"The story of Augustana is shown to be well worth telling, and the authors tell it well; not simply from the inside, recounting names, dates, and events, but set within the larger social fabric, culture, and history of Sweden, the United States, and Canada - and within the larger context of Lutheranism in North America. The authors make use of letters and archival materials not previously drawn upon to fill us in on what was going on behind the scenes of the events chronicled in official reports. They give readers a feel for what is was like to grow up in the Augustana Lutheran Church. Because of their creative efforts, The Augustana Story isn't only the culmination of several years of research and writing, but an innovative approach to denominational history telling."--BOOK JACKET.
This unique collection of excerpts from Lutheran historical documents--many translated here for the first time--presents readers with a full picture of how the Lutheran movement developed in its thought and practice. Covering not only theology but also church life, popular piety, and influential historical events, the primary documents include theological treatises, confessional statements, liturgical texts, devotional writings, hymns, letters and diaries, satirical polemics, political documents, woodcuts, and pamphlet literature. This first volume covers the chronological period from Luthers first calls for reform to the development of Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism during the seventeenth century. The judiciously selected and carefully translated texts as well as the contextualizing information provided in each chapters introductory essay acquaint readers with the turbulence and fervor of this revolutionary Christian movement, its struggles for survival and consolidation, and its further evolution up to the dawn of the Enlightenment.
It is the morning of July 1, 1938, and New York City is just beginning to stir. For Emmy Evald, it is a day of reckoning. Born the daughter of a pioneer preacher in 1857 in Geneva, Illinois, Emmy Evald grew up in the poor section of Chicago known as “Swede Town.” Despite her humble beginnings, she became one of the most influential and remarkable Swedish American women of her day. Emmy began challenging the male-dominated church and social mores early on. Clear in her vision, she established the Lutheran Woman’s Missionary Society in 1892, raising more than $3 million, which provided health care and education to women worldwide. A distinguished orator, Emmy led the charge on behalf of women’s suffrage and marched with Susan B. Anthony to the US Congress in 1902. Her actions met with both victory and defeat. Some women felt a woman’s place was in the home and resented her. Men tried to silence her spirit. But she was a “force to be reckoned with,” one who never gave up on the fight for women’s rights and social justice.
In this lively and engaging new history, Granquist brings to light not only the institutions that Lutherans founded and sustained but the people that lived within them. This shows the complete storynot only the policies and the politics, but the piety and the practical experiences of the Lutheran men and women who lived and worked in the American context. Bringing the story all the way to the present day, Granquist ably covers the full range of Lutheran expressions, bringing order and clarity to a complex and vibrant tradition.
I think about what I want and what makes me happy, But orderly and quietly to myself. Because my thoughts tear down fortresses and walls, My thoughts are free. -German folk song, author unknown The beautiful, safe, joyful places in young Tilli's imagination were her only refuge from the bombing that tore through the sky above her during World War II. Her thoughts were her only freedom from Hitler's Nazi tyranny, and they were her strength to survive after the war ended, when Russians invaded her tiny farming village in eastern Germany; forced her into months of hiding in a dark attic crawlspace; and took her innocence, her childhood, and nearly her life. Tilli's dreams-of a time when she could think and act freely, and travel, work, write, worship, and live however she wished-were what fueled the sixteen-year-old to courageously and single-handedly escape the terror of Stalin's harsh Communist rule and create her own happy ending in a free America. This true tale of sorrow and terror, hope and triumph, is Tilli's story-but it's also the story of the unthinkable suffering and untold bravery of countless innocent children who have lived through a war and its aftermath. A great piece of individual history from a woman who had some remarkable experiences.... Through this story, readers will come to appreciate more deeply ordinary citizens' experience of wartime and political upheaval, as well as the enormity of the decision to leave one's country and start a new life thousands of miles away. -Lisa Seidlitz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of German at Augustana College
In the Shadow of Dora spans two very different decades from the Nazi concentration camp of Dora-Mittelbau to the coast of central Florida in the late 1960s; the book tells the story of the real life intersections between the horror of the Third Reich's V-2 rocket program and the wonderment of the Apollo missions. Eli Hessel, a brilliant young Jewish mathematician, finds himself deep beneath a mountain where he is forced to build Nazi rockets. When he is finally freed from this secret underground concentration camp, he immigrates to New York, studies astrophysics, and is recruited by NASA to help build the largest rocket ever to rise above a launch pad: the Saturn V. To his shock, though, he will be under the command of former Nazi scientists Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph, both of who were at Dora. As America turns to the moon and cheers for rockets that lance the sky, Eli is swallowed up by the past and must cope with memories he thought were safely buried. This is a novel that asks questions about memory, morality, technology, and how the past influences the present. If we clamp down images of horror, will they always ignite and rise up on us? "This is a harrowing journey of survival, one that traces the indomitable spirit of one lone man as he spirals deeper and deeper within the Holocaust--while also recognizing what it takes, minute by minute and day by day, to survive decades into the future. This painful yet beautifully written novel adds to the necessary literature of the Holocaust. Hicks is determined to undo the erasures of time while revealing our humanity with a clear-eyed lens. This is what the art of the novel was invented to do." --Brian Turner, author of My Life as a Foreign Country and Here, Bullet "Patrick Hicks has managed to bring two of history's greatest events down to the molecular level in the extraordinary character of Eli Hessel, a survivor of the Holocaust and a member of the vast team of scientists that put a man on the moon. This story is gripping in its tragedy, thrilling in its detail, and unforgettable for its protagonist, whose will to not only survive, but thrive, live, and love is a testament to the human spirit. In the Shadow of Dora is tenacious, just like its hero. I'll never forget it." --Peter Geye, author of Northernmost and Wintering "In the Shadow of Dora is an astonishing novel. With a poet's eye and meticulously lyric prose, Patrick Hicks unspools a harrowing tale that begins in a Nazi concentration camp and ends on the Apollo 11 launch pad. It is between these two extremes--the most base of the basest of evils and the highest of all human achievements--that Eli's story unfolds. Hicks' novel is fundamentally a narrative of inquiry and self-interrogation: Is the past what defines us? Does the future redeem us? How can you know if you're dead? This is a profoundly moving book." --Jill Alexander Essbaum, New York Times Bestselling author of Hausfrau "Spanning decades and continents, In the Shadow of Dora reveals in aching detail the heights of human ingenuity and the depths of human cruelty, and, most importantly, the ways those heights and depths are inextricably intertwined in the history of the twentieth century. This is a revelatory novel." --Joe Wilkins, author of Fall Back Down When I Die and The Mountain and the Fathers "In this compelling novel based on historical facts, Patrick Hicks places America's glittering quest to land on the moon squarely inside the dark shadow of the Holocaust. Few novels I have read so effectively and disturbingly question the relationship between the triumph of technological achievement and our willingness to ignore injustice." --Kent Meyers, author of The Work of Wolves and Twisted Tree
