AN ONLINE EMBER DAY* EDUCATIONAL EVENT FOR MINISTERS WHO PONDER WHAT HOLY COMMUNION MEANS DURING OUR PANDEMIC DISTANCE.
Ember Days help us to rekindle a passion for gospel by dedicating periodic days of study and refreshment. Rev. Dr. John Hoffmeyer joins our ministerium for this Ember Day to expand our discernment of the theological debate of 2020: Can we share in the Eucharist if we cannot share space during the pandemic? This day of study will dig deeper than previous ministerium conversations into how we can practice ministry when no one knows the right answer.
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The Rev. Dr. John F. Hoffmeyer is an Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at United Lutheran Seminary whose work centers in the doctrine of the Trinity and its ongoing challenge to theology: (1) to be centered in the profoundly not self-centered person of Jesus Christ; (2) to call attention to the open-ended plurality of ways in which the risen Christ is present by the power of the Spirit; (3) to marvel at the mystery of a God who always transcends our theologies.
Dr. Hoffmeyer has published particularly on G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher, the Trinity, Christology, Christian life in a consumer society, and Christian response to torture. He is also the English translator of five books and numerous articles of contemporary German theology.
Dr. Hoffmeyer is an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and served a congregation in Northern California before coming to the seminary.
* Unfamiliar with the tradition of Ember Days? Philip H. Pfatteicher sheds light on these observances in Journey into the Heart of God: Living the Liturgical Year:
"The turning of the four season of the natural world has been incorporated into the church's calendar. These are the Ember Days, the name derived from the German Quatember, a corruption of quattuor tempore, "the four times." ... Recognizing an increasing estrangement from the agricultural setting of the Church's calendar, [the Church] replaced the Ember Days with prayer for various needs set by regional conferences of Bishops... but eventually replaced by quarterly lectures and examinations in the catechism." (p.67)