David R Smedley is associate director for compliance and training in the Office of Student Financial Assistance at The George Washington University. A member of St Luke Lutheran Church in Devon, Pennsylvania (ELCA), he actively communes in the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New York. He is a graduate of Temple University, with a master’s degree in public administration, with emphases on urban studies and research and policy analysis. He is on deferred admission to a master of divinity program, currently in self-discernment for the permanent diaconate. Views expressed are personal.
Practical Theology and Practicalities in Church Response to Emergencies
January 2010 (Volume 10 Issue 1)
[1] What is striking about the review of materials prepared by various church organizations concerning emergency preparedness and health concerns is how amazingly secularized the response of the church (as a generic term for various denominations) has been. In an assignment for this Journal, I reviewed materials prepared by the ELCA, the churches with which […]
Lutheran Ethics in a Troubled Global Economy
Samuel Torvend. Luther and the Hungry Poor: Gathered Fragments (Fortress Press, 2008). 978-0-8006-6238-7. [1] With the negative externalities of globalization ever more present in the United States due to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and its effects on the United States banking and finance infrastructure and individual lives affected, social ministry is more relevant than ever. […]