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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • University of Pittsburgh Press E-Books: Digital representations of monographs published by the University of Pittsburg Press that are freely provided for scholarly, educational and research use.
  • 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.
  • 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:

  • Aramaic Lexicon: A comprehensive resource on the Aramaic language.
  • The Association of Religion Data Archives (The ARDA): Database with research and statistics about religion.
  • Bible Gateway: Online Bible Resource
  • Bible Hub: topical, Greek, and Hebrew Bible study tools, plus concordances, commentaries, dictionaries, sermons, and devotionals, as recommended by the Bible professors
  • Bible Odyssey: A website created by the Society of Biblical Literature that aims to bridge the gap between academic and religious Bible study.
  • Biblical and Theological Abbreviations: A searchable list of various abbreviations used in the fields of biblical studies and theology based on the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) Handbook of Style.
  • Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia: Approximately 2800 entries written by 215 scholars, covers treasures of Coptic language and literature; Copto-Arabic literature; Coptic art, architecture, archaeology, history, music, liturgy, theology, spirituality, monasticism; and biblical, apocryphal, social, and legal texts.
  • Digital Public Library of America: A free site containing information from America’s libraries, archives, and museum resources.
  • Ecole Initiative: A hypertext encyclopedia of Early Church History.
  • Ecumenical Documents: A list of documents posted on the site of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
  • Google News Archives: Search news archives dating back over 200 years.
  • Google Ngram Viewer: A tool used to graph phrase and word trends across hundreds of years of publishing history, utilizing a collection of nearly 5.4 million texts.
  • Iowa State Data Center: A resource for population, housing, business and government statistics about Iowa.
  • Iowa State Data Center Data Profiles: Data profiles for various population groups in Iowa.
  • LibraryThing: Catalog your personal library using information from the Library of Congress and Amazon and get access to recommendations for reading.
  • NewspaperArchives Iowa Database: A database of historical Iowa newspapers freely available to Iowans. Follow the link, then select “NewspaperArchives Iowa Database” to access.
  • Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte (RDK): A reference work with information about German art history.
  • Review of Biblical Literature: Founded by the Society of Biblical Literature, this site presents reviews of books in biblical studies and related fields. RBL is comprehensive, international, and timely.
  • State Library of Iowa Online Database: A handy list of State of Iowa Online Databases.
  • Theological Commons: Latin America Collection: Princeton Theological Seminary’s work on providing Spanish resources providing primary sources in Spanish and Portuguese about Latin America religious culture.
  • Time Magazine Archives: Search archives of covers, articles, and excerpts from articles dating back to 1923.
  • Worldcat.org: Resources in a library near you! 

    • Spanish Language Resources

  • ELCA Spanish Resource Directory: Find all the ELCA Spanish Language resources here.
  • AMMPARO: AMMPARO 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.


Small Group Ministry Resources

Christianity Today actually has on-line small group ministry resources to use as well as books that you can buy. It provides basics such as how to start and sustain small group ministries. One caution is that it reflects an evangelical/fundamentalist/Baptist theology. You may want to review and edit materials before turning your small group leaders loose with them.

ELCA sites with Lutheran based Christian education materials that lend themselves well to small group settings. They provide all the resources needed to organize, plan, promote, kickoff, train leaders, conduct the groups and evaluate the program.

Alpha Course provides helpful information about a ten-week class for beginner Christians as well as Christians who want a refresher.


Bible Study Resources

At Crossmarks, you can not only find the link to Brian Stoffregen’s exegetical notes (listed in the “text study resources” category above), but there are also resources provided for Bible study. These resources are provided by Mark G. Vitalis Hoffman, a professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Gettysburg. In their own words, this site “provides outstanding Bible Study materials and other Christian resources which are appropriate for small group or personal use.”

Sponsored by Christianity Today, this site offers several Bible studies to download, some for a fee and some for free. Choose from dozens of thought-provoking Bible studies on several different issues, or read online articles about Bible study and small group ministry. You can also sign up for the Christian Bible Studies newsletter and get updates on new resources.

Bible Ministries provides both leader and participant guides are available here for Bible studies based on the lectionary.

With Ears to Hear provides thoughts on how to engage texts in Bible studies, both as individuals and communally.


Continuing Education

Check out the great opportunities we have for continuing education right here at Wartburg Theological Seminary!

Faith and Wisdom provides a compilation of resources on lifelong learning opportunities provided by the churches that are in full communion with the ELCA. The class found it easier to do a general search rather than a specific one, but there are lots of great opportunities listed.

ELCA Call Process is a plan for first call rostered leaders to stay connected to other first call people, to continue to reflect on ministry theologically, and to seek and offer support for colleagues.


Networking Support

Emerging Leaders Network connects leaders in the church with other leaders who wish to share their ideas, dreams, and prayers, especially in regard to other models of ministry as seen in the emerging church.


National Social Services

This link connects to the Lutheran Social Services homepage. It contains a description of who they are, what they do, and a search engine that helps a user locate services nearby.

This link connects to The Eldercare Locator. Maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services, it is intended to help the elderly and their caregivers find helpful information on senior services provided by state and local agencies.


Counseling Resources

The National Institute of Mental Health is focused on reducing the burden of mental/behavioral health disorders, and this is achieved mainly through research. If you click on “Health Information,” you will be guided to a page which includes a variety of information, resource links, current news and latest findings. In addition, a list of disorders is provided, and a click will lead you to more info regarding specific disorders as well as additional help. This site is highly recommended.

Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is a professional site with pertinent info regarding AD/HD as well as links concerning other illnesses. Although it is limited in scope, it is exhaustive regarding this illness and helpful in providing a short list of other professional links. It is certainly worth your time and effort to browse and follow the additional links.


ELCA Links

This is the main site of the ELCA, with a fairly simple home page and links galore. The search function is probably the most helpful function on the website, as most people experience some difficulty in maneuvering this site.

This is the home page for the Board of Pensions, which is 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!

This is the homepage for the Women of the ELCA site, and could be helpful for those who want to be involved in this part of the church structure, and for the everyone to find out more about what the Women of the ELCA are up to these days.

This is the homepage of the 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.

This is a list of blogs that are tagged “ELCA.” It includes blogs from pastors, seminary students, and lay members of our church.