America letter # 8. Luther spurt.
December 9, 2007
Dear friends,
We have a big statue of Luther outside the main entrance to Wartburg. I have not seen it moving, but in sympathy with busy students, it could well run beside us this last week.
One of the papers I am finishing now is the term paper in the course “Lutheran confessions.” It is a course of 2 credits. We have written reflection papers every week, after having read about certain topics from the Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Formula of Concord, or other parts of the big, nice Book of Concord. As final paper we are allowed to write about what interests us in relation to these confessional documents, and I have chosen to find out what Luther actually meant about the monastic life. It is easy to think that he was only negative after having left the monastery and encouraged others to do the same. But I have found that he was not so one-sided. The most important argument against the religious was that they saw themselves as holier than others, and they thought they could earn salvation by their special life and the vows they took. This was clearly opposed to Luther’s teaching about justification by grace through faith.
I also take a course (1 credit) where I learn about dialogues between Lutherans and Catholics. I have got great sympathy for both… I have discovered that Luther was quite Catholic, and that is nice to see, in the same way as it can be good to discover that Jesus was quite Jewish. This course includes only reading the dialogue documents as preparation and then discussing the content in the class. There are no papers to hand in, and that is quite relaxing.
A course about Christology (3 credits) has had a bibliography with books of several thousand pages in total where a few books have been obligatory and others chosen by us. The only paper to hand in is an annotated bibliography with the no less than 2000 pages we have read. I have learnt both to skim and to read detailed with a higher speed than before this semester.
A course in pastoral care and marriage (3 credits) has perhaps been the course demanding least work. Three books are read, and a paper will be handed in this week.
Yes, there are still a few pages to go before the semester is over. But I also take the time to enjoy the Advent! We have had good snowy weather since last weekend, and Toromare and I have talked quite a bit about playing in the snow. Today finally we got out, and we did both sliding and angel making in the snow. Both of us had much fun. This evening we have had a service of lessons and carols here at Wartburg, with Christmas cookies (the Norwegian “krumkake” included), for warming up.
Good luck to those of you who have exams this week. I actually do not have exams!
Greetings from Hanne.
Dear friends,
We have a big statue of Luther outside the main entrance to Wartburg. I have not seen it moving, but in sympathy with busy students, it could well run beside us this last week.
One of the papers I am finishing now is the term paper in the course “Lutheran confessions.” It is a course of 2 credits. We have written reflection papers every week, after having read about certain topics from the Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Formula of Concord, or other parts of the big, nice Book of Concord. As final paper we are allowed to write about what interests us in relation to these confessional documents, and I have chosen to find out what Luther actually meant about the monastic life. It is easy to think that he was only negative after having left the monastery and encouraged others to do the same. But I have found that he was not so one-sided. The most important argument against the religious was that they saw themselves as holier than others, and they thought they could earn salvation by their special life and the vows they took. This was clearly opposed to Luther’s teaching about justification by grace through faith.
I also take a course (1 credit) where I learn about dialogues between Lutherans and Catholics. I have got great sympathy for both… I have discovered that Luther was quite Catholic, and that is nice to see, in the same way as it can be good to discover that Jesus was quite Jewish. This course includes only reading the dialogue documents as preparation and then discussing the content in the class. There are no papers to hand in, and that is quite relaxing.
A course about Christology (3 credits) has had a bibliography with books of several thousand pages in total where a few books have been obligatory and others chosen by us. The only paper to hand in is an annotated bibliography with the no less than 2000 pages we have read. I have learnt both to skim and to read detailed with a higher speed than before this semester.
A course in pastoral care and marriage (3 credits) has perhaps been the course demanding least work. Three books are read, and a paper will be handed in this week.
Yes, there are still a few pages to go before the semester is over. But I also take the time to enjoy the Advent! We have had good snowy weather since last weekend, and Toromare and I have talked quite a bit about playing in the snow. Today finally we got out, and we did both sliding and angel making in the snow. Both of us had much fun. This evening we have had a service of lessons and carols here at Wartburg, with Christmas cookies (the Norwegian “krumkake” included), for warming up.
Good luck to those of you who have exams this week. I actually do not have exams!
Greetings from Hanne.
posted by Hanne at 9:53 PM
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