The Boston Globe is covering it - Click here

WBUR called to do an interview

Lutheran Bishops around the US and Canada are offering thumbs up on Twitter.

What's the big deal?

For many months, the Lutheran - Roman Catholic Dialogue in New England has been working to find a way to Observe the upcoming 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Pastor Ted Asta deserves a lot of credited, along with pastor Andrew Heissen. The desire was to do something beyond the typical, "yippee, look what happened 500 years ago" party and worship service. While we may do that, and hope to do that, we wanted something more.

Pope Francis has reopened the doors of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. That has created an opportunity for Lutherans and Roman Catholics to re-engage.

I am particularly pleased that what is bringing us together is our common interest in our common home - planet earth. The Pope's encyclical, while it has no authoritative voice for Lutherans, does give tremendous insight from a biblical and theological framework. I would encourage Lutheran congregations to engage in discussions holding the Pope's book in one hand, and the ELCA statement on Creation in the other. That would be a fascinating discussion. Look at our Synod website and it's resources.

I would also hope that some of our congregations engage in actions such as Solar panels for their church buildings, efforts at being more 'green' (can we get rid of the styrafoam cups?) and pressuring elected officials to take action, and encouraging scientists, engineers and inventors to come up with ways to address this phenomenon.

I could and will be saying more about this new reformation.