtual" and the Communion of Saints has been our infinitum capax finiti. We physical and fickle folk are embraced by a boundless communion that graces and feeds our return to the holy and beloved community.

Indeed, we physical and folk are incarnated with Christ no matter the visible or invisible walls. "Virtual" in this frame does not mean fake. Nor does it mean "spiritualist." The subjectivity of human perception does not and is commanded not to place bounds on the precise objects with and through which God gets to us. "Virtual" here at least connotes the extension and incarnation of Christ's physical body and blood beyond artificial boundaries of time and space, as the Risen Christ first did with walls of stucco and wood. The ubiquitous Christ will be the incarnate Christ and vice versa.

One other predicate of "objectification" requires attention, at least for now. It is the function of the Eucharistic presider, and so bears on the Office of Ministry. The Reformers were clear that all the baptized are of the priesthood of all believers, and that the baptized are thus also servants in the spiritual estate, not only temporal. But CA V is not thereby collapsed with CA XIV. It is for the sake of good order that the pastoral office is distinct from the service of all the baptized. What all can do by virtue of their baptism cannot be done by all at the same time. The result would be chaos. So LW 44:128: "because we are all priests of equal standing, no one must push himself forward and take it upon himself, without our consent and election, to do that for which we all have equal authority. For no one dare take upon himself what is common to all without the authority and consent of community. And so it is that a pastor is one who is rightly called (rite vocatus) by his/her community of faith. The call and the command make one a pastor of the divine word (LW13:65). This call comes from the faith community and is for the good order of the faith community (1 Corinthians 14:40).

There are vital presuppositions in the Lutheran understanding of the pastoral office. "Vital," remember, has both to do with being "central" and being "life-giving" (vita). We have reviewed already the necessity that the Gospel comes from outside the receiver's subjectivity. Someone, an-other, a selected and called one, must proclaim the Gospel in its purity and see to it that the Sacraments are ministered rightly. That someone, the pastor, attends not only to the proclamation and the giving. He or she attends to the subjectivity of the receivers too. Pastors know their people. Knowing their people implies a reciprocal relationship of trust between pastor and people. The shaping of sermons and-I submit-the contextual understanding and framing of a sacramental occasion requires such mutual trust. The communicator of alien righteousness, in other words, is herself not at all alien to the receiver. Good order does not imply that the pastor "does it all," however. Pastoral "control" of a whole parish life, including the manner of its sacramental worship, does not belong to this conception of ministry. One wonders whether a pastor does not exhibit a privileged clericalism when the self-control volume level goes past 11, as if one held a personal sense of ontological difference between the pastoral office and the rest of the baptized priesthood. The life of a congregation managed by such a relationship may happen on time, concordant with a stiff lip of upper Reine Lehre. But that is not necessarily good order. Good order resonates in a faith community when people are known for what they can do well for each other, including tasks of prayer and Lay Eucharistic Ministry, even lay preaching, and maybe even on rare occasion when lay sisters and brothers commune each other under the express permission and direction of the pastor. Characterizing all of such a congregation's life is a living trust, a deep and respectful loving relationship that shapes the worship community and precedes its gathering. This is why "online communion" can be understood to be as real as a more "concrete" local assembly. The figure on the video monitor is known and trusted. The gospel proclaimed and the Word acted in the Words of Institution, to be sure, are effective no matter the trust level (otherwise there is that Donatism matter). But the Christian community already in relationship and rightly ordered completes the circuity however dispersed in space and time the already palpably related assembly is.

Let me be clear. It is always "better than good order" to commune together as one particular assembly within the shining affinity and infinity of all the saints and angels. That is the normative good for our subjectivities. But in a time of exigency when a fast from the Eucharist is involuntary, it is not pastorally caring after a surfeit of heteronomously imposed fasting days to tell the flock to "remember what you ate" as if that is the same as the call to "remember your baptism." We need the manna. God means us to have food for the journey in the wilderness. And when the counsel in such days says that prayer and meditation and listening to the Word is "just as effective anyway," does that logic not undercut the very reasons the same counselors once argued for regular celebration of Holy Communion? Does it not in itself betray a favored "spiritualism," if not even a closeted Gnosticism? Yes, God comes to us in many ways, and can be seen to do so in many places, but only after Christ is revealed to us in the indissoluble nexus of Word and Sacrament (So wrote Luther when writing on the pun of "crystal," Christall, Christ-in all). There comes the time in an exigency when God's people, threatened deeply in our subjectivity during just such times, gotta eat. Ignatius of Antioch's apt synonym, "the medicine of immortality," is meant from faith for faith in such days.

Much more could and should be said, but is not necessary here. The evangelical effect of "virtual" communication (though not yet virtual communion) has been so very consequential and beautiful in the life of the congregation I am called to serve. Great stories can and will be told. "Virtual communion" is a responsible step in in extremis times for the encouragement and continued formation of the faithful individually and together. I do not mean this as "normative," as if this should regularly replace the side-by-side body language of the local worship assembly. I intend this argument as the exception that proves the rule. It is an interim measure that in and by the Holy Spirit's power will console and move from "inside-out" God's people further in the way of trust and loving service to this dis-eased world. And when the Spirit brings us as a local assembly more palpably back together around the font and table, we will be the more grateful that we were re-membered as Christ's body even as we were too long apart.

University of Houston DOI: 10.1111/dial.12545 "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness" 1 There is something strange going on in our weather system. For the past 2 months our island, located in the northern part of the Atlantic, has been literally closed down more than dozen times. This means that there have been no flights, international or domestic, roads have been closed down (either in parts of the country, or the whole country), schools have been closed, and electricity has been out in certain areas, for hours up to days, all because of the weather. This is a huge concern to all of us who live here in Iceland, and even as I write this, we are in the midst of one of these events. There is really nothing "normal" about it, and questions about its relationship to a changing climate are compelling. But it is too soon to draw any conclusions. Patterns have to have time to develop. At the same time, our glaciers are melting, right in front of our eyes, because of increase in temperature, which also are warming up the sea around the island, causing big changes, and real threats, to our fishing practices, as some fish species are leaving, seeking cooler waters elsewhere, while new arrive. It takes time for the fish industry to adapt, and the uncertainty is challenging for people, especially in the small fishing towns around the country, to say nothing of our whole economy. 2 Like everywhere else, Icelanders have been slow to wake up to the seriousness of a warming climate, but gradually people are realizing that this means that life cannot go on like usual any longer. The Swedish teenage girl, Greta Thunberg, who started school strike for the climate in August of 2018, has made a huge impact in our country and elsewhere, by directing people's attention to the alarming reports scientists have been writing for years about the serious impact of global warming. Because of Greta, young people in Iceland are starting their own school strike for the climate, and by doing that they have put much needed pressure on our government to act according to their commitment to the Paris Agreement, from December 2015.

It has been breathtaking to watch what has happened since the Greta Thunberg school strike for the climate started, less than 2 years ago, outside of the Swedish parliament. Greta was only fifteen years old, and this was her own initiative. Her parents supported her, although reluctantly to begin with, because they worried about her health and how the publicity would affect her. Her aim was to remind Swedish politicians of the climate crisis and their responsibility to react to the crises, three weeks before the Fall election 2018. After the election Greta decided she would continue her strike until the day the Swedish government had fulfilled their promises to meet the conditions of the agreement reached in Paris, and reiterated at other climate conferences. So her strike goes on, but she is certainly no longer by herself. 3 What started as a one-person act, has gradually developed into a world-wide movement, which, it is safe to say, has made greater impact than any other climate initiative. By speaking in clear terms, and making radical decisions, like not to fly, Greta has managed, at her young age, to bring people all over the world, out to the streets, demanding responsible actions from those in charge, as well as individuals, who are contributing to the climate crisis by their daily behavior. There is something about her either/or rhetoric that makes people pay attention. She herself has said that the reason why she tends to see things as black and white is because she has Asperger's syndrome. She also has told the story of her childhood, and how she became severely depressed after hearing about climate change at early age and realizing that people were not doing anything about it. After suffering for years from eating disorders and selective mutism, she was able to overcome her life-threatening condition, and start to eat and talk again, by speaking up and actively fighting for responsible reaction to the climate crisis. It is clear that for Greta this is about life and death, and that is the message she wants to convey.

During the past year and a half, Greta has been invited to speak at numerous rallies, as well as exclusive meetings such as the European Parliament, Houses of Parliament in London, the Unites States Congress, and the United Nations. True to her black and white worldview, Greta insists that we have to stop our emission of greenhouse gases; "either we do that or we don't," has been her repeated message. 4 There is something profoundly prophetic about her "clear text" rhetoric. It is not simply about actions but also about a change of heart, and mind. Speaking to the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, in February 2019, Greta challenged her audience to do their homework, because "once you have done your homework," she insisted, "you realize that we need new politics, we need new economics where everything is based on a rapidly declining and extremely limited remaining carbon budget." But, to Greta, "that is not enough." What is needed is "a whole new way of thinking." Instead of political systems based on competition, we need to cooperate and work together and to share the resources of the planet in a fair way. We need to start living within the planetary boundaries, focus on equity and take few steps back for the sake of all living species. We need to protect the biosphere, the air, the oceans, the soil, the forests. 5 For Greta there is no compromise, "no lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot" way of thinking (Rev. 3.16), you are either for or against, either willing to save the planet, and our future, or not. The burning house is a compelling metaphor, painted in strong colors. "Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire," Greta said in her address to the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2019. She concluded her speech with this powerful, no beating-around-the-bush message:

We must change almost everything in our current societies. There is something not right, when our kids and teenagers are missing out of school in order to protest and fight for the future of our planet, our common home, and the future of all of us who live here now, as well as future generations. There is something strange going on, and the young people are getting it. Once again civil disobedience is proving to be an important tool against unjust systems, which are protecting the few, and not caring for the rest. This is what climate justice is all about. It reminds us that those who have contributed the least to the climate crisis are suffering the most; the poor, women, and children in the Global South. Those of us who belong to the privileged part of the world, need to start thinking globally; we need to look at the bigger picture. We cannot continue to think just about us, and our economy. Greta Thunberg argues what it all boils down to is the choice between money and the environment. There are multiple ways we can respond responsibly to the current crisis we are faced with, not only highly technical, and financially costly solutions. A book called Drawdown: The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming (2017), lists, for example, education of girls as the sixth most important solution, and family planning as number seven, right after refrigeration, wind turbines, reduced food-waste, plant-rich diet and tropical forests; and before solar farms, and rooftop solar. 7 There is no surprise that people, who are paying close attention to the discourse about the climate crises, are worrying about the future. Eco-anxiety is a growing concern, especially among the youth. Melting glaciers, higher temperatures, and severe storms are among the signs of climate change that are raising the awareness, and even anxiety, of the people in Iceland. It is important that people realize that something can still be done. Greta Thunberg has warned all of us that talk about hope can indeed keep us away from actions. At the UN Climate Change Conference, in Katowice in Poland in December 2018, Greta gave a powerful talk, in front of world leaders, climate scientists, and other participants. She concluded her talk with those words:

Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible, there's no hope. We cannot solve a crises without treating it as a crisis. We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity.

And if solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself?

We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again. You've run out of excuses and we're running out of time. We've come here to let you know that change is coming whether you like it or not.

The real power belongs to the people. 8 A prophetic voice; a challenging, encouraging, and compelling voice. But will she be able to move us into action? Only time will tell. Trauma, eco-spirituality, and transformation in Frozen 2: Guides for the Church and climate change I recently became captivated by the film Frozen 2. I was in Florida for a psychotherapy professional training and one night decided to take myself on a date. Nothing fancy; I was intentionally looking for something not too thought provoking or activating-just dinner and a movie. Little did I anticipate how Disney's new animated film would capture my imagination, heart, and theological intrigue. While there is enough material in my thoughts and consciousness to fill out a book (keep your eyes out for one in the future-the proposal is already in the works), I wanted to share a few reflections on how Disney's Frozen 2 can provide a lens for trauma, transformation, and the essential call for our faith communities to step more fully into an eco-spirituality as a means of fully incarnated repair. Warning: spoilers ahead! First things first. "Trauma," as I am using it, refers to any experience that overwhelms our capacity to respond to the challenges in our environment and results in either an over constriction or an over expansion. Trauma is less about the event or experience itself and more about the ways in which it impacts us as individuals, communities, or global ecology. When faced with a significant threat that overwhelms our capacity for resiliency, we are at risk of developing symptoms of traumatic response. In its simplest form, traumatic responses cause us to be smaller or less than we truly are in an effort to protect ourselves from further wounding. We either shrink to escape further blows or we build and reside behind walls to project a larger image.

Trauma and transformation are the beating heart of Frozen 2. As Olaf wisely queries, "Did you know that an enchanted forest is a place of transformation?" Just as trauma entrenches us in protective patters; transformation calls from the beyond, into the unknown, and into the promise of authentic flow. Transformation often requires us to enter into liminal places, the spaces betwixt and between, where our familiar habits are tested. These spaces, either geographically or relationally, disrupt our habits of constriction or fleeing protection and generate opportunities and wiggle room for the new. They require courage and offer hope for connection, fullness, and completion.

The heartbeat pulsing through the film begins in the opening scene in which Elsa and Anna play with snow toys. Anna explores the narrative that love, in this instance between a distressed damsel and a "fancy" prince, will save the day. Elsa, meanwhile, weaves a story of trapped fairies and "the fairy princess who breaks the spell and saves everyone." Their play prompts their father to tell a story of a real enchanted forest and how he became king. His story paints a picture of colonialism and subsequent acts of violence that rend the connection among the elemental spirits, the Northuldra people (based on the Sami people) from Arendelle, and begins a cascade that separates Anna from Elsa, and their family from their community. While initially told from the perspective of King Agnarr, the driving quest of the film is to discover the truth, brave the trauma of the truth, and make amends or reparation thus breaking the spell.

At the center of the tale is Elsa's quest to follow the lure of the voice that calls to her into the unknown and toward the source that holds memory and truth. Along the way Elsa must show her power to befriend the elemental spirits and witness the pieces of truth they hold. From the wind, she sees her parents as children and meets the Northuldra people. The fire spirit shows her that she is not alone in hearing the call. The water spirit challenges her to recognize the limits of her power and to depend on another to go the distance. The earth giants, through the prompting of Anna, break the wall that is the origin and symbol of violence and mistrust. It is only through the befriending and partnership with the elemental spirits that Elsa finds her way home to who she fully is and Anna steps into her power. The origins of trauma and separation in Frozen 2 are located in the deceptive "gift" to build the dam and stop the flow of water and connection thus weakening the elemental spirits and leading to violence. Transformation occurs by venturing into the unknown, befriending the elemental spirits and indigenous communities, courageously witnessing the source violence of trauma, and taking concrete actions to break the spell and restore resiliency and vitality.

So, what wisdom can the church glean from Frozen 2? First, in the midst of our ecological global crisis, we must find the courage to venture into the unknown. What are more sustainable practices? How do we speak with confidence about the limits of our solidified patterns and hope of restored connection? Second, we need to find the fortitude to witness the ways in which we have enacted violence against one another, the Earth, and non-human beings and the conviction to change, dismantle the dams we have built to enhance our power while limiting the magic of the natural world, and make reparations.

Humanity's chronic history of violence has profound implications for planetary health and eco-diversity. As we move forward in this critical period of ecological viability, who will we show ourselves to be? Will we extend our awareness of the creation narrative in Genesis 2 and live into a renewed confession that YHWH created the Earth and all of her creatures and they are good? As the fires in California and, more acutely, Australia, have made clear, the loss of animal life as a consequence of our unchecked impact on climate is devastating. Will we protect the children of the Earth from our unfettered goblin of destruction or will we break the spell and save everyone?

As communities of faith, we have an opportunity to mend the traumatic wounds of colonial violence, humbly seek forgiveness and understanding for our histories of collective violence toward indigenous peoples, and offer reparations (in whatever form is appropriate) to our intra-and interspecies siblings. We must find the courage to befriend those who frighten us in their efforts to protect themselves from our histories of violence and to join with them to heal the traumas that threaten to freeze and drown. Transformation is formed through the courage to venture into the unknown, the willingness to listen, witness, and befriend, the moral fortitude to break down the walls that were erected in fear, and connect ever more fully to the elemental spirits of the planet and, through those connections, to who we are meant to be. We are the ones we have been waiting for. Can we fully step into our power and show our self who is made in the image of the Divine?

Grounding Flight Wellness Center DOI: 10.1111/dial.12553 

From the redwood forests and the cedars of Lebanon to the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, far back into the groundswells of the archaic human imagination, the experience of "treehood" (Paul Tillich) has claimed human hearts and minds all around this good Earth for countless generations. 1 I myself, in my own mundane way, have been captivated by existential encounters with trees, real or imagined, ever since I can remember. But much as I have self-consciously and enthusiastically lived with, thought about, and contemplated trees my whole life, I have never explored that experience itself. I want to make a start at doing that here, with the hope that this might prompt others, particularly members of American Christian communities, to go and do likewise, in fresh ways. 2

The first tree I ever fell in love with was a Lombard Poplar. I grew up in an exurban setting, near Buffalo, New York. One side of the family land was lined with these tall, cylindershaped trees, which had already grown to full height, perhaps 60 feet tall, when I was a child. Usually without my parents knowing, I would on occasion climb up one of those trees as high as I dared. The branches were fragile, but, for a slim 11year-old, that climb was safe, or so I thought back then. On those ascents, I often imagined myself to be a kind of heroic adventurer. I would station myself maybe 40 feet above the ground for a spell, as I surveyed our house below and the fields beyond, and felt the wind bending the tree and brushing my face. It was a boy's dream. For those moments, I lived ecstatically, in another world, thanks to that poplar tree.

In retrospect, I can imagine that those tree-climbing adventures must have had an important psychological function for me. I was an unhappy child at times, a condition that I only began to understand some years later when I was in therapy during my college years. High up in one of those trees, I suppose that I was able to leave those familial tensions behind, if only for a short time.

In therapy, I came to understand that, among other family dynamics, I had had a conflicted relationship with my father. He was a kind and caring man, but I began to realize that he was also distant at some deeper level. Enter the world of trees. Perhaps thanks to his German heritage-Germans typically cherished their parks, perhaps more than other ethnic groups-my father loved trees. One of his uncles, who was also of German descent, had a top position in the Buffalo parks department in the late nineteenth century. That uncle oversaw the implementation of a plan to plant what turned out to be many thousands of sweepingly gracious elm trees, along both sides of many of the city's parkways. In those days, long before the onset of Dutch elm disease, Buffalo was Elm City without the name.

That history behind him, my father often found times to take his mind off his busy professional life-he was a dentist-by planting and caring for trees all around our sizeable property. And he often enlisted me to work with him, which was always a joy for me. Those were some of the times when I truly felt close to him and when, I believe, he truly felt close to me.

Adventurous joy with those poplar-climbings and warm personal bonding with those tree-plantings and that tree-care with my father-those were some of the deeper experiences of my younger years which I came to cherish as I grew into adulthood. Also, during my high school years, my family had the means to travel to many of the nation's great national parks during extended summer vacations. Under my father's tutelage on those trips, I came to affectionately know many trees, the majestic redwoods of California, for example, or the effervescent quaking aspens of Utah.

During the years of my doctoral studies, I found a way to read every volume of the collected works of John Muir, even though those works were obviously not immediately germane for my chosen field of academic research, twentieth century German theology. John Muir then led me to the much more famous Henry David Thoreau. I think, in retrospect, that I read Muir first, and thoroughly, because he was so deeply imbued with Calvin's theology, whether he fully understood that or not, and since, by that time, I had immersed myself in Calvin's thought, along with Luther's, both of whom, I came to believe and then subsequently to argue, were dedicated champions of the goodness of creation and the glories and the mysteries of the natural world, in particular. 3 I read Muir and Thoreau, ironically perhaps, at the same time that I was working on my doctoral dissertation on the great Karl Barth's-highly problematical-theology of nature. 4 Barth's theology as a whole, seminal indeed as it was, never helped me to understand, much less to affirm, my longstanding love for trees. Muir's and then Thoreau's encounters with trees did. The result was a theological proposal, on my part, for a new way to understand my love-or anyone's love-for trees.

Barth had adopted what was, at the time, a more or less conventional theological way to understand human relationships with other creatures, a theme developed by many thinkers in his era, but which was most often associated with the name of the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, and his book, I and Thou. 5 Buber contrasted an I-Thou relation, which he thought of in intimate, personalistic terms, with an I-It relation, which he defined as an objectifying relationship between a person and a thing. So, when someone says to his or her partner, authentically, "I love you," that is an I-Thou relationship. When he or she picks up a hammer and hits a nail, that is an I-It relationship.

Buber and others-among them, Barth-who gave this way of thinking currency, were eager to protect and then to celebrate the authenticity of genuine human relationships and to reject any kind of objectifying relationships between humans and other humans. Humans should always be regarded as ends-in-themselves, according to this way of thinking, and should never be treated as objects to be manipulated.

What, then, about my relationship with trees? The I-Thou, I-It way of thinking does not account for my love of trees. Trees are not persons. You cannot communicate with a tree the way you can communicate with your spouse, as a Thou. Are all trees, therefore, in truth mere objects? Was that Lombard Poplar which I adored when I was 11 years old merely an object I used, like a ladder, to climb up into the sky? Or was it, in truth, a creature in its own right, worthy of my respect, even adulation? Wasn't it the case that I not only clung to that tree, forty feet above ground, for safety's sake, but also to embrace it? That tree, for me, back then was no mere object. It was something else. But what? Buber recognized this problem in an appendix to the second edition of I and Thou. He even imagined a relationship to a tree that is somehow akin to an I-Thou relationship, but he self-consciously chose not to try to think that through. I decided that I myself would give it a try.

In my first scholarly article, I argued that a revision of Buber's thought was required. Hence my title: "I-Thou, I-It, and I-Ens." 6 I wanted to be able to talk about the trees that I loved as ends-in-themselves, no longer as mere objects. In that article, to illustrate I-Ens relationships, I drew attention not only to the praxis of thinkers like Thoreau and Muir with regard to nature, but also to Luther's and Calvin's visions of earthly creatures. Both Reformers, like Thoreau and Muir, portrayed those creatures in non-objectifying terms and indeed celebrated those creatures as ends in themselves, as, in some sense, charged with the mystery of God. Luther saw miracles in nature everywhere and stood in awe of them. Calvin considered the whole of nature to be a theater of Divine glory and celebrated that glory enthusiastically.

In ensuing publications, I employed the constructs of I-Thou, I-It, and I-Ens as a kind of silent interpretive key to open up the whole sweep of classical Christian theology in a new way. I argued that -notwithstanding Lynn White Jr.'s then widely hailed critique of the Christian tradition as ecologically bankrupt, alleging that Christians have almost always treated nature as a mere object, something to be manipulated-we can trace a major Christian tradition that richly affirmed the natural world in its own right. That way of thinking I could have called the Ens-tradition. In retrospect, I think that my reflections about Buber's way of thinking and my historical investigations were existentially dependent on my early encounters with treehood.

Likewise for my conversion to environmental activism, along the way. That happened, emphatically, after I first began to work my way through books like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Stewart Udall's The Quiet Crisis in the early 1960s. 7 It was natural, as it were, for me in those days, and subsequently, not only to love trees in their own right, but also to do all that I could do to protect them, along with the whole world of God's earthly creatures.

But my life with trees by no means came to expression just in youthful encounters or in mid-life scholarly writings or even in longstanding commitments to environmental or ecojustice activism. 8 I also have been blessed throughout my life by rich encounters with a range of particular trees. This story has unfolded in several locations, but I want to mention only one here, the old farmhouse at Hunts Corner, in southwestern Maine, which has been a home away from home for me and my family for more than forty years.

At Hunts Corner, notwithstanding the human incursions here and there and the ominous pipeline in particular, I have developed cordial relationships over the years with many of the trees on our land, I-Ens relationships as I think about them. I have learned to call many of those trees by name and sometimes greet them, when no other humans are around.

Our plot was in all likelihood a farmland 150 years ago. The west side of our land is marked by one of those famous stone walls that defined the farm fields in historic New England. The oldest trees tend to be near that wall or to be growing from an adjacent, steep and stony incline, which never could have been farmed. One mother oak, in particular, has fascinated me ever since I first noticed it. It is enormous. I cannot put my arms even half way around its mammoth base. The poor tree has been hammered and seared over its long lifetime by the elements. The top of its central trunk was apparently sheared off, perhaps decades ago. But the tree has lived on. Near that mother oak grow a number of smaller, but nevertheless sizeable descendants. I once walked through that area with a neighbor and he eagerly explained to me that I could make a lot of money if I were to have those oaks cut down for commercial sale.

Grand old towering mother white pines also grow in that area and elsewhere on our land. My brother, Gary, and I once cut down one of those giants after it had died, this, for safety reasons. I did not want it to fall on anyone, particularly on my grandchildren, who sometimes had ventured out near that tree, at the edge of the forest.

Treehood should not be romanticized. A tearful older father once told me, in a long, quiet conversation, how he had lost his daughter to a tree, in the prime of her life. This was the story that onlookers reported. His daughter and her two toddlers had been picnicking in a park. On their way home, she was watching them run on playfully ahead of her. At one point, she saw a large tree falling down on to the children. She ran desperately to push them out of the way, which she did. But she herself was killed. That story was in my mind, as were my own grandchildren, all the time my brother and I were working to take down that immense, but dead pine tree at the edge of our forest. Huge it was. Gary and I barely had the strength together to roll pieces from that tree's trunk into the woods to their final resting places.

Early on in my family's tenure at Hunts Corner, I began to carve out paths in the back forest, where that mother oak and a number of the great white pines live and where American beeches are now moving in. Closer to our house, I have planted a variety of individual trees over the years or occasionally cut away competitors, in order to allow some extant trees to flourish.

Perhaps the most striking of all the tree planting that Laurel and I have done over the years was the operation that she and I once performed on what was, for us at the time, a nameless sapling. It was March, early on in our experience with the world of rural Maine. What we did was sheer, youthful folly. Laurel had decided at that time, that, come the next spring, we would turn over a plot just back of our house, where she would begin to create a perennial garden. But there stood that large sapling right in the middle of that space! Without much thought, we decided that we would try to move that tree, right then.

The ground was frozen, of course. I had to use an ax to cut out the ball of the roots. Once cut free, we could barely drag that ball out of its earthen socket. Now what? We decided to roll it maybe forty yards to the western side of our land. There, using the ax again, and a pick-ax, I hollowed out a cavity for that big, frozen root ball. Finally, we were able to slide that sapling and the mass of its frozen roots into that hole.

It was only then that it dawned on us that we had planted that tree close to the church next door, a pristine, white, wooden building, which easily could have appeared on some New England calendar cover. But that was that. Never mind that sapling. The church building appeared to be as picturesque as ever. We hurried on into the house to warm ourselves by the Franklin Stove. Little did we know back then that that nameless sapling, more than 40 years later, would magically turn into a graceful and fulsome red maple whose sumptuous branches would then completely cover our vista of the whole church building! That iconic structure is gone from our angle of vision for much of the year. There may be a parable hidden in this ironic tale, but, if so, I have yet to discover what it is.

Sadly, the sugar maple I planted at the front of our property many years ago recently died. It was painful for me to observe that large and lovely tree die over the course of several seasons and then to witness it standing there, barren, a skeleton, all by itself.

True, stories like these sometimes have a blessed ending, according to one of the central themes of the Christian faith, from death comes life. Over the many years that we have lived at Hunts Corner, mostly from the early spring through the late fall, we have used our old iron stove in the kitchen steadily, sometimes even on cool summer nights. And we obtain fuel for those fires almost always from standing dead-wood, which we cut down at various places on our land and then drag in, cut up, split, and stack. That was to be the story of that dead sugar maple. We would give thanks for it one more time, so I thought, as it would later warm both our kitchen and our hearts.

But that dead sugar maple's transition to firewood was not as smooth as I had anticipated. That project turned out to be an adventure.

For many years, my brother and I have helped each other with forest and other chores at our respective rural homes, his in western Connecticut. He learned to love trees the same way I did, working with our father on the grounds of our exurban Buffalo home. After various childhood and adolescent skirmishes, some of them harsh, Gary and I have remained close over the years and have grown even closer in these our golden years, especially by assisting each other outdoors either in Connecticut or Maine, for days at a time.

That towering dead sugar maple had to be cut so that it would fall away from the street, not on to the street, where it might block or even hit some speeding car that was passing by. With some anxiety, I admit, I nevertheless trusted Gary to cut that tree just so that it would fall precisely where it was supposed to. I had witnessed Gary "place" (his term) falling trees in just the right locations many times.

When this tree began to undulate, however, it did not immediately fall away from the street as Gary had cut it to fall. The tree just stood there trembling, not falling in any direction! What was going to happen? With some sense of urgency (!) and with a long rope tying him to that oh-so-perilously oscillating tree, as it was readying itself to fall in one direction or another, Gary dashed to a spot far away from the street and then pulled on the rope, again and again, until the tree finally fell toward him (it crashed down a few feet to his left!) and not on to some unsuspecting car that might have been speeding up or down our road. Quite a feat for one who was at that time about to turn eighty! As I am constantly aware, trees are not always our friends. But thankfully, in this case, Gary was able to coax that tree in a friendly direction, narrowly escaping injuring himself or anyone else.

I have saved for last what is for me the best news about treehood.

Some years ago, Laurel and I purchased a then ten-foot tall purple beech sapling, and planted it in our Hidden Garden. Long before, we had come to adore the gigantic hundred-yearold purple beeches we had encountered in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, near our Massachusetts home. In this finite world, those great trees are, for me, the best natural symbols of eternal life that I can imagine. Laurel and I have decided to have our ashes interred at the base of our own purple beech, which now rises high above us in the Hidden Garden.

I have affixed a foot-high Celtic Cross-made of cementat the base of our purple beech, which one day will not only mark the place of our buried ashes, but will also announce the truth, for those who have ears to hear, that has claimed my own soul self-consciously since the first days of my theological study to these my octogenarian years, predicated on a reading of Colossians 1:15ff.: The crucified and risen Lord is the Cosmic Christ, both now and forever-"…[A]ll things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col.1:16f. NRSV).

I saw that cosmic Christology in the figures and designs on the historic Celtic crosses that I encountered during a trip to Ireland with Laurel in 1996, along with throngs of other spiritual seekers. 9 I concluded then that the classical Celtic saints were by no means essentially nature mystics, as many who have been fascinated with them in our time have believed. No, their spirituality of nature was consistently an eschatological celebration of the Cross and Resurrection. For the great Celtic saints, the love of the seas and the earth and its creatures and the love of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, is the same love, now and forever.

Hence I was overjoyed when I found and then was able to buy that cement Celtic Cross at Home Depot for $14.98. I eagerly carried it off to implant it in the earth next to the purple beech in our Hidden Garden. I wanted to announce that someone believes-or that someone, whose ashes are interred there, once did believe-that that tree, marked by that Cross, is-or was-for that believer the lignum vitae. I cannot imagine the story I am telling here ending otherwise, for I now realize that my world, from the days of my childhood on, always has been, is, and, I hope, always will be, the world of treehood. 2 Treehood, rightly construed, has a justice dimension. Think of the remarkable work of Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai (d. 2011), who started the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, which has planted more than 30 million trees in Africa, in order to fight erosion, to create firewood, to give work to poor women, and, generally, to reestablish the health of the whole earthly biotic community. Wangari's work presupposed that trees have their own standing, that trees, essentially, are not first and foremost objects for capitalist exploitation, whether directly, through commercial development, or indirectly, through the destructions wrought by impoverished peoples. Nor, in Wangari's perspective, were trees essentially a means for the wealthy temporarily to escape from the contradictions of modern industrial society, under the rubric of "ecotourism." 7 Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. New York: Houghton & Mifflin; Udall, S. (1963) . The quiet crisis. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2013, Ch. 18. 9 For an account of my engagement with Celtic spirituality, see Santmire, H. P. (2000) . The church is a global network. It has a presence around the world that is almost unsurpassed by any other organization or movement. The church has contact with other religions at all levels, and cooperates with a wide range of humanitarian organizations. It is in dialogue with world leaders, not least via the UN system. The church has a presence in many places around the world that are not readily accessible. During crises and disasters, the church is often there before they happen, while they are happening, and long after the immediate relief work has been phased out. This is an obligation in an era in which the world must learn to live with the climate crisis and its consequences.

We know that those people who have contributed least to global warming are often those most severely affected by climate change. We know that social challenges such as poverty, migration, and the global health situation are directly linked to environmental and climate issues. There is a need for climate justice. The issue is how we humans interact with the natural environment, of which we are a part. We therefore have to take action based on what feels most meaningful in our lives. We must therefore talk about the sacrifices that we can make together, so that our children and the children of others can have a future.

The climate crisis is exacerbated by lifestyles that make greed seem like a virtue. Resolving it will be difficult for as long as people and nature are viewed only from the perspective of economics and technology. Only when we actually distinguish between our needs and our desires can we achieve fair and just climate goals. When will we learn to say, "Enough is enough!"?

What we think about and feel about nature really matters. Is it a mechanism that simply keeps on rolling? An unlimited source of raw materials? Our recreation area? Our enemy? A place of endless harmony and balance? A system involving a constant battle for survival? How we relate to nature as creation reveals how we relate to the very basis of existencewhich we call God.

The churches in the east and the west have developed somewhat differing points of focus with regard to humankind and creation. Put in simple terms, western tradition has developed a deep trust in rationality and science. This has contributed to a demystifying of nature and humankind's role in creation. Its secrets were dissolved in measurability. Humans came to understand themselves to be rulers of nature, rather than stewards who are responsible for and have to care for something that they do not actually own. The emphasis was put on humankind's function.

Theologians in the east have talked more about nature as a mystery that cannot be fully described, not even with the most excellent measuring instruments available in the world of science. Nature meets us and shows itself to us, but never fully. As humans, we are part of this mystery. Each human being is itself a miniature cosmos, a microcosm. Here, the relationship is at the forefront. The western view has a tendency to see too little concreteness, and something romantic, in this approach. But the fact is that a full understanding of our role as human beings requires both perspectives: function and relationship, doing and being.

It is a characteristic of being human that we can have an indepth understanding of ourselves based on the relationships in which we are involved: to ourselves, to each other, to the entire creation, and to the ground of being itself. We can also gain a deep understanding of our mission as human beings, our function: why are we actually here?

As we face the climate crisis, we need to focus on rational action inspired by the best science available, while also needing to have an existential understanding of how and why we feel and act as we do. Destroying biodiversity; wrecking forests and wetlands; poisoning water, soil, and air-all these are violations of our mission as human beings. Theology calls it a sin. This sin arises from our inability to see the earth as our home, a sacrament of community. Our natural environment unites all the people on earth with every living thing, in a way that transcends any differences in faiths and convictions that may exist between us humans. Experiencing the beauty of nature means a lot to us. But we are also created for another type of beauty: that people have quality of life, live in harmony with nature, meet in peace and help each other.

If we want to have an ecologically, socially, economically, and spiritually sustainable approach to the world-which we must have-individual or commercial solutions will never be sufficient. This is why spiritual maturity is now required. Such maturity means being able to see the difference between what I want and what the world needs. It can understand that the climate crisis is rooted in human greed and selfishness. It can elevate us above fear, greed, and fundamentally unhealthy ties.

If we want technological development, fair and just economic systems, ecological balance, and social cohesion to work together to create a sustainable future on our earth, we also need a conversion, a new state of mind. A renewal of our humanity (in the dual sense of the word). It is not sufficient for us to only address the symptoms if we really want healing and wholeness.

Like Pope Francis, we are of the opinion that we are in urgent need of a humanism that is able to bring together different areas of knowledge, including economics, to form a more integrated and integrating vision. Science, politics, business, culture, and religion-everything that is an expression of humankind's dignity-need to work together to put our earthly home on a more stable footing. Real stature among leaders and rulers of various kinds becomes apparent when we in difficult times can maintain high moral principles and focus on the long-term common good. In these days, the bishops of the Church of Sweden will be issuing a bishops' letter about the climate that highlights these issues in more detail.

The climate deadline is coming ever closer. Indecision and negligence are the language of death. We must choose life. Give the earth the opportunity to heal, so that it can continue to provide for us and so that people can live in a world characterized by fairness, justice, and freedom.

Archbishop Antje Jackelén DOI: 10.1111/dial.12557 Thoughts while sheltering …

In the midst of a crisis it is easy to make statements that later seem unnecessarily alarmist. I do not think I am the kind of person who normally sounds alarmist (but who really who thinks that they are alarmist?), but it is hard to imagine that COVID-19 will not remake our lives in ways we never could have envisioned a few months ago. It is hard to imagine that our lives-collectively and individually-will not be forever changed.

Some thoughts:

1. I do not generally read God's wrath and judgement into current events and I am not prepared to do that now. That said, I find myself wondering if COVID-19 will not change our lives in a manner similar to the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). This story is, among other things, an account of how a united humanity became divided. I wonder if COVID-19 will not threaten to (further?) divide us.

2. Others have written and commented about the relationship between COVID-19 and climate change. Many of these people are much more knowledgeable and smarter than me. I plan to listen even harder to them. For much of my adult life, I have attempted to walk with a light environmental footprint (e.g., I have walked or rode a bicycle to work for over 25 years). In the past year, my wife and I have doubled down on such practices and we walk with an even lighter environmental footprint. I have a feeling that others might be joining me in the future.

3. I wonder if COVID-19 will not accelerate the already fast pace of secularization in western societies. The churchfairly or not-has been associated with the status quo and thereby irrelevance by many people (especially younger people). With "physical distancing" forcing worshipping communities to meet virtually and disembodied, can they matter? What is life together if it is virtual and disembodied? I am not a Luddite who wants to destroy technological tools. I am, after all, writing this because of the miracle of modern computer technology. However I think that social media and virtual life supplements, not supplants, embodied life.

4. I wonder if COVID-19 might not reverse-or at least stem the tide of-the pattern of secularization and irrelevancy of the church. The church mattered in the early Middle Ages because of its commitment to caring for the sick and vulnerable. I am thinking, for example, of Gregory the Great who while he was pope used the wealth of the church to feed the hungry and care for the poor. Is COVID-19 such a moment for the church?

5. I think about hospitals and monasteries in the Middle Ages. They were beacons and refuges for Christians fleeing plague and pestilence. Hospitals and monasteries were beacons and refuges for Christians to care for others who were fleeing plague and pestilence. These hospitals and monasteries were outposts of civilization in wildernesses of savagery and barbarianism. Does the church need to reclaim that part of its history and heritage and make it more central to its mission and identity?

6. I think also of the Babylonian Exile. Israel had to rethink what it meant to be faithful when it had no temple for people to worship in and bring their offerings to. What will it mean for us in the 21st century if we cannot gather together in the ways we have always gathered?

I finish here with only six thoughts. God worked for 6 days and then rested. I will rest also with these six thoughts and observe a kind of Sabbath. I will be thinking on God and the ways of God and who we are called to be. My seventh thought is a Sabbath thought. It is a thought, such as it is, of worship, prayer, and contemplation.

David C. Ratke DOI: 10.1111/dial.12558 The corona crisis unmasks prevailing social ideologies

The current Covid19 pandemic shows that dominant ideologies of our age-from individualism to social constructivism-fall short in meeting reality by disregarding the wider ecological community in which we are situated. Human beings, for sure, play an increasing role in cultivating, shaping, and also destroying our shared world. Maybe the corona virus experience teaches us to recover the importance of human communities as well as our place in ecological communities? It seems that neither individualism nor social constructivism stand the test of reality.

If there is anything the Corona crisis teaches us, it is that our lives are interconnected. There is no human being who only inhabits his or her own little world, and who is in charge. We are part of a great human community-for good and evil. We infect each other, yes, but we also live off each other's infectious smiles. What would our lives be like without close eye contact and bodily expressions of welcome? Community is the first and most important part of our lives, and during quar-antine we experience how much we miss the normal social interaction with each other. In the meantime, we are thrown back on ourselves, or the very closest ones.

There resides some truth in every ideology, otherwise it could not attract our attention, and be infectious. Liberalism is the view that every citizen should have as much freedom to live as possible. Most of us agree on this value across the political spectrum from left to right. Yet the fact is that we are the blacksmiths not only of our own happiness, but also of our misfortune. The misery is that we cannot know in advance. But more than that, we also share the misfortune of others. Self-restraint is necessary precisely because it is a primary fact that my desire for freedom and movement can put others in bondage and immobility.

Since the 1950s, existentialism has been a very widespread ideology. It still is under the guise of being against all ideology. Since Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism has argued that you are what you do. It is your free decisions that give you the essence and character of your particular humanity. Existentialism is a humanism, as Sartre called his 1946-program. True it is that we live every day with small choices about where to go, but the idea that we are "decision-makers" all the day is an extremely forced view. Fortunately, most of us do as we usually do, and if we do not, others would not be able to count on us. A human being who constantly decides pro or con would be an incalculable human being, a constantly ticking bomb under enduring relationships. An existentialism without the "humanism of the other person" (Levinas) is a monster beyond the possibility of attunement and self-correction.

The ideology of existentialism lies in its individualism. Fortunately, however, we live in communities where we, as resonating beings, constantly tune in to each other. Hopefully, we also live the greater part of our lives in a pre-conscious stream of experience that precedes our small and large decisions. Otherwise, we would quickly become sleepless persons, incarcerated in a hyperactive consciousness, and eventually we would become insane. In short: It is not very often my decisions that determine who I am. Rather, it is the sum of the resonance-and-dissonance experiences of my life that determines who I am and what I do. The community exists before the conscious self-awareness of the Ego.

Alongside the over-spiritualized view of existentialism, we find another ideology, which sees a human being as the exclusive owner of a physiological body, curved in around itself. We could call it the skin-and-hair ideology. Bodies, however, do not only include skin and hair, bones, and internal organs, for we live as socially and ecologically extended bodies. What we can learn from biology is that our bodies are in constant exchange between one's own body and everyone else's. Humans are "holobionts," an organismic space for a variety of lifeforms.

In discussing the nature-nurture problem, the controversy has been about how much genes (nature) determine us, and how much our society (nurture). But inside our body we do not only carry our specific human genome, but also a wider microbiome, made up of all the viruses, bacteria, and fungi that have entered our body from the outside into our nose, throat, ears, and not least gut-through food consumption, fluids, and the inhalation of air. Overall, we should be grateful for the world of microbiota, for most microorganisms are symbiotic. Without bacteria and viruses, we would curl up on the floor with abdominal pain, and we could never be able to "make decisions." Overall, we need to be good friends with our bacteria and viruses. Only a few are as harmful as Covid-19, and here we naturally have to go into counter-procedures such as cleansing, preventing, and quarantining. As far the medical science goes, we do not have a cure at present. Hence, the respirators will be running until the corona infection is over.

Let me now address what I see as the most widespread ideology in our time, at least in the academy: social constructivism. This ideology has spread from sociology to psychology, politics and pedagogy, and social constructivism has ended up being a quasi-orthodox consensus ideology within the humanities and substantial parts of theology as well. This movement's first epicenter was the book The Social Construction of Reality, written by sociologists Thomas Luckman and Peter L. Berger in 1966, followed up by Berger's The Sacred Canopy in 1967, focusing on the religious construction of reality. Being a circumspective scholar, Berger soon after realized the weaknesses of social constructivism but by then the ideology had already infected wider parts of the social sciences. Its thesis was, and henceforth is, that human societies construct reality through language perception and the maneuvers of rhetoric, political, and social engineering, and that human societies do so under only a minimal resistance from pre-linguistic reality, including nature.

Again, there is an aspect of truth in this idea. The ways in which we use language and discursively define the boundaries of society do indeed have impact on the public perception of reality. For example, the political responses to the Corona crisis show the considerable impact of our political constructions of reality. State leaders are the ones who have capacity to define states of emergency, and in an exceptional situation governments act as quasi-sovereign powers that determine the social reality for the general population. It cannot be different, but political decisions differ from country to country. Do we proceed as in South Korea and Taiwan (with large screenings of the population and subsequent quarantines)? Do we do as in Denmark (with an early and strict lockdown but initially without many Corona tests)? Or, do we choose like Sweden (avoid strong coercion but appeal to the population)? By comparison, the overarching federal strategy in the United States still (March 29, 2020) seems oscillating.

This being the case, social constructivism does not sit well with a common sense realism: it is the de facto spread of the Covid-19 infection, and the subsequent fatalities, that will determine whether our political measures have worked or not. In an infectious world, politics combines wait-and-see attitude with post hoc maneuvers. Even the most powerful politicians cannot talk away Covid-19. Either you have it or you do not have it. Either you infect others or you do not. Either you will see an exponential spread or you will see a flat rising curve.

Thus, it is the spread of infections that tests politics, not the other way around. Social and political constructs are not capable of defining reality. It seems that even the most clumpydumpy politicians are beginning to understand the reality test, after having tried to downplay Covid-19 rhetorically. Accordingly, what we need in the academy is a thorough revision of the prevailing ideologies of our age: individualism, social constructionism, discourse theory, etc.

We need a biocultural and ecological paradigm shift within the social and human sciences, including theology. Otherwise we see people of faith as individual faith decision-makers, and we overburden one another with overheated appeals to letting God come to our mind, as if we could conceptually enframe God. Yet if God at all Is, God is prior to our consciousness and our self-aware pious decisions. If God is, God is present to the child, and present to us when we are using our full energy and attention in solving a problem, when we are falling asleep, when we are aging and entering into states of dementia and no longer in conscious contact with God. The faith of any individual (each in his or her individual manner) is rather about tuning into a deeper reality-a reality which is already there, as the prime and pervasive source of resonance, present in a divine personal form beyond my own little personhood. Faith is about plugging in, of moving into the prior reality of the divine self-communication, in words as well as beyond words.

Similarly, revising the assumptions of the skin-and-hair ideology, Jesus is not a bygone entity, a "composite entity" of (a) a divine entity, (b) a skin-and-hair body, and (c) a particular lonely soul, as some analytical theologians redescribe Chalcedonian Christology in a so-called "compositional Christology." But God was not incarnate in a man cave, but conjoined the shared flesh of humanity, shared also with non-human creatures beyond the skin of Jesus. By becoming incarnate in Jesus and in his extended body (also called the reign of God), God is no less present in the compressed respirator tents than in the open sunlight and fresh air. God is radically being there, being there with others and being there for others, not least for us who are gasping for fresh air.

Now back to us who hope to survive and go on. What kind of a reality do we hope to wake up to after the corona crisis? I guess we are waking up to a deeper sense of how much we miss one another, after we have had to separate ourselves from each other. We are missing the abillity to look each other in the eyes (not mediated through a screen), missing to give hands and hugs. We are missing the deep meaning of having skin. I hope that we may rediscover that our community is prior to me as individual, and that the interests of others precede my considerations of myself.

It seems to be obvious that the Corona crisis has unmasked the castles in the air that we have erected in our ruling ideologies, not least within the academy. Individualism and social constructivism-both presuppose a remoteness of human existence from the world of which we are part. Both tend to see individuals and communities as isolated islands, who are ceaselessly at work in imposing a human order into a presumably blank world slate. Yet nature is not a blank slate, but is full of multiple life and regenerative powers. Moreover, nature is not just "out there" but also "in here." We carry nature deep within ourselves, and our entire existence and well-being depends on it.

This should not come as a surprise to theologians who speak of God as the benevolent creator of all that is, on the fields and work life, in our houses, and in ourselves. We need to be more than humanists in order to be truly humane. We can no longer pretend not to be deeply connected to circuits larger than ourselves, for we are at once symbolic creatures, living in cultures, and symbiotic creatures that benefit from the rich world of viruses, bacteria, and fungi. At the same time, however, we are also vulnerable beings. This has always been the case but in a global world, this has become even clearer because we travel as much as we do, and live as close to each other as we do in the big cities.

Covid-19 does something about us before we do anything about it. Every moment, awake or asleep, our immune system trains in capturing the viruses and bacteria that make us sick. Let us hope that the self-generative powers of nature, endowed by God the creator, will be strong enough to handle the Covid-19 in most of us, until we some day can find a vaccine. In the meantime, let us look forward to being able to return to our beloved communities.

"Into the community" could conveniently become the new mantra after the corona era.

University of Copenhagen DOI: 10.1111/dial.12559 The COVID Cross

Pandemic. It is not a word that falls easily from the lips. In a highly scientific and technological society it may strike one as a bid odd, like something from a more primitive past.

That is the power of nature and a sobering reminder that while we have come to control many things in it, nature still can transcend our power and understanding, even with fatal results. This pandemic has reminded us all too clearly how limited human power is. It also brings into clear focus how thin and vulnerable human society is when the whole world can be turned upside down in a matter of weeks. In such a world being ravaged by an "invisible enemy," where is one to turn? The fact that one cannot see it or easily trace it places in the heart a fear and anxiety not unfamiliar from the Middle Ages. The existential experience is the same. We are left with a feeling of vulnerability against an unknown power greater than ourselves and for which we as yet do not have any strong defenses. Evolutionary biology crashes into human society. To "shelter in place" and "social distance" are pretty basic but limited responses, ones not unfamiliar from centuries ago. We have been driven back to the most elemental of human responses, isolation. Where, then, is God in the midst of pandemic? Here incarnation meets the deepest of human needs, affirming God's identification with and understanding of our suffering and anxiety on the COVID Cross.

When there is no obvious ultimate cause or reason, perhaps the only possible source is God. But, if God, then why would a good God do such a thing? For divisive theological dualists the next step is natural, God must be mad at us for something we have done and is punishing us. Since it cannot be our fault, the search is then on for a scapegoat, whether it be 'gays' with the AIDS crisis, New Orleans' perceived licentiousness for hurricane Katrina, or America's secularism for 9/11. For some today the source must be China, the LGBTQ community, or environmentalists. It is theodicy at its most brutal, and it must be challenged. A free creation and human greed combine to make an international disaster, not divine intervention. It is here that the cross confronts the COVID-19 virus, not with platitudes or panaceas, with naming and blaming, but with the affirmation that God is with us.

The first century world of Jesus was a time of disease and death such that much of Jesus' ministry was spent in healing from disease and disabilities. It was not unfamiliar to him. Such is the nature of enfleshment. If one takes enfleshment with all biological seriousness, as Niels Gregersen does in his concept of "deep incarnation," (see The Cross of Christ in an Evolutionary World), we can understand that God identifies with human suffering at the most basic of biological levels. The suffering of the COVID virus is not foreign to God and therefore we are not left alone within it. It means that God is with us in all the biological suffering of an evolutionary world. While the source of the virus is not definitively confirmed, currently it is believed to have originated in bats (as a number of other coronaviruses have), which perhaps bit a pangolin (a sort of plated anteater), which, as an endangered species, was illegally captured and sold at an illegal wild animal market in Wuhan, China. The source of the pandemic? Human greed. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "Never have so few done such harm to so many." Theologically we would call this a result of human sin. It requires human capacity to take something biologically derived and place it on the world market. Had the pangolin been left alone, perhaps this would not have happened.

At such a time of anxiety and isolation, there is a deep longing for hope, meaning, and perhaps forgiveness. To understand the enfleshment of God as deep incarnation, connecting throughout all biological creation, means that no creature, including the human, is truly separated from God, especially those who are dying alone from the virus. If God is truly present to us at the most intimate levels of our existence, then so too is the divine promise. This takes Immanuel, "God with us," to a whole new level and connects the present suffering from the COVID-19 virus to the cross of Christ. It affirms that even if our cognitive faculties or awareness are not functioning well (or at all) that God is still with us. It is not our awareness of God that makes God's grace effective in our lives but God's awareness of us! That is the ground of our hope, not our own reason or strength, even as we pray that a medical solution may soon be found.

As Creator to creation one might metaphorically say that God is "entangled" (non-local, relational holism) with creation, ourselves included, at the foundational levels of material existence analogous to entangled subatomic particles (see Simmons, The Entangled Trinity: Quantum Physics and Theology). Deep incarnation is a way of thinking Christologically about the redemptive entanglement of the Creator with the whole of creation, giving us hope and release from fear and anxiety as this is carried up into and transformed by God. This foundational relationality then grounds divine presence in a suffering world and provides a connectivity for accompaniment and hope in the midst of decline and loss. It is the COVID Cross. Such accompaniment is also expressed through the medical professionals and others who are working tirelessly, and with some personal risk, to help everyone survive throughout the world. This too is an expression of God's care and love within an entangled creation. Transcending one's self-interest for the sake of the ill other can certainly be understood as a gift of the Spirit. Pandemic reminds us that we too are part of that same entangled creation and that we are also our brothers' and sisters' keepers for we are all in this together. Perhaps this may be one of the most hopeful outcomes from such a horrible pandemic. DOI: 10.1111/dial.12560 

There is the existential angst that comes with self-quarantine and the awareness of why it is necessary-we call it "plague dread." And then there are the various levels of explanation, the micro-meanings, you might say. And then there is the mystery-the big meaning, macro-meaning.

Each of us will fill in the dread with the facts of our own life. I am approaching age 90, with at least three of what the media call "underlying conditions"-more than enough empirical ground for me to dread the coronavirus.

Almost hourly, we hear precise scientific descriptions of the virus. These descriptions are crucial, because they enable competent people-physicians, nurses, and researchers-to treat the disease and even prevent its spread.

The scientific theory of evolution helps me understand our situation. The coronavirus is an example of an evolutionary process wrapped within larger evolutionary processes. The behavior of the virus follows Darwinian expectations. All of the processes that take place within our bodies-from the nano and molecular levels to the cells-follow the same evoIutionary pattern.

These evolutionary processes within us are fundamentally ambiguous in that they bring us life and they also bring us death. Leonard Hummel and Gayle Woloschak describe this ambiguity in their fine 2017 book, Chance Necessity, Love: An Evolutionary Theology of Cancer (Cascade Books).

This presents us with a dilemma-we are grateful for the life-giving work of our internal body processes, and we dread the deadly work of those processes. Like cancer, the presence of coronavirus is fully "natural." Nature within us is "naturally" ambiguous. Further, these micro-evolutionary processes take place within a much larger story of evolution with several chapters: the evolution of life, which began millions of years ago, within the larger 4 billion year-long story of planet Earth's evolution, within the still larger story of cosmic evolution, 12 billion years in the telling.

Our response to COVID-19 is to resist the flow of evolution and redirect it. That is what our practice of medicine is about, the attempt to redirect evolutionary processes in our favor. The long processes of evolution bend because of our efforts. This reminds me how infinitesimally small we are, and yet how amazingly gifted we are. Evolution has brought us life and also the skill to reorder evolution itself.

Nevertheless, despite our efforts, even when they are successful, the struggle with evolution takes its toll-and that means injury and death. In my caseevolution in my mother's womb caused me to be born with spina bifida, which, though moderate in severity, has radically impacted the last 10 years of my life.

Even as I write, I am aware of the Mystery (note the capital "M") that wraps around us. We-and these incomprehensible processes of evolution-float in a sea of Mystery. Why is it that our existence is woven on this vast and complex loom of evolution? Why has God chosen this particular way of bringing us into life and sustaining us?

Many thinkers down the millennia have pondered this "Why?"-and they have given us no satisfying final answers. We can probe Mystery, but we cannot resolve it like a puzzle. The book of Job speaks to me at this point. When Job raised the question and demanded God's response, the voice from the whirlwind spoke to him: Your mind is too small and weak to comprehend the height and depths of Mystery-you simply must accept it and trust it.

The Existentialist Albert Camus acknowledged the Mystery, and he believed it is indifferent to human hopes and longings; we cry out for answers for our lives, but in return we hear only silence-he called it ultimate absurdity-Absurdity with a capital "A." His novel The Plague is the story of life during a plague. The plague was indifferent to human existence, the epitome of Absurdity.

Others have called the Mystery Enemy, malevolent, intending to destroy us, if it can.

Christian faith calls the Mystery Friend, Redeemer, Suffering God. Much like the message of Job-death at the hands of the Mystery is real; our attempts to understand it are futile; but the same Mystery is our Redeemer. We can trust it.

After all, evolution is a process-faith believes the process is going somewhere, and that "somewhere" is in the life of God. The life of God is love, which is why in the midst of plague we find love, caring for others.

Medically, for most people our current plague will not have serious consequences. Psychologically and economically, it will damage most people, at least to some degree. A small percentage of people will die. All of us will be borne along the same evolutionary process into our future. And for all of us, that future will be God's gift to us.

Think of the image of a train. Some of us will get off the train at this station, everyone will get off sooner or later, at different stops. Every station's name will be the same, "God's Destination-Love." 

To imagine that my words may speak to you well by the time they reach you seems like magical thinking. No one seems to know exactly where we are. Our slow and then sudden awareness of the impacts of coronavirus left us in an existentially halted, almost eschatological space: we were caught in a world incredibly arrested and incredibly new at the same time. We're deeply aware of old tensions of injustice and vulnerability pulling taut, and simultaneously many of us feel the grit of the irreducible relationality of our bodies and planet anew. We've picked up familiar embodied routines in vital work and mundane practices, and yet now many of the familiar kin that once nourished us with convivial learning, signs of peace, earthly delights, bread and wine are learning to do so again with virtual creativity or picking up pieces. If we are honest with each other, there have been many world-ending plagues before-many apocalypses "now and then," as Catherine Keller says. Native peoples know well the injustices and radical loss of histories of settler violence and plague; so too do LGBTIQ folks know the ways that homophobia shaped responses to HIV/AIDS crises. Even theologians from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther knew the risks of bodied life together. We are "mutually bound" in moments like this one, Luther himself wrote in his now much-cited 1527 letter, "Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague." These moments of crisis won't be the last, as much as we aim to prevent loss. Earthly creatures are vulnerable and resilient, enfleshed with possibilities both tragic and felicitous.

If the old kingdom of our everydayness met its match in the new kingdom of the present, the coming future that cultivates such anxiety in so much of our theological and ethical communities already only intensifies with unknowns. As life began to shift in Ireland, I was waist-deep in a sabbatical research-ing the complex emotional, affective, and felt responses to the climate crises of our time. From eco-anxiety to environmental despair to climate grief, the present and anticipated losses aggregate and will continue to do so. The affective and emotional energies that mutually bind us in the midst of our planetary crises-including that of pandemic-are just as much part of the crises and ethical responses as the scientific approaches we desperately need.

In an interview with the Harvard Business Review, expert on grieving David Kessler (known especially for his work with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross), reflected that what the pandemic brings with it is "a number of different griefs." We (in all of the manifold diversity that term names) are grieving our imagined present, a sense of normalcy, our planet, our loved ones, our work, our relationships, our habits of interactions in the world, and more. More particularly, Kessler argues that something called "anticipatory grief" is in the air. "Anticipatory grief," he says, "is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we're uncertain." 1 In unhealthy ways, anticipatory grief morphs into shifting anxieties and end of the world imaginaries. In richer ways, it acknowledges that our lives undergo transformation into the future and that we must find ways to re-story the present, cultivate resilience, imagine and take action for better future societies. Honoring grief is an active process that we undertake together in moments like these. And sometimes that process means we do the long, hard work of actively grieving our loved ones and gentle hopes for our future as they really do change forever.

Outside of pastoral care, affect, emotions or feeling rarely get much consideration in systematic or constructive theology. Theology, in its rational and patriarchal guises, so often belittles affective archives as beneath the intellectual purity of doctrinal thinking. Yet, theology at its richest and most compelling is felt, is inscribed emotional depth-not as cheap sentimentality or sensationalism, but as imaginative wondering, grieving, transforming, pacing in awe and praise in the middle of the night, lamenting loss in the middle of the day, and crying in terror or joy. Even the driest of systematic theology sometimes can't escape tears when it anticipates our own angst and anticipations. When we do, we human animals make theology and theopoetics with everything we've got. We unleash our manifold imaginations to handle newness, especially in times of immense cultural grief. I want my theology to learn how to grieve better, especially in a time of pandemic.

Most researchers into climate grief will tell you that learning how to grieve a present moment opens up the possibilities of our relational connection. These psychologists, literary theorists, scholars of environmental humanities, and poets ask society to move beyond feelings of ethical individuality (e.g., if only I made "greener" choices) to ethical collectivity (e.g., if only we organized for structural transformation to a better world). Grieving means we are thinking about relationality, shared worlds, and communal possibilities human and more-than-human. Deep calls to deep, and the pathos of shared imagination can cultivate attentiveness to those who need care. That connectivity of spirit may lead to collectively questioning and lamenting power structures or unjust relationships in the world. Questioning may lead to refiguring expectations to ask what the next possible course of action might be. That's just one possible route.

Along that route, the most curious feature of the literature of environmental despair is a persistent emphasis on the importance of play for times of transformation and collective grief. The vitality of playfulness may seem counterintuitive when everything is so dour. Think, however, of the creativity emergent in our moment: churches playing with virtual connection, people taking up sourdough starters and knitting, movie nights with strangers over Twitter, students coloring rainbows for their windows to encourage, reenergized hikes and reimagined forms of community, families performing skits and songs.

Play is how we grow, open our minds to what is next, and learn to create with what materials we have. Even in moments of dire need, new creation can begin to emerge to help us connect and feel our way out in new imaginative and physical planetary landscapes. Playing and creating joy in the wasteland, making possibilities in the midst of the ruins of dashed hopes is just another name for theology. It seems like a good model for Divine creativity: divinity that grieves and transforms in response to our common life; divinity that cocreates out of playfulness with an unfolding creation still called "good." 

How are you doing?

If you ask me that question, I have two very different answers, both of which are true. The first one is that I am fine, and I have much to be thankful for: my health is good, and so is the health of my family; I have a safe home and plenty of food; I have a job and discretionary income to buy hiking poles when I decided that hiking is my new Covid-19 passion; and am able to get outside for long runs and long walks.

The second one is, I am not doing great. I miss my routine, and I am anxious and disoriented. I feel like I am not very useful right now, and that is extremely painful. I miss my students in particular, and my colleagues and friends as well-I miss being with them in person, and I am sick of Zoom. I am still grieving the loss of Holy Week and Easter services, and I wonder what church is going to look like when we can finally gather again. And, I am missing being able to travel and see friends and family.

As I said, both of these things are true. I share this because I wonder if you are having some of the same feelings, and if you are, I want to encourage you that it is OK. On the one hand, it is important to acknowledge and give thanks for your blessings; on the other hand, it is important to acknowledge your feelings of frustration and anxiety. It is important to both support and nourish others when we can, and also have a good cry and even a little tantrum when we need to-do not go crazy however; presumably there are oth-ers in your house who might be startled by your screaming. We are in uncharted territory, all adjusting to a new normal that seems to continually take from us, and we need to give ourselves permission to take time to recalibrate.

But even in the midst of it all, we do not lose hope. Even if we cannot see it, because the end of the tunnel still seems so far away, there is light there waiting for us. We will get through this, and we will find ourselves on the other side. We will be together once more, and my hope is that we will treasure the daily rhythm of our lives-and the people we share it withall the more for their absence.

In the meantime, care for yourselves as best you can, and care for others. Accept mediocrity in some things-now is not the time for perfection. Do not lose heart. Persevere. Breathe. Love.

And when in doubt, love some more.

United Lutheran Seminary philnevahefner@gmail.com DOI: 10.1111/dial.12569 Global Christianity and theological education: Introduction to "Dialogue in Dialog"

The papers published in this issue's "Dialogue in Dialog" were initially presented in two successive Luther Colloquies held by United Lutheran Seminary in 2018 and 2019. The essays by Madipoane Masenya and Elieshi Ayo Mungure were written for a 2018 Colloquy on "Theology and Exegesis in African Contexts," along with the essay by Andrea Ng'weshemi that appeared in the Spring issue of Dialog. 1 The essays by Timothy Wengert, Kristopher Norris, and David Brondos were written for a 2019 Colloquy on "Theological Education in the Lutheran Tradition". 2 The purpose of United Lutheran Seminary's Luther Colloquy is to explore the legacy of Luther and the Lutheran Reformation for modern, global, and ecumenical Christianity. Readers may be interested in the logic behind and the connection between these particular topics. The topics are intimately connected-on the one hand, because the future shape of the church in Africa will be determined partly by the accessibility of theological education and the appropriateness of curricula and methods to African contexts. The contributions by Masenya, Mungure, and Ng'weshemi richly demonstrate this point. In turn, the vitality of the church in America may depend on our continued willingness to hear voices that remind us of our connectedness to the global church and our embeddedness in a global society-by our willingness to hear voices that remove the blinders we inherit simply by being born into a particular context and by accepting its structures and self-justifications as given and just. Faith in the Gospel gives us eyes to see the world anew, to see God present and active and redeeming even where chaos and death seem to abound. But faith comes from hearing, and we in North America need to open ourselves to the power of hearing Christians from contexts other than our own and to living in mutual care for one another. Theological education plays no small part in inculcating and practicing these habits of hearing and caring.

As I remarked at the beginning of the 2018 Colloquy, many of the Luther biographies that rolled off the presses to mark the supposed 500th Anniversary of the Reformation spoke of the unintended consequences and even the failure of Luther's efforts. 3 In this telling, Luther aspired to reform the universal church, but he ended up the leader of a particular church; and the ensuing competition between particular churches and the political authorities aligned with them produced primarily oppression and warfare, before giving way to skepticism and, after a long and weary journey, the separation of church and state that we prize and the pervasive unbelief that we in the church lament.

There is much to unpack in this grand narrative stretching "from Luther to unbelief"-and this is not the place. But I will say two things. First, judged by Luther's own standards, the Reformation is not a failure as long as the church lives, the church gathered by the Holy Spirit through Word and sacrament, the church sent into the world to proclaim and serve. Luther knew full well that the church is constantly assailed by the false worship of gods less than God. He may not have been so unable to comprehend our world as we sometimes assume! The church today is and can be a force to repudiate the worship of lesser gods and to offer in their place the fullness of God's life and meaning.

The second thing to be said is that the story of a straight line from Luther to secularization is a story of the Northern, Western world-a story that readily occludes from view anyone but ourselves. It is a story that is somewhat defensible as an exercise in European and North American self-understanding; it is indefensible as a story that assumes the only meaningful chapter in the story of Reformation Christianity unfolds between Wittenberg and Gettysburg, between Scandinavia and Minnesota.

The well-documented shifts in global Christian population (including in the Lutheran communion) need not be reviewed here. Suffice to say: the majority of Christians now reside outside of North America and Europe, and in due time, the largest body of Lutherans will probably be found in sub-Saharan Africa. There is no question that appropriate remembrance of the Reformation in the church should recognize that our past, present, and future are global. That global context, in turn, becomes the context for theological education no matter where it occurs.

In my introduction to the 2019 Colloquy on Theological education, I made these remarks: we live in a moment when theological education-in the seminary context, at leastfaces massive challenges. On the one hand, there is declining enrollment; on the other hand, the rising costs of doing business, including high property costs for older schools with residential campuses. There is also the challenge of serving new populations of seminary students: many students now come to seminary as second-, third-, or fourth-career students, as mature adults with significant obligations to family and community. Whether first or later career, students come as parttime students, as commuter students, as distance-learning students. How are their needs to be met, so that they can meet the needs of Christians? And if the church is to proclaim the Gospel in every place of need, how do we train students for those contexts?

One thing is for certain, when graduates leave seminarythey will find a church that needs them. In fact, they will find a church that many times more of them. This fact reminds us that it is not only theological education in the seminary that must be discussed; it is not only the education of pastors that needs to be discussed; the question is: how can church leaders of diverse vocations-pastors, deacons, and others-take their education, go forth, and educate through word and deed as part of their broader vocation?

In moments of challenge, we are always in danger of finding ourselves in a reactive state. Monumental decisions are suddenly demanded, and one simply does the best one can with faith, acting on principle but on the basis of limited information and limited prior reflection. The resulting action is inevitably constrained both by practical limitations-what else can we do?-and by intellectual constraints-what else can we imagine? What can we imagine if we have not had the time to reflect and study?

It is urgent that we use the time we now have to study and imagine, that we think about the purposes of theological education and the ways that theological education must respond to changing contexts-a changing church, a changing worldon the basis of our enduring commitments, above all, our commitment to serve Christ's church.

As I planned this colloquy, I did not invite speakers to weigh in on any particular set of current proposals for seminary education. In order to evaluate this or that current proposal, in order to imagine alternatives faithful to the mission of the church, we need to bring to bear the insights of our tradition, of theology and history, and of our global church body. I thus invited speakers to address changes and innovation in theological education that occurred in moments of great pressure and even crisis-the Reformation itself, the rise of Nazi Germany-and in the complicated history of Christian expansion around the globe. Such investigations give us insight into how those who came before us responded to the call of theological education in concrete, difficult circumstances. We can learn much from the thoughts and actions of those who have gone before us, from their successes and their failures: Christianity does not invent itself ex nihilo with every new generation; rather we carry into the future a vibrant, living, diverse tradition, grounded in the greatest gift handed down to us, the heart and sum of our tradition, the Gospel.

Theological education is not a task for the seminary alone; it is a core task of the entire church. While the term today often refers to seminary education, what we do at seminary is educate educators. We educate those who must educate others not only about basic doctrinal teachings but also about the depths of Christian theological reflection and insight into scripture. We educate those who must teach others not only about doctrine and theology, but also about how we might worship, live, and work together as the church. Shaped by seminary, church leaders in turn shape flocks and publics that will go forth and witness to the Gospel (i.e., teach others about the Gospel), including through the faithful exercise of vocation.

Theological education is a broad venture, and among the sixteenth century confessions, Lutherans were uniquely concerned with the education of the rural peasantry-no other confession in the sixteenth century produced so much literary material that was aimed at rural and small church ministry, at the "simplest" of pastors. This is a tradition that we ought to be proud of; it is a tradition that we carry forward not only in our concern for rural and small church ministry, but fundamentally in our concern that theological education is for all Christian peoples in all contexts.

Today, we look toward a future marked by big challenges and consequential decisions, and as we survey this future and seek to chart our way through it, we are standing on ground that has already shifted. This leads me to the final point I wish to make:

As fallen human beings in a fallen world, we frequently respond to change with trepidation; an uncertain future stirs anxiety. Much of the movement that has occurred in theological education in recent decades, however, ought to give us cause for hope: we now have women as well as men engaged in theological study and proclaiming the Gospel; our understanding of the Gospel is now enriched by diverse voices; we have long been a global church, we are now better aware of and better prepared to listen to witnesses from other parts of the world. Diverse and global perspectives on scripture and theology and the life of the church challenge us and enrich us in our own contexts. The Gospel is a magnificent thing to behold, and church is stronger for seeing its truth and work from different perspectives. Tradition is not a zero-sum thing, as if adding a new voice drowns out the old-indeed, new voices can help us see better the depths of what Martin Luther and so many others wanted to teach us. The richer our field of study, the better we are prepared to do God's work in the world.

In conclusion, I want to underline one further groundshift that I have already mentioned: many seminarians, many church leaders in training, are now second-, third-, fourthcareer students. Many, whether first or later career, take on the challenge of higher theological study in diverse life circumstances. Their willingness to undertake this work is a gift of God. They bring-all students bring-a great diversity of experiences, insights, talents, and vocational skills that strengthen the ministry of the church-that help the church to proclaim the Gospel effectively to more people in more walks of life. This too is not a zero-sum game: we are all one in Christ, who uses diverse gifts, who welcomes diverse forms of worship, who alone is our redeemer.

Theological education does face challenges, but it will go on as long as the church goes on. And, as Isaiah 40 holds, the word of the Lord endures forever. All of us who are involved in theological education-in other words, every committed believer-is called to undertake the venture of theological learning and theological teaching in the Spirit of Faith, with joyous confidence in both God's direction of our paths and God's redemption of our failings. And we are called, too, to be learners at the feet of the great cloud of witnesses, the great company of teachers who came before us and who span the globe around us. We are called to be learners first from our divine teacher. 

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