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[Episcopal News Service] Fourteen members of the Diocese of Los Angeles were detained, the diocese said, in immigration enforcement raids late last week that sparked a weekend of intense protests and an escalating government crackdown after the Trump administration ordered the California National Guard to respond. The immigration raids “wreaked havoc and terror throughout Los Angeles communities, targeting working-class, immigrant families at work, school and home,” the diocese said June 8 in an email newsletter supporting the 14 Episcopalians who were detained. “These actions, and the level of militarization involved, are unconscionable and we condemn them entirely.” An interfaith vigil initially planned for the evening of June 8 was canceled due to the still-volatile scene in downtown Los Angeles. Federal immigration agents detained at least 44 people in the initial raids on June 6, according to CNN, and about 300 National Guard members so far have been called in to help police contain the subsequent unrest, including around a federal building in downtown Los Angeles. Dozens of protesters have been arrested in clashes with police. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell blamed some of the protesters for creating a dangerous situation with their violent tactics, including throwing Molotov cocktails and setting cars on fire, though he also differentiated those acting violently with other protesters who have objected peacefully to the immigration raids. “When I look at the people who are out there doing the violence, that’s not the people that we see during the day who are legitimately out there exercising their First Amendment rights to be able to express their feelings about the immigration enforcement issue,” McDonnell said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he disagreed with Trump’s decision to deploy soldiers in response to civil unrest, accusing the federal government of inflaming the situation rather than helping. “Donald Trump has manufactured a crisis and is inflaming conditions. He clearly can’t solve this, so California will,” Newsom said. Little is known about the diocesan members who were detained in the immigration raids. The diocese said they had been transferred to various detention centers in Southern California. The diocese, through its Sacred Resistance action group, also called for donations to help fund the detainees’ legal representation. “Now is the time when our call to Sacred Resistance becomes clear and necessary,” the group, which advocates for immigrants’ rights, said in the diocesan email. “We stand on the side of the loving and liberating Jesus who calls us to be justice-seekers and peacemakers in the face of state violence and oppression.” Los Angeles Bishop John Harvey Taylor condemned the raids in a Facebook post late June 6 that noted that the government appeared to have targeted immigrants working to support their families, not criminals. The raids “suggest our country is in for a dangerous escalation of the Trump regime’s cruel, nonsensical war on immigrant workers.” In a follow-up post June 8, Taylor described the Trump administration’s actions as an “unjust use of state power against the people of God, especially immigrant workers seized from their places of honest work in our city and region.” “Fourteen members of one of our Episcopal churches couldn’t be in church this morning on the Day of Pentecost. Their government ripped them from the arms of their families at home and the body of Christ at church,” Taylor said. “Our siblings in Christ are not criminals. They accepted offers of honest employment from United States enterprises, in defiance of a busted immigration system that politicians just won’t fix.” – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and Bishop Christian Kopp, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, signed the Augsburg Agreement on June 7 following a Pentecost-eve Eucharist at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Munich, Germany. The full-communion agreement, also referred to as “Sharing the Gifts of Communion,” was a decade in the making, with former Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and former head of the Bavarian church, Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, starting the conversation in 2013 so “that our two churches might find a path toward deeper relationship.” The agreement establishes “a new foundation for ecumenical relationships between Lutheran and Anglican Churches,” according to the text. In his sermon, the presiding bishop referenced the Holy Spirit – who appeals to people in their diversity who speak different languages and come from different places – and who comes as an advocate to bind human beings to one another and “prove wrong” the ways of the world that seek to divide rather than unite them. “Today, as we sign the declaration of full communion between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and The Episcopal Church, we too are proving wrong the ways of the world. We have worked long and hard to finalize this agreement, and along the way we have reached across our differences to deepen our appreciation of one another and the ways we have served God over time,” Rowe said. “Our theologies may have differed over the course of our histories, but we are united in our desire to offer to the world a model of leadership that is, in today’s world, deeply countercultural. We share the belief that we must place the needs of the most vulnerable, the rejected, and the marginalized at our center, and that this gospel imperative must shape the way we lead and the choices we make as institutions.” Ecumenism, by definition, implies that Christians form relationships and work together in common mission and toward unity. Full-communion partnerships allow members of both churches to receive the sacraments in the other body …  allow for interchangeability of clergy, allowing them to officiate at services and celebrate the sacraments with equal authority in either church. Since the 1970s, the Episcopal and Lutheran churches in Bavaria have been worshipping and praying together. The agreement marked a meaningful step forward between the two churches, formalizing the longstanding relationship. “Christians live together in a worldwide community in the name of Jesus Christ. This community needs vivid signs of interaction, fellowship and mutual commitment. I’m very glad that our churches are currently living this communion in such a lively and respectful way,” Kopp told ENS. “I’m deeply moved that we are now, and will continue in the future, to share the Holy Supper together. I’m also eagerly looking forward to everything we will do together in the future — for peace in our countries and for the visible impact of the Christian faith in the lives of many people around the world.” Bavaria is one of 16 states, the largest geographically, in Germany. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria is part of the larger Protestant Church in Germany. The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe has 23 congregations, parishes and missions across Europe. In Bavaria, it has one congregation in Munich, Church of the Ascension, and two smaller missions, St. Boniface in Augsburg and St. James the Less in Nuremberg. The missions meet in Lutheran churches. In The Episcopal Church, full communion agreements require changes to its canons (Title 1, Canon 20, Section 1). The 81st General Convention adopted Resolution A037 authorizing the agreement. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria’s synod adopted its resolution in 2022. “Agreements like the one we have signed with our Bavarian Lutheran siblings are hopeful signs of unity as we witness so much fragmentation around us. In a time when our circles of belonging have become increasingly like-minded, Christians are called to a John 17 model of unity for the sake of the Gospel,” said the Rev. Margaret Rose, ecumenical and interreligious deputy to the presiding bishop. “I look forward to how we will share our gifts of diversity, build bridges and work together for the flourishing of all.” The Episcopal Church has full-communion agreements with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the Moravian Church-Northern and Southern Provinces; the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, India; the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht; the Philippine Independent Church; the Church of Sweden; and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Although the conversation between the Episcopal and the Bavarian churches began in 2013, the dialogue became official in 2018. The key question for this ecumenical relationship was the theology of ordained ministry, and particularly, the role of bishops in succession. The presence of “the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration” is one of the requirements outlined in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, which is the framework for how The Episcopal Church and other denominations can reach full communion. During an online hearing before the 81st General Convention voted to adopt the resolution authorizing the full-communion agreement, theologian Oliver Schuegraf, an honorary canon theologian of Coventry Cathedral in England who helped draft the Augsburg Agreement, described the episcopate in the Lutheran body as “historic and an evangelical”; historic, in that it is passed down over time, and evangelical, in which preaching the Gospel has taken place unbroken from generation to generation. “It is absolutely clear that we have episcopé” he said, although it is exercised both by bishops and other church structures. The agreement called on existing documents, like “Porvoo Common Statement,” “Called to Common Mission,” and the “Waterloo Declaration,” and was adapted to Bavaria and the German context. Before the 2024 General Convention vote, the 79th General Convention approved the dialogue. “Churches rarely make decisions quickly. The Episcopal Church’s full-communion agreement with the Evangelical Church in Bavaria is a happy exception,” Jefferts Schori told ENS. “In spite of distinct geographic and linguistic differences, we have come to […]

Hadijah Tsisti Mbugita, a single mother in Tanzania’s Kigoma Region, received support through the CWS-supported Giving Machine Project. By learning poultry farming, she built a sustainable livelihood that now supports her children’s education, provides clean water at home, and empowers her as a community leader and changemaker. A Mother’s Struggle and a Turning Point In the heart of Muganza Village ... Read More

Ethan Loewi

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The three-day event invited participants to discuss pressing theological issues and consider how Unitarian Universalism can be a force for transformation.

The Moravian Ministries Foundation in America shares its Impact Report 2024.  For more information or to learn more about the MMFA, visit www.mmfa.com

The updated Catechism for the Moravian Church in America was introduced in 2021. Researched and developed by the Interprovincial Faith & Order Commission, the updated catechism is intended to be a summary of the Christian faith, to be used for the instruction of confirmands and new members of the Moravian Church. This catechism is not […]

Each week, Moravians across the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean share a common message through their Sunday bulletins. This month, we share insights which expound on Luke 8:26-39. Thanks to writers past and present for their contributions to the Moravian bulletin series. Luke 8:26-39 (NRSVUE) Then they arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which […]

At Calvary Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, the death of a member’s close family member sparks not only the usual procession of casseroles and desserts, the usual flood of cards and emails, flowers and memorial gifts, but a very practical response as well. The Bereavement Box ministry began several years ago, and is continued by Calvary’s […]

On September 27, 2024, Hurricane Helene paid a visit to western North Carolina—with wind, rain, and even more rain. The Upper Mountain Research Station, just four miles away from Laurel Ridge, recorded over 17 inches of rainfall in our area. Ashe, Wilkes and Allegheny counties, along with much of western North Carolina—the area surrounding Laurel […]

At the 2022 Southern Province Synod, delegates passed Resolution 11, asking the Provincial Elders Conference to establish licensed ministry to better serve Souther Province congregations and fellowships. Acting on this resolution, the Commission on Ministry and the Commission on Congregational Development appointed a Lay Ministry Task Force to study the possibility of establishing a new […]