Hanson Named Vice President of Lutheran World Federation

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

LWF COUNCIL ADDRESSES U.S. CHURCHES

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

ELCA WITTENBERG CENTER IS PRAISED

Since 1999, the ELCA Division for Global Mission has operated the ELCA Wittenberg Center in the shadow of the Schlosskirche (Castle Church) where Martin Luther is to have posted his 95 theses and which serves as Luther's final resting place.
The Rev. Twila Schock and the Rev. William Swanson are ELCA pastors, who serve as the center's directors. They coordinate English-language programs through the center to facilitate relationships between ELCA members and churches and age