Concordia Seminary, St. Louis [1] second-year seminarian Christian Einertson was recently selected for the 2018 Seminary Program of the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE).
Einertson was selected from about 200 applicants to receive one of 13 available fellowships. The fellowship includes a two-week trip to Germany and Poland, including a visit to the site of the infamous Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp. The trip runs June 16-29.
“It is certainly an honor to be selected as a Seminary Fellow. I am looking forward to exploring difficult ethical and theological questions that remain relevant to us today, perhaps more relevant than we are often willing to admit,” said Einertson, who is from Woodstock, Ga. “I hope that FASPE will provide me with new insights and questions to bring back to Concordia Seminary as I continue in my ministerial formation and theological studies.”
Einertson earned a bachelor’s degree in music–voice and modern foreign languages from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, S.D. He has studied in Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Norway and Russia. Einertson’s academic interests include systematic theology, the Lutheran Confessions and church music.
He joins a diverse group of 64 FASPE fellows across five programs who were chosen through a competitive process that drew applicants from across the United States and the world, according to the organization. FASPE covers all program costs, including travel, food and lodging.
According to FASPE, the fellowship program for seminary students addresses the complicity of clergy in the execution of Nazi policies. Topics to be discussed will include clergy members who failed to speak out against atrocity, postwar confession, apologies and reconciliation, and the right and responsibility of religious leaders to be ethical educators. FASPE states it provides a holistic curriculum that looks beyond dogma and norms to focus on ethical problems faced by individual leaders in the contemporary pastoral or academic setting.
“The FASPE fellowships are extremely competitive,” said Professor Emeritus Dr. Bruce Hartung, who supported Einertson’s application. “I am delighted that Christian was chosen to participate in this very challenging interfaith dialogue. There is benefit for all of us as Christian engages the profound ethical questions brought about by the rise of Hitler and the reality of the Holocaust.”
Einertson is the second Concordia Seminary student to be chosen for the fellowship program. Paul Flo, now on his vicarage, was a 2016 recipient.
To learn more about FASPE and its programs, visit www.faspe-ethics.org [2]. For a complete list of 2018 Fellows, visit www.faspe-ethics.org/currentfellows/ [3].
About Concordia Seminary
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis provides Gospel-centered graduate-level theological education for pastors, missionaries, deaconesses, scholars and other leaders in the name of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) [4]. To learn more, visit www.csl.edu [1].