Research Tools:

  • Atla Religion Database: the premier index of articles, reviews, and essays in all fields of religion and theology, and offers significant breadth and depth of subject areas and languages covered. Journals are selected for inclusion according to their scholarly merit and scope. You may need the Digital Theological Library to access the full text of these articles.
  • Atla Digital Library: connects students, scholars, and researchers with scholarly religion and theology content.
  • Encyclopedia of Martin Luther and the Reformation: a comprehensive global study of the life and work of Martin Luther and the movements that followed him—in history and through today. The work also discusses Luther’s controversies and topics such as gender, sexuality, and race.
  • Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception Online: This resource is a research tool for people interested in biblical studies. The resource is edited by a team of international scholars, each of who are experts in their academic fields.
  • Loehe Bibliography:   Includes Reu Memorial Library’s collection of Loehe books found in the circulation, rare book, archive collections.  This bibliography contains books/periodicals written about Loehe and some written by Loehe.
  • Luther’s Works: Online full-text version of Luther’s Works.  Click on Search to get advanced search options.
  • Book of Concord: Request sections of our paper copy of the Kolb & Wengert (blue cover) edition of the Book of Concord, or access the eBook through DTL.
  • Research in Ministry Online:  Abstracts of project reports and theses from Doctor of Ministry degree programs.
  • Websites on Religion from ATLA: A growing, selective, annotated collection of web resources for the study of religion.

Web Guides:

  • IOWA BIB: an online bibliography of Iowa history and culture, covering the years 1987-2018. Hosted by Cowles Library, Drake University.
  • Religious Studies Web Guide: This web site focuses on free internet resources for use to researchers involved in the academic study of religion.
  • Wabash Center Internet Guide: is a selective, annotated guide to a wide variety of electronic resources of interest to those who are involved in the study and practice of religion.

Full-text sites:

  • Books.logos.com: Free online library of Christian classics. Books.Logos.com lets you search and view over 8,000 FREE Christian classic books online.
  • Christian Classics Ethereal Library: Classic Christian books in electronic format.
  • Codices Electronici Sangallenses: (Digital Abbey Library of St. Gallen) Scanned copies of one of the largest Medieval libraries still in existence. It is a colorful and varied collection.
  • Ethiopia Study Center: An Ethiopian digital manuscripts project.
  • German Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works: Access the volumes of Luther’s Works in their original language!
  • Global Digital Library of Ethics: An online repository of journals and submitted articles on the subject of applied ethics.  Users can also submit their own works to the site for digital publication.
  • Google Books: Search inside books with full text available for many items.
  • Hathi Trust: Digital library
  • Historical Texts:  “Historical Texts is a full text digital archive” which has “over 460,000 texts published in the late 15th to 19th century” Europe. The British Library 19th Century and UK Medical Heritage Library collections are open access. You can limit your search to the open access ones by filtering your results by Collection and download the text.
  • Internet Archive: A large digital library of free books, movies, and music for public, free access.
  • Loebolus: 251 open access volumes.
  • Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts: A site dedicated to the study of illuminated manuscripts.  Contains both information on the manuscripts and scans of the manuscripts themselves.  Can be browsed in English, French, or German.
  • New Advent: Contains links to the Catholic Encyclopedia and Summa Theologica, among others.
  • Online Books at UPenn: Full text on over 25,000 books.
  • The Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project: Project that analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world.
  • Pitts Theology Library: Digital Image Archive: This Digital Image Archive presents more than 37,000 images of biblical illustrations, portraits of religious leaders, printers’ devices, engravings of church buildings, and other theological topics.
  • The Post-Reformation Digital Library: is a collection of resources relating to the development of theology during the Post-Reformation/early modern era (ca. 16th-18th c.).
  • Princeton Theological Commons: is a collection of over 110,000 mainly public domain resources on theology and religion including a large number of historical documents. Collections include “The Benson Collection of Hymnals and Hymnology,” the “Payne Theological Seminary and A.M.E. Church Archive,” and the “Missionary Research Library Pamphlets.”
  • Process & Faith Lectionary Commentary: Commentaries on the lectionary, some written by our very own David Lull. Some liturgical and preaching resources are also available.
  • Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg is the Internet’s oldest producer of free electronic books. It now includes more than 6,000 eBooks.
  • Religion Online: Religion Online contains more than 5,200 full-text articles and chapters.
  • Sacred Text Archive: Archive of online texts on religion, mythology, and folklore – by topic.
  • Woodstock Letters: Digital collection from the St. Louis University Libraries of letters of the Jesuit Society for Jesus about their work in colleges and missions in North and South America from 1872-1969.

Lutheran resources:

  • Currents in Theology and Mission: theological journal of Wartburg Theological Seminary and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: The official website of the denomination and has resources for a variety of areas.
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada: This site includes links for research on Worship and Liturgy. Click on “Worship” then on “Links for Scholars.”
  • Index Verborum: Indexes some of the German writings of Martin Luther.
  • Journal of Lutheran Ethics: a free, bi-monthly online publication from the ELCA focused on living out the Lutheran tradition of addressing social issues theologically, using the resources of historical, theological, and ethical tradition, biblical interpretation, and social sciences.
  • Journal For Christian Theological Research: A publication out of Luther Seminary. This journal is no longer in publication, but archived articles can be found here.
  • Lutheran Higher Education Directory: This site in the online directory of Lutheran Higher Education.  It is updated continuously, so it has the most up to date information on contacting institutions and individuals.
  • Word & World: A quarterly journal of theology, published by the faculty of Luther Seminary, for readers who are concerned for Christian ministry in and to the world.
  • Folkebladet:  The official newspaper of the Lutheran Free Church in Minneapolis that published from 1877 to 1952. Over the past year and a half, Augsburg’s Lindell Library has invested time and resources to digitize and make available the entire microfilmed run available.

Journals: From Other Denominations and Ecumenical

  • The Anglican Journal:The national news magazine of the Anglican Church of Canada.
  • ATLA: Free online theological journals and research tools.
  • Christian Ethics Today: An ecumenical journal that focuses on ethical issues for the church in the world today.
  • Christian History Magazine: A publication of Christian History Institute, presents church history for scholar and layperson alike.
  • First Things: Published by The Institute on Religion and Public Life, an interreligious, nonpartisan research and education institute whose purpose is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.
  • Google Scholar: A search tool to find relevant scholarly publications.
  • The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion: An assembly of the best voices and insights from communities of color, promoting interdisciplinary and innovative investigation, and embracing new technologies of dissemination and empowerment.
  • Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace: Focuses on peace and is shaped by the Society of Friends, the Church of the Brethren and the Mennonite Church.
  • Journal of Theological Studies: A publication of Oxford University Press. Ancient and modern texts, inscriptions, and documents that have not before appeared in type are also reproduced.
  • Theological Journals Search: Search full-text free theological journals.
  • Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Social Justice: From the Presbyterian Church (USA): An online jour­nal and com­mu­nity that exam­ines, expresses, and pro­vokes social jus­tice as inspired by the prophetic gospel of Jesus Christ.

Reference:

Spanish Language Resources

  • ELCA Spanish Resource Directory: Find all the ELCA Spanish Language resources here.
  • AMMPAROAMMPARO stands for Accompanying Migrant Minors with Protection, Advocacy, Representation and Opportunities. It is an ELCA churchwide commitment to accompany children today as in the future.
  • Bishop Messages: Click to see various letters, videos, and video transcripts delivered by our bishops in Spanish concerning a variety of topics.
  • Constitutions: The Constitution of the ELCA and model constitutions for congregations provided in Spanish.
  • Domestic Mission: Resources for Living Our Baptism and Conversations on Race Relations (both leader guides and participant information).
  • Social Messages: Download any of the ELCA Social Messages in Spanish here.
  • Social Statements: Download any of the ELCA Social Statements in Spanish here.
  • More ELCA Resources in Spanish are available to purchase from the ELCA eStore.

Text Study Resources

  • Brian Stoffregen offers his exegetical notes on the Lectionary gospel texts at Crossmarks.com, arranged both by the text or by the day of the church year. Stoffregen is an ELCA pastor and faculty at the Lutheran School of Theology at Gettysburg who does solid exegetical work from the original Greek text. This site comes highly recommended by Spring 2007 IN 251 class!
  • Modern Metanoia is a lectionary-based Gospel commentary written by a group of Millennial Generation preachers, pastors, teachers, scholars, and lay leaders.
  • Sermonwriter is a resource which can be accessed for a membership fee. The site is easy to navigate, and provides the following helps for each text: sermon title, sermon in a sentence, scripture, exegesis, children’s sermon, sermon, more sermons on this text, true stories, a bit of humor, thought provokers, hymns, scriptures for upcoming weeks, and a bibliography.
  • Text Week has links to a multitude of different sites, offering the lectionary texts themselves, images and movies connected with themes from the texts, commentary, exegesis & sermon preparation helps, online articles available through ATLA, lectionary reflections, discussions & weblogs, sermons, and group studies & discussions/reflection questions.In addition to text study resources, they also have worship & liturgy resources, including prayers, graphics, children’s bulletins, children’s sermon helps, and hymn suggestions. The person responsible for this page offers a bit of information about each site for which they provide a link. This information almost always includes the name of the person responsible for the site, as well as their church and denomination. There is also a blog sponsored by Textweek itself, which has links to several lectionary blogs. Textweek also provides links to podcasts, which include lectionary readings, liturgies, studies, and sermons & reflections. This site offers lots of options, but that also means that the user will need to use their discretion about what is most appropriate for their purposes and context.
  • Working Preacher provides commentaries on biblical texts for each week. The commentaries come from a variety of sources, including some professors from Wartburg Theological Seminary.

Pastoral Care: Addiction & Spirituality

Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all.
Many recovery programs and 12-step programs believe that recovery starts when you admit that you need help from something greater than yourself.

SPIRITUAL ACCOMPANIMENT
It is in the DNA of the Christian faith to reach out to a troubled world in the same manner in which Jesus did: Not afraid to include troubled and hurting souls in our fellowship, and not afraid to touch them physically and spiritually. (Hope Over Addiction)

CREATING SPACES of TRUST
Create spaces of trust within your faith community that allows others to honestly explore matters of faith, discover their own spirituality and ultimately make the decision to turn their will and life over to the care of God, as they understand God (Step 3*). Trustworthy space also means walking with those who’s thoughts of God differ from yours. Pastoral care and spiritual accompaniment are vital to the success of recovery.

Resources:


ELCA Links

  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA): Main website. The search function is probably the most helpful function on the website, as most people experience some difficulty in maneuvering this site.
  • Board of Pensions: the part of the ELCA church-wide structure that takes care of health insurance, retirement information, etc. This site could be helpful in looking up information when needed, particularly the page on first call!
  • Women of the ELCA site: for those who want to be involved in the women’s organization of the church, and for the everyone to find out more about what the Women of the ELCA are up to these days.
  • ELCA Youth Ministry Network: a network of youth ministry leaders. There are many links that can be accessed but a few that can only be accessed through membership, which requires a membership fee.
  • ELCA Blogs: It includes blogs from pastors, seminary students, and lay members of our church.