God is Doing a New Thing in the ELCA: Trends from the FACT Data

For decades, mainline Protestant denominations in the United States have experienced steady membership declines. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is no different, and our research team has been exploring this topic for years. Faith Communities Today (FACT) is an interfaith project consisting of a series of surveys conducted by the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership, of which the ELCA is a long-standing member. In this article, we examine data collected from the three decennial FACT surveys to discern where, despite declining membership, God is, to quote the prophet Isaiah, “doing a new thing.” We find that over the past twenty years, the typical ELCA congregation has had a gradually increasing: sense of vitality, belief that it is financially healthy, desire to become more diverse, willingness to call women to serve as pastors, openness to change, and clarity of mission and purpose. Because there are multiple possible explanations for these positive trends, we recommend approaching such trend lines cautiously, viewing them through a critical-thinking lens. Even though there is an increased perception of congregational well-being, overall finances and the number of people involved in the church continue to decline. There is still much work to be done.

Ecclesiastical Asset Management and the New Introduction Of Section 2b of the Value Added Tax Act

This paper deals with church assets and the changes in the German VAT law with the resulting consequences. The implementation of EU law has resulted in numerous changes in the handling of assets and commercial facilities of institutional bodies such as the church. Using the example of the church district administration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church District of Dithmarschen, an overview of the application cases for assets was examined. After an introductory overview and an analytical examination of the new law in the value added tax law, a result of action is provided in this elaboration, which will also be of interest for comparable facilities, corporations and institutions.

Sacred Spaces in Transition: A Glimpse into the Situation of the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church A.C. in Romania

For sacred spaces, motion/movement means not only the takeover by other denominations, but also denominational changes, such as the Reformation. The article highlights, with varying intensity, the major movements of sacred spaces in the more than 800-year history of the present-day Evangelical Church A.C. in Romania: the Reformation, the Habsburg rule, the consequences of World War II in Northern Transylvania, and the present – with selective recourse to the tools of Memory Studies (Erinnerungsforschung), in order to trace the paradigm shift caused by the Reformation in relation to sacred space, or to evaluate the mass handover/ transfer of church buildings in Northern Transylvania in the horizon of this analysis, and concluding with a brief art-historical and even homiletic consideration.

”Sävelet tekevät tekstin eläväksi”: paaston ja pääsiäisajan liturginen kuoromusiikki sanoman kannattelija

Hanna Remes’s artistic doctoral degree, which focuses on choral church music in worship, is the first of its kind in Finland. The demonstration of proficiency carried out 2016–2020 comprises two masses, a worship service, a passion drama and an Easter concert. She elucidates changes in guidelines for the liturgical use of the choir according to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland’s 2000 church manual from those of the 1968 church manual. The dissertation stands at the junction of liturgy and the history of church music. Remes compares and analyses the liturgical role of the choir in the Church of Finland as stated in the latest church manuals and supplementary materials and explains the guiding principles of the manuals’ preparation.

‘Art is different from life’: Doctrine and agency in Thokozile Philda Majozi’s insights and imagery

Established in apartheid South Africa, the tapestry-weaving venture at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift, was situated in a complex mission environment, on the junction between evangelised and unevangelised isiZulu-speaking communities. Although local women who worked at this centre in the 1960s and early 1970s were trained in creative strategies by Swedish artists, their lives were constrained by missionary strictures, inherited customs and apartheid laws. Little has been written on the tapestries made by these marginalised women, whose experiences were discounted in the socio-political milieu. Yet even as they were subordinated by political and social hierarchies, some found ways to assert their individualities. One of the most prolific was Thokozile Philda Majozi. As this study demonstrates, her woven iconographies, as well as her personal insights on those of others, provide a lens through which local Lutheran agendas and prejudicial social practices may be read. Some works anticipate the mission’s eventual change of heart on inherited customs and African-initiated churches. Majozi’s discussion also reveals how weavers often ignored Lutheran restrictions in the interests of artistic experience, despite the systems of control that defined their lives. Yet Christian weavers such as Majozi also complicated their representations of mission life, deploying images of un-evangelised women that articulated their own ambivalence towards them.

German Charity in St. Petersburg: The Contribution of the Pastor A. Mazing to the Establishment and Organization of “The Evangelical House of Diligenceˮ

The role of the “Evangelical house of diligenceˮ in the religious space of St. Petersburg is considered. The tradition of creating “Houses of diligenceˮ originated in St. Petersburg in the 19th century and began to revive again in the city on the Neva River at the beginning of the 21st century. At present time a few “Houses of diligenceˮ operate as rehabilitation centers for children and adults with disabilities engaging them in various workshops and other labour activities. It is obvious that the possibility of providing unemployed citizens with social assistance through the provision of temporary work, as well as assistance in their further employment, does not lose its relevance. The goal of this paper is to assess the role of “The Evangelical house of diligenceˮ in the religious space of Saint Petersburg. During the writing of this paper we used materials from the Russian Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg. For the main research we used chronological and comparative historical methods of analysis. Using the chronological analysis, we explored the sequence of formation and development of “The Evangelical house of diligenceˮ. Using comparative historical analysis, we determined the structure of that institutions, sources of his financing and the underlying mechanism of his operation. The article makes an effort to evaluate the role of pastor A. Mazing in organisation of “The Evangelical house of diligenceˮ. Management of “The Evangelical house of diligenceˮ and in addition to organising of the temporary employment to those in need of the Evangelical Lutheran faith, was providing charitable assistance to the disabled individuals. It was also involved in creations of a hospice and a shelter for alcoholics. In that “institution of labour assistance” they paid a special attention to the concerns for morality of the wards in accordance with the canons of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, therefore they prioritised the faithful of this Church dur-ing the admission. “The Evangelical house of diligenceˮ was offering its workers in need an option to live on the premises, which was a welcome offer especially during wintertime.

ON THE QUESTION OF ARCHIVAL SOURCES RELATED TO EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH AND PROTESTANT SECTS OF THE SAMARA REGION IN 1917-1991

The article contains an analysis of Samara archival fonds related to the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Protestant sects of the Samara region in 1917-1991. Revealed the importance of these sources for further research. Stressed out need to enrich studied object with more information about routine life and survival methods of these religious groups.

“To Avoid Ethnic Hatred to Local Finns”: Organization of Spiritual Charity of Lutherans of Yenisei Province in the Second Half of the 19th Century

In the article, the author researches the creation in 1863 and reorganization in the early 1880s of the Lutheran parish in Yenisei Province. Until the end of the 19th century, the Lutheran population of the region was mainly replenished due to criminal exile. The exiled were placed in three colonies purposely established in the 1850s in the south of the province: Verkhniy Suetuk, Nizhnyaya Bulanka, Verkhnyaya Bulanka. Finns and Estonians lived in the first, Estonians in the second, and Latvians and Germans in the third. The author draws attention to the fact that this demarcation of the Lutheran population on a national basis was an initiative of the exiled themselves. The author identified the actors who participated in the creation and reorganization of the parishes: the administration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia, the authorities of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, the central imperial authorities, Siberian authorities, the population of the Lutheran colonies of Yenisei Province, the public in the Baltic states and Finland. Finnish authorities advocated the creation of a national parish, only for the Finnish population. Other actors proposed to organize a territorial parish for all Lutherans of the province. The second approach prevailed in 1863: the Lutheran pastor appointed to Verkhniy Suetuk was to guide all Lutherans of Yenisei Province. At the turn of the 1880s, the incapacity of this system became clear: residents of Verkhnyaya Bulanka and Nizhnyaya Bulanka were virtually without the care of a pastor because the latter did not know the languages of their inhabitants (Latvian and Estonian), and they did not know Finnish. This situation led to the revision of the decree of 1863, which resulted in decisions to transfer the center of the parish to Nizhnyaya Bulanka, to impose an obligation of knowing Estonian and Latvian on the future pastor, and to create a new parish with the center in Omsk exclusively for the Finnish population. The author suggests calling this Lutheran parish extraterritorially national because, on the one hand, it was intended only for the Finnish population; on the other, its territory did not coincide with any administrative-territorial formation in Siberia. Besides state structures, the population of the colonies and inhabitants of the Baltic states, who raised money to organize a new parish, participated in the reorganization of the spiritual life of Lutherans in the late 1870s. The Finnish public's participation was not direct; however, the author of the article cites facts of organizing assistance to Siberian Finns from their compatriots. The author evaluates the system created as a result of the reorganization as effective: despite a number of conflict situations between the parishioners of the two parishes, the question of its reform was not raised. The author evaluates the imperial policy regarding the Lutheran population of Yenisei Province (of both Siberian and central authorities, as well as the administration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church) as flexible, able to take into account spiritual needs.