CHARLOTTE — The Department of Lutheran Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte will host the Michael C.D. McDaniel Center for Theology Reformation Conference Thursday with the theme, Ecclesia Plantanda – “the church must be planted.”
When Heinrich Melchoir Muhlenberg, the “patriarch” of Lutheranism in North America, came to the colonies in 1742, he quickly discerned that the “church must be planted.” He faced obstacles: bad weather, unbridled licentiousness, and a “Babel” of languages, as well as disease of the body and dis-ease of the spirit. Yet plant the church he did, and the Lutheran church has remained a part of the American landscape for some 271 years.
The landscape has definitely changed
Lectures will include the following:
• “Garden” of Weeds: Contemporary Challenges to Faithful Proclamation,” given by The Rev. Dr. J. Larry Yoder.
• “Planting a Holy People: Mission and the Nature of the Church,” by Dr. David S. Yeago.
The conference will be the first in a pan-Lutheran lecture series honoring the Rev. Dr. Michael C.D. McDaniel (1929-2003), who served as bishop of the North Carolina Synod of the former Lutheran Church in America from 1982 to 1987 and then of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from 1988 to 1991. Earlier, McDaniel served as a parish pastor and then from 1971 to 1982 as a professor of religion and philosophy at Lenoir-Rhyne College (now University) in Hickory.
The conference will begin with registration at 12:30 p.m. at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 14542 Choate Circle, and will conclude with a Reformation Worship Service at Christ Lutheran Church, 4519 Providence Road, at 7 p.m. Bishop John Bradosky of the North American Lutheran Church will be preaching, and the Rev. Dr. Scott Suskovic will be presiding. The service will also include the inauguration of the Department of Lutheran Studies at Gordon-Conwell.
Registration for the lectures is $15 and is payable at the door. The worship service is free and open to the public.