With roots in the Lutheran church, Gustavus Adolphus College will engage with the wider community of the ELCA on Saturday, April 25, through the third annual Faith Conference. This year, the event’s title is “Lutheran Convictions and Economic Justice: Biblical Themes, Current Realities, and Ethical Choices,” and will relate finances and faith.

The Gustavus Association of Congregations, composed of roughly 550 church bodies, annually holds business meetings. According to Chaplain Grady St. Dennis, the organizers sought an educational component to connect members with their religious roots.

While the Faith Conference is not directly affiliated with the business meetings, the conference series is part of a five year plan which will culminate in a celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017.

This year, the event is sponsored partly by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and Lutheran Social Service. According to St. Dennis, Eric Norelius, founder and first president of Gustavus Adolphus College, is also the founder of what exists today as Lutheran Social Service. This year marks the sesquicentennial of the organization.

Jodi Harpstead, the CEO of Lutheran Social Service, will deliver the homily during the morning’s worship service when the conference opens at 9:30a.m. in Christ Chapel.

Following worship, attendees will engage with two speakers in Christ Chapel. The first session will begin at 10:30a.m., with a presentation from Rev. Dr. Mark Tranvik, professor of religion and director of the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augustana College. Tranvik’s speech is entitled “Lutheran Convictions and Economic Justice.

The second session, set to begin at 11:30a.m., will include a presentation from Professor Kathi Tunheim, endowed chair in management and leadershp at Gustavus. Tunheim will address “Generosity as Response to a Culture of Greed”.

Tunheim noted that she will be addressing the cultural difficulty which arises around the subject of money, and will be speaking about the problem of global income equality. Additionally, she will explore Biblical elements of finances. She shared that inspiration and support for her speech has come from the writing of Lynn Twiste and from Gustavus Alumni Jerry Hoffman.

“In the Bible, money is mentioned almost 2500 times and it is mentioned more often than prayer and faith. So money and how we use it is really a spiritual issue, and Matthew chapter six verse 20 says, ‘store up for yourself treasures in heaven,’ and I’ll be talking about that a little bit. Finally, I will suggest some strategies or potential solutions that hopefully help us make sense of this global income inequality problem, encourage everyone to make a difference in their own corner of the world, and that’s really through philanthropy and being generous, just as a grateful response to grace and faith,” Tunheim said.

A service component of the conference will take place throughout the day, with Action Team funding from Thrivent Financial.

“We talk about, in this case, our Lutheran committments to economic justice. We’re lifting up Lutheran Social Service and all of what they do as Lutherans with all these tangible elements; this is the product of our committment, these are the things that help folks,” St. Dennis said.

Senior Communication Studies Major Heidi Vanderpan has served as an intern with St. Dennis this year, and has been involved extensively with planning the service component.

The funds from Thrivent Financial will be directed toward the creation of hygiene kits for youth outreach. Additionally, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in the creation of 25 tie blankets with the funding. The blankets will be utilized in the Camp Noah program.

“It’s kind of like a vacation Bible school, but it goes to communities that have experienced a great natural disaster. So it kind of acts as a therapy to these kids to help them process all of that and heal, and so we make tie blankets for that, and these tie blankets go to the kids and act as prayer shawls for them,” Vanderpan said.

St. Dennis said that while the conference is aimed primarily for members of the Gustavus Association of Congregations, students and others are welcome to attend.

Tunheim addressed the relevance of the topic to students on campus.

“Hopefully my presentation will be a little more practical oriented and I would hope that students find this to be interesting or helpful, and especially if they’re interested in global income inequality and I would think this would be a topic that they would perhaps think about discussing more with other people or learn more about,” Tunheim said.

Vanderpan also spoke about the nature of the conference and the relationship of Gustavus with the larger ELCA community.

“Through my internship I’ve really been able to see that our ELCA connections are so large and there’s so many people that want to support us. It’s a great way to get to know those people and get to know how Gustavus is so great for our student body, but they’re also doing so much to reach out and to use resources that we have, because we have so many resources. I would really encourage student to attend so they could support the Gustavus community that is also beyond the student body,” Vanderpan said.

-Libby Larson