The Church and Social Issues
I. Current Study Program
Theological Responses to Climate Change
Rural Development Project in India. |
How can faith-based organizations respond to climate change that deeply affects our survival, livelihood and future?
This program will bring theological, spiritual and ethical reflection to bear on actual experiences and work being carried out through LWF field programs and member churches, especially in those parts of the world most vulnerable to climate change. Such reflection has the potential to challenge how we view urgent climate change crises and related developments and how we seek to redress them. This is not only an environmental matter but also one of justice in relation to other communities, the rest of creation and the future.
People in local communities draw on a various resources—scientific, biblical, spiritual, traditional, indigenous and cultural—for coping with or adapting to this situation. What ways of thinking about God in relation to creation are constructive—or not—in times of cataclysmic climate change? What are the implications for responsible human action and for what churches in local settings teach and practice?
Share your stories, resources and perspectives with Rev. Dr Karen Bloomquist or Rev. Rolita Machila. Click here for the LWF survey on climate change: What do you see, feel, believe in the face of climate change? (Link requires Adobe
Acrobat Reader) 
II. Recent Study Programs
Lutheran Ethics at the Intersections of God's One World
In today’s world, there are significantly different ethical perspectives even within one confessional tradition. These perspectives vary with cultural context, history, politics, gender, ethnic and interreligious dynamics.
Sorting dried coffee beans, Haiti. |
Cultural particularities, with all the historical and current power dynamics that are a part of such, need to be understood and taken seriously. But how do these intersect and how might the different perspectives be engaged for the sake of greater mutual self-understanding? What happens at these various “intersections” is the focus of attention in the book Lutheran Ethics at the Intersections of God's One World (ed. Karen L. Bloomquist). [Please click to order, CHF 18, USD 15, Euro 12, plus postage and packing]. What holds us together, despite all our differences, and empowers us to deliberate together in the midst of them, is faith in a God who creates, redeems and promises to transform us and our world.
What is distinctive about the interactions in this book is a theological-ethical “grammar” that reflects a Lutheran interpretation of the wider Christian theological-ethical tradition. This affects how we negotiate with one another at the intersections, and provides a form or direction for the content or substance that emerges in these interactions.
Articles in this book are likely to challenge contextually-limited views on such topics as family and sexuality, human rights, democratization, education, genetically-modified crops and food, privatization of property and of the biological commons.
Authors include Per Anderson, Karen L. Bloomquist, András Csepregi,Wanda Deifelt, Elisabeth Gerle, Puleng Lenka Bula, Phillip Moeahabo Moila, Hans G. Ulrich and Wai Man Yuen.
The book contributes to enriching ethical deliberation and discernment within a global communion of churches, as well as within civil society.
Responding as a Lutheran Communion to Neoliberal Globalization
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Responding to economic globalization |
Communion, Responsibility, Accountability
- responding as a Lutheran communion to neoliberal
globalization (Karen L. Bloomquist, ed., LWF
Documentation 50: 2004) [Please click to download the publication. (1.3 MB)] (Link requires Adobe
Acrobat Reader)
From 2000-2004, the LWF had a programmatic focus on the challenges posed today by economic globalization, as part of the wider ecumenical family and with civil society. The first part of this book brings together the publications, processes, events and select responses that were a part of this work, including commitments made at the Tenth Assembly of the LWF. Here are diverse perspectives from LWF member churches, from field programs, and from youth, as well as an indication of what has been said ecumenically.
The second part of this book contains articles that deepen the theological, pastoral and ethical reflections that are evoked by economic globalization, but are much wider in their implications. The intent is to raise up some recognizably Lutheran theological emphases that can be brought to public life on this and related social challenges of our day. The framework here is grounded in what it means for us to be a communion of churches, who are empowered to live out an ethic of responsibility for our neighbors globally and to work together for greater accountability in the governance of globalization today. The perspectives here are diverse, sometimes in tension with each other, and often provocative.
Still available online are four papers that now
are incorporated in the above book. These are the 2001 working
paper "Engaging Economic
Globalization as a Communion"
and "A
Call to Participate in
Transforming Economic Globalization." (All
links require Adobe
Acrobat Reader)
Click to find "A
Call to Participate in
Transforming Economic Globalization" in German,
French or Spanish.
Click here for the statement
"Reclaiming
the Vocation of Government" from
a consultation held in Geneva in January 2004.
Please click here for
more information.
Click here for the statement "Pursuing
Neighbor-Love Through Economic Activity." from
a consultation held in Stuttgart, Germany in June 2004 . Please click here for
more information.
For further information, please contact the Rev. Dr Karen Bloomquist.
