News
By the staff of The Lutheran, ELCA News Service and Religion News Service
Sacred music program suspended at Luther D
espite a strong evaluation of Luther Seminary’s master of sacred music program, the school in St. Paul, Minn., has put it on hold for the 2013-14 academic year. The announcement came as the seminary strengthened its budget after a $4 million funding shortfall in 2012. Seminary leaders “need some time to right [our] fiscal condition,” said Rollie Martinson, seminary dean. “It’s a quality program that reaches a small number of candidates. Usu- ally two to six students a year enter the program and last year it was two. The church’s need for theologically informed, well-led music ministries is great. We need to imagine the program being available in different ways, to larger audiences within the life of the church.”
Program director Paul Wester-
meyer, who had already announced his retirement at the end of the 2012- 13 academic year, called it “a mixed bag” decision.
“I’m very sad because assuming the seminary continues this unwise decision, the church and the world will not be served,” Westermeyer said. “On the other hand, this isn’t a reflection on our staff or [our part- ners among] the St. Olaf [College, Northfield, Minn.] faculty. We did what we were asked to do, and we did it well. The [sacred music program] at Luther is unique.” Martinson called Westermeyer’s work “superb” and said Luther is “committed to supporting the three people currently in the program as they finish their degrees.”
Lutherans warn Vatican Lutheran leaders have warned the Vatican that the creation of a structure to welcome conservative Lutherans into the Roman Catho- lic Church would harm dialogue and damage ecumenical relations. In 2009 an “ordinariate” was cre- ated to allow Anglicans to convert to Catholicism. Senior Vatican offi- cials publicly suggested the creation of something similar for Luther- ans. The idea was rebuked by Mar- tin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation. Such a move would “send wrong signals” to Lutheran churches around the world as they prepare to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protes- tant Reformation in 2017 “in a spirit of ecumenical understanding and cooperation,” Junge said.
WASHINGTON NATIONAL CATHEDRAL/DONOVAN MARKS
Prayer for the president Kathryn Lohre, ELCA director for ecumenical and interreligious relations and
president of the National Council of the Churches of Christ, prays for God to strengthen the hearts of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the Jan. 22 presidential inaugural prayer service. “Make them bold for the work you have set before them,” she said. “Keep this nation under your care.”
8 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
Missionary honored ELCA missionary and medical doc- tor Mark L. Jacobson received the 2013 Dr. Nathan Davis International Award in Medicine from the Ameri- can Medical Association. Since 1985, Jacobson and his wife, Linda, have served in Tanzania through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. Over the years Jacob- son led the transformation of a sys- tem of rural dispensaries into Selian Lutheran Hospital in Arusha; began schools to train nurses and medical officers; launched special services for women suffering from fistulas and children with orthopedic prob- lems; initiated hospice and palliative care for HIV/AIDS patients; and led the planning, funding and construc- tion of the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, which cares for more than 150,000 patients a year.
Congregation withdrawals As of Jan. 1, 2013, 947 congrega- tions had taken first votes to termi- nate their relationship with the ELCA
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