Yearlong student cohort engaging in dialogue and service
The Interfaith Scholars are a group of students who are interested in exploring the religious diversity of the Augsburg student body, the wider Twin Cities community, and the United States through inter-religious dialogue and action. Students from a variety of traditions as well as the non-religious are invited to apply in order to converse respectfully with others about what they believe, why it matters, and how it propels us to service in the world. Once selected, the cohort has both academic and service requirements for an entire academic year.
This summer, three 2010 Augsburg College alumni have been ordained to ministry and began their first calls as pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. These Auggies (who also graduated from Luther Seminary in St. Paul in May of 2014) are: Michael Buller, Emily Wiles, and Peter Weston Miller.
We asked them to tell us about the congregation(s) where they serve, and what they are most energized about with their call. We are proud to celebrate their accomplishments, and we wish them well in their new vocations as pastors!
Pastor Michael at his Ordination.
Michael Buller, Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Abercrombie, ND and Galchutt (pronounce Gal-Shoot) Lutheran Church in Galchutt, ND
My role is solo pastor of a two point parish. I am very excited about this parish because they are in desperate need of new life. They are “mission re-development sites” which essentially means that they are on the verge of closing. I received mission re-development certification in the ELCA, so we could very well be a good fit for each other.
Since arriving I have discovered that there is a great deal of life in both Abercrombie and Galchutt proper and a great deal of life in the surrounding areas. For instance we have an educational farmstead near by called Crooked Lane Farms which is only 4 miles outside of Abercrombie. They have concerts during the summer, gardening classes, crafting classes, any many other activities; super cool stuff, and wonderful people.
In November of 2015 Emmanuel Lutheran will be celebrating 125 years of faithful ministry and we will be making it into a very big event. Finally the two churches tend the grounds of a third church building. St. John’s Lutheran church is located between Emmanuel and Galchutt and is the oldest Lutheran Church building in the Eastern North Dakota synod. We have a joint worship service there each year.
Jeanne Boeh is a professor of Economics at Augsburg University
As some of you may know and some of you may even care; Adam Smith, the father of economics, is buried in Edinburgh. One of PBS’s well known and admired hosts is the travel author Rick Steve’s. I was aghast to read his explication of how to find Adam Smith’s grave in Edinburgh.
People’s Story-This interesting exhibition traces the conditions of the working class through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Curiously, while this museum is dedicated to the proletariat, immediately around the back (embedded in the wall of the museum is the tomb of Adam Smith-the author of Wealth of Nations and the father of modern free market capitalism(1723-1790). [i]
Melissa A. Hensley is an assistant professor in the Social Work department.
I lead a monthly “Empowerment Workshop” at a mental health agency in a nearby county. The people who attend the group choose the topic for discussion each month, focusing on self-care, wellness, and recovery from serious mental illness.
Recently, I was facilitating a discussion on building self-esteem. The group members and I were discussing a worksheet that we’d all completed. The worksheet asked us to list positive qualities we possessed, compliments we’d received recently, and challenges that we had overcome. As we were taking turns sharing our responses, the conversation came around to a middle-aged woman seated at the back of the conference room. She stated that she could not think of anything good about herself. I was surprised at first, but I tried to respond in an encouraging way.
“For once, then, something”: Reflections of a Judeo-Christian Agnostic
Douglas E. Green is a professor in the English Department
On a spring faculty-staff retreat, about fifteen years ago, the late Dean Marie McNeff, who knew my complicated Judeo-Christian (specifically Jewish-Catholic) background, asked me what I believed. I told her, “I’m an agnostic who prays.”
I thought I was being very clever, but in fact I was exhibiting a trait shared by a growing number of Americans. According to reports on a recent Pew poll,[1] agnostics and atheists—the “nones”—have become more and more common in the U.S. And a lot of us non-believers pray.
by Lori Peterson, Associate Vice President and Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies
A few years ago, I was part of a group of faculty and staff at Augsburg that gathered to reflect on our individual sense of vocation and our collective sense of calling as a College. It was an inspiring, deeply reflective set of days spent reading, thinking, and sharing. One of our culminating experiences was to write a “This I Believe” essay, based on the popular 1950’s radio series hosted by Edward R. Murrow. The exercise of writing and the essays that emerged were powerful. In reflection on the work of writing my essay, though, it seems to me that there is a difference between articulating what we believe (know to be true) and what we believe in. For me, believing in something is the definition of faith.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT CHRISTENSEN SYMPOSIUM
The annual Christensen Symposium-first held in 1990-is made possible through the Christensen Endowment, which was established by alumni and friends of Augsburg to honor Bernhard M. Christensen. As the president of Augsburg College and Seminary from 1938 to 1962, Christensen was a central figure in drawing Augsburg fully into the study of the liberal arts.
The Symposium is designed to reflect and reinforce the principles to which Christensen showed such deep commitment: academic integrity, the Christian Gospel, and a mutually supportive relationship with the church. In addition, it serves as a vehicle for the Augsburg community to explore and apply the five lessons that are Christensen’s legacy:
