The Seminary Explores

West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman joins Katy Giebenhain for a conversation about writing and reading and the iconic influences on both from Falling Water and the Asphodel Bookshop. Harshman holds degrees from Bethany College, Yale Divinity School, and the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of 14 children’s books including The Storm, a Smithsonian Notable Book, and eight collections of poetry including his latest, Woman in Red Anorak, Lynx House Press/University of Washington. He is, most recently, co-winner of the 2019 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award.

Many thanks to our host site for this interview, Waldo’s and Co. on the Square in Gettysburg and Facebook

Kristin Slaybaugh, Youth Minister at St. James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, who taught English in Madagascar, an island nation off the southwest coast of Africa, experienced a varied culture and many vibrant churches in a generally poor country. The wealth from significant resources such as vanilla and minerals has not been shared with the general populace.  Eco-tourism focuses on the remarkable variety of species found nowhere else on earth, such as the lemur. The challenges of poverty, expanding population, and corruption threaten this diversity.

Illegal slash and burn practice in the region west of Manantenina.

Photo Source

Ukraine is more than a late-night punchline or a pawn in U.S. domestic politics.  It is a country rich in resources and history.  Dennis Carter, recently retired career foreign service officer after 38 years in the Department of State, including postings in Kuwait, Peru, France, Jordan, the United Kingdom, and Grenada takes deep into the the history and the importance of Ukraine on the world stage.  Strategically, it abuts western Russia. Other nations have coveted its territory for centuries because it is the “breadbasket of Europe, has rich mineral resources, and lately, technology. In recent years Ukraine has had to resist Russian incursions, especially a take-over of Crimea and threats to the Donbass region.

Also listen to our 2014 interview with Ambassador Lawrence Taylor on the conflict in Ukraine.

Dr. Gilson Waldkoenig, Paulssen-Hale-Maurer Professor of Church in Society, and the Director of the Town and Country Church Institute at United Lutheran Seminary, asks that we expand our vision beyond the big-topic issues of the day, important as they are, and embrace three universal needs: energy (including climate); food and health, including water resources; and habitat, both for humans and for our non-human neighbors (“all creatures great and small”).

He suggests specific ways in which congregations are doing their part, for example, energy assessments of their buildings and their “footprints” on the ground; cultivating gardens or supporting a farm; and sponsoring fresh produce markets.

Woodcut by Wenceslas Hollar (1607-1677) illustrated Augsburg Confession VII

Gettysburg C.A.R.E.S. is a local, inter-church, homeless initiative with no national affiliation, but can serve as a model for churches everywhere who want to serve their communities in an area of dramatic need: overnight accommodations for the homeless. Founded by Pastor Michael Allwein, Senior Pastor, St. James Lutheran Church, Gettysburg, C.A.R.E.S involves a dozen churches and volunteers who host, supervise and serve breakfast to dozens of individuals every night from October to April. Individuals and families are housed overnight in churches and provided with breakfast, and in a Resource House next to St. James, given access to showers and computers. They are also served by a medical clinic, social workers, and a full-time director.

The correct File has been uploaded as of 11/19/19 7:12 am.  Sorry for the mix-up.

Dr. Christian B. Keller, Professor of History and General Dwight D. Eisenhower Chair of National Security, Department of National Security and Strategy, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA, and author of The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy, argues that the Christian connection between Lee and Jackson was a significant glue that bonded the two generals’ friendship, and this in turn supported their strong professional relationship. Although one was Episcopal and the other a Presbyterian, they were both firm believers in Divine Providence, and as evangelical providentialists, were not that different from many Americans of that era.

Dr. Susann Samples, Professor of Foreign Languages at Mt. St. Mary’s University, discusses her Delaplaine Seminar professorship at Mount St. Mary’s University. The professorship’s faculty seminar centered on “The Black Diaspora in Europe” with the goal of introducing this topic to a wider audience and to begin the process of “decolonizing” the curriculum.

In this conversation she explores the historical background and readings relevant to the study of the African Diaspora in Europe. She also discusses the importance of the seminar for a Catholic University and the desired outcomes of the seminar.

Dr. Richard Stewart, Professor Emeritus United Lutheran Seminary, discusses his current history project funded through a Louisville Institute grant. This oral and written history project seeks to collect and archive the experiences of being African American in contemporary Lutheranism. His work is a race against time to gather first hand accounts whenever possible and track down family members and peers of those who have passed on for their second hand accounts and memories of those early pioneers.

To learn more about this project listen to the interviews visit: http://rnstewart.blogspot.com/

Leon Reed shares the results of recent studies on poverty in Adams County and Pennsylvania to help answer why poverty prevails in the U.S. even when the economy has flourished. The definition of poverty now includes single persons making $20,000 or less and a family of four making $59,000 or less. He observes that the two fundamental issues are jobs and housing. In the justice system, the poor who get charged with misdemeanors have difficulty making bail and paying fines, resulting in their return to prison. Meanwhile, federal and state funding has dropped drastically to the point where programs that help are being curtailed or shut down.

Nadir Jeevanjee and Nathaniel Tarshish are two members of a group called “Climate Up Close” who share a background in Princeton University research and are traveling with a program that describes, in easy-to-understand terms, what climate change is, how it affects us, and what “bold climate actions” can redress this increasingly critical development. Sharing the scientific consensus on climate change is foremost in their program, using a power point presentation and simple demonstrations, plus a desire to dialogue, even with those who might have a different perspective.