Dr Who Party

THIS Saturday, Feb 6th, at 3pm at the Green House. Geek out with us over some Dr Who episodes and snacks.

Lenten Reading Group

MERE Christianity, the First Comprehensive Account: The Divine Institutes of Lactantius. Meets Tuesdays at (late) lunchtime (1.30 -2.30 p.m.), at the Green House, 310 Walnut St. We'll meet Feb 16th, Feb 23rd, Mar 2nd, Mar 16th, Mar 23rd, and Mar 30th. Feel free to bring your lunch along and eat during the group if you need to.

Lactantius was the first Christian to compose a comprehensive account of the faith of Christians in the Latin language. The Divine Institutes, written during the last Great Persecution of the Church by the Roman authorities (303-13 A.D.) was meant as a definitive description of Christianity that would answer all possible pagan objections and provide a permanent way which would draw middlebrow folk on to 'that full and overflowing fount of teaching which slakes thirst in the inmost parts'. Among these middlebrow folk was Constantine the Great (306-37), who emerged from the years of the Great Persecution as the first Christian emperor. The Divine Institutes open a window onto the Christian experience of persecution and onto the sort of Christianity embraced by Constantine. What they have to say, in particular about Christian ethics and the Christian hope, still has the power to illuminate lives today.

Books will be available at the Green House for the first few weeks of Lent, to buy. If you want to going looking for alternative texts yourself, the best translation of Lactantius's Divine Institutes is the new one by A. Bowen and P.D.A. Garnsey in the Liverpool University Press series Translated Texts for Historians volume 40 (2003). The ISBN is 0-85323-988-6. It also contains the best general introduction to Lactantius. Copies of this have been ordered at the Coffman Union Book Shop. There is a partial publication of it on the Interweb on Google Books. An older translation from the series Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series has been put onto the Interweb at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.ii.i.i.html. For the Latin, the old edition of S. Brandt and G. Laubmann in the Vienna Corpus (CSEL 19 and 27, 1890-97) is being superseded by that of E. Heck and A Wlosok (Munich, Teubner, Lactantius's history of his own times is called On the Deaths of the Persecutors. It has been translated by J.L. Creed (Oxford Early Christian Texts, 1984) or may be had on the Interweb in an 18th century translation by Sir David Dalrymple, the Honble. Lord Hailes at www.ccel.org/.There is no adequate modern monograph on Lactantius.

Welcome Back!

FIRST Eucharist of the spring semester will be Sunday Jan 24th. Hope to see you there!

Christmas Service and Winter Break

DECEMBER 20th we will hold our famous Advent Vigil service at 4:30pm in the sanctuary. Join us as we celebrate Advent and Christmas together before winter break. There will be no Sunday Eucharist during winter break and no Prayers and Lunch on Dec 30th. However, Wednesday noon prayers and lunch will continue all through January. Sunday Eucharist resumes with the start of spring semester.

Garden Fundraiser

DID you receive a phone call or postcard inviting you to the UEC Garden Fundraiser? Well, congrats and we hope you can make it! We have permission for our guests to park for free in lot AA across the street from Grace Lutheran, including in the marked spaces all along the alley to Walnut Street. Click here for a map to Grace. Questions about our budget and how we spend the gifts we receive? Click here or call Janell at the office, (612)-331-3552. Our event will start at 2:30pm on Sunday, Sept 20th in the garden at Grace Lutheran Church, 324 Harvard St, Minneapolis. We will have tea and desserts, and be taking up a freewill offering to go toward our program funds for the 09-10 school year. Stay as long as you'd like. Our usual Sunday evening Eucharist starts at 4:30p.m., and we'd encourage any fundraiser guests who are interested to attend the service with our current students.