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All letters to be published in Lutheran Partners magazine / Lutheran Partners Online must include your name and where you reside. Address: Editor, Lutheran Partners, 8765 W. Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631-4101; e-mail, Lutheran.Partners@elca.org, Lutheran_Partners@ecunet.org, or LUTHERAN PARTNERS (if on Ecunet/ Lutherlink). Because we wish to publish as many letters as possible and at the same time maintain some control over the length of the letter section, letters should be no more than 600 words in length. Shorter letters are preferred.

College Reaching Seniors
I’m sorry that Arland Jacobson did not have information about Augsburg College’s College of the Third Age for his article “Colleges and Lifelong Learning: Where Church Meets World” (March / April 2007).

This college-sponsored program has brought a remarkably varied selection of classes to older adults in the Twin Cities and suburbs for more than 25 years. It is the only life-long learning program in the area that brings its classes directly to where senior adults reside and meet: community centers, senior residences, churches, etc.

A recent annual report cited 43 teacher / presenters, over 200 class offerings, and approximately 9,500 participants. I’m one of those teachers. The “students” are extra-ordinary and we usually have a very stimulating time exercising our brains together.

Carolyn Bliss
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Who Blesses?
(Regarding the letter from Terence Mullins [March / April 2007]) ... “Blessing the Lord” has occurred long before Evangelical Lutheran Worship. The Concordia Service Book and the Service Book and Hymnal [both] had “Bless we the Lord / Thanks be to God.” Zechariah’s Song (Luke 1) begins “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.”

Words often have many usages, e.g., God’s grace to us and our table grace (thanks) to God.

John E. Lekander
Hendersonville, Tennessee

Prefer Greek Sources
Since some Christians prefer the Latin translation, which ... [gives us] ... the word homosexual, of the Greek pederast and arsenokoitis, here is my response:

We usually praise the Greeks for their great sculpture, literature from Homer to Socrates to Plato and Aristotle, and the glory and power of Rome for excellent engineering, roads, [and] mighty legions. But their economies were based on slavery and their morality was bankrupt. The rich were powerful and the poor lived in dire poverty.

With this background, [the Bible translator] St. Jerome used the term homosexual, but to be fair to him, in a footnote he wrote that the Greek words may have other meanings. To our dismay, the footnote disappeared and we are left with the sole meaning of homosexual that continues to plague us through the centuries, even today.

St. Jerome mistranslated the Greek terms cited above. Pederast was not love, but child abuse by a rich heterosexual or homosexual man (no such distinction in the Greek New Testament) at the expense of a poor boy who literally prostituted himself in order to escape from hopeless poverty. Of course, a slave had no recourse. Even some pagan Romans and Greeks were appalled at such a practice.

Arsenokoitis was condemned by the Christians, not on the basis of sex but idolatry. Arsenokoitis was a highly respected form of fertility cult religion. Today we would call the men and women temple prostitutes. Sexual intercourse was considered the ultimate form of union with the gods to guarantee the fertility of the human race, crops, livestock, etc. The apostle Paul proclaimed that our union with God is a gift through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not dependent upon our sex — whether female, straight, or lesbian, or male, straight, or gay.

I prefer to base my theological opinion on the primary original Greek New Testament rather than the secondary Latin translation. Remember, we are all Christians in spite of our different opinions (or interpretations if you prefer that more politically correct term ... or hermeneutics, to sound more theological).

As everyone knows, we can prove anything from Scripture via [the] pick and choose [method] ... as with slavery, women in politics and government, ordaining women in the church, etc. I am amazed at some gays and lesbians who must have the patience of Job in putting up with all the guff thrown at them by fellow Christians. It is time for us to repent and stop using gays and lesbians as scapegoats for our prejudices!

Merrill Carlson
Austin, Texas

CPE — Life-long Learning?
The Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) offers CPE to each of our graduates from seminary — a unit of 10 to 12 weeks, or 400 hours, which meets the requirement by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America to be completed before ordination.

There are approximately 360 accredited ACPE centers in the USA, and a good number of CPE supervisors are Lutheran.

Many of the centers offer extended units of CPE, which [consists of] one or two days a week while the person is working or going to school full-time [and is] available for clergy and active lay church workers.

Denominational endorsement is required for membership in ACPE and for chaplains who want membership in the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC). This is the certifying body for a certified chaplain. The endorsement process is sought from the pastor’s bishop who relies on the action of the Lutheran endorsement process for Specialized Ministry. The recommendations include whether a pastor is certifiable or not. The whole process is long and often a difficult one.

Both ACPE and APC require a minimum of 50 contact hours of continuing education each year to maintain certification. Usually this is done at the chaplain’s own expense. Does CPE fit as continuing education?

Vern Flesner, ACPE Supervisor
Dianna Cox, APC Chaplain
Tacoma, Washington