{"id":53166,"date":"2019-09-03T21:07:16","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T21:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/ccv\/?p=53166"},"modified":"2025-04-02T19:22:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T19:22:32","slug":"leadership-for-interfaith-at-augsburg-an-institute-to-promote-inter-religious-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/2019\/09\/03\/leadership-for-interfaith-at-augsburg-an-institute-to-promote-inter-religious-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership for Interfaith at Augsburg: An Institute to Promote Interreligious Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rev.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are pleased to announce Mark Hanson has transitioned from his role as executive director of the Christensen Center for Vocation (CCV) to help develop Augsburg’s new institute to promote interreligious leadership.<\/p>\n

Bio for Mark S. Hanson<\/h2>\n

Serving as the Founding Director of <\/span>Interfaith at Augsburg: An Institute to Promote Inter-Religious Leadership<\/span><\/em>, Rev. Mark S. Hanson leads Augsburg University\u2019s commitment to interfaith leadership being a core aspect of Augsburg\u2019s academic mission. Interfaith leadership presumes knowledge, skills and sensibilities and is embedded in both curricular and co-curricular dimensions of the Augsburg experience. It involves theological education, spiritual engagement, everyday experiences, global education and social action.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to his current appointment, Hanson served as presiding bishop of the ELCA. He was elected to this position by the Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA in August 2001 and was reelected in 2007. In 2003, he was elected to serve, concurrently, as president of the Lutheran World Federation, a position he held until 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before being elected as ELCA presiding bishop, he served as bishop of the Saint Paul Area Synod (3H). He had been elected to serve a second term in Saint Paul earlier that same year. Prior to being elected synod bishop, he served as pastor of three Minnesota congregations: Prince of Glory Lutheran Church, Minneapolis; Edina (Minnesota) Community Lutheran Church; and University Lutheran Church of Hope in Minneapolis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Born in Minneapolis on December 2, 1946, he graduated from Augsburg College with a B.A. in sociology. He was a Rockefeller Fellow at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, and received a Master of Divinity degree there in 1972. He also attended Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, and was a Merrill Fellow at Harvard Divinity School in 1979.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In his work as president of the Lutheran World Federation and as presiding bishop of the ELCA, Hanson has traveled widely throughout the world, sharing a confident hope in God\u2019s promises and a vision of the joyful freedom in Christian community and mission.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hanson is widely known as a leader with an evangelical passion and imagination who embraces the Christian tradition, the Christian community, and the world with both generous goodwill and thoughtful insight. He has been an articulate advocate for the renewal of the church\u2019s preaching and public voice, for the strengthening of ecumenical and inter-religious relationships, and for reconciliation and justice in society, with attention especially to those who live with poverty and discrimination.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hanson has received several honorary degrees, including Doctor of Humane Letters from Augsburg College, Wittenberg University, and Grand View University, Doctor of Humanities from Capital University, Doctor of Divinity from Lenoir-Rhyne College, Wartburg Theological Seminary, Susquehanna University, Wartburg College, and The Academy of Ecumenical Indian Theology and Church Administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

He is the author of <\/span>Faithful Yet Changing, the Church in Challenging Times <\/span>and <\/span>Faithful and Courageous, Christians in Unsettling Times <\/span><\/em>both from Augsburg Fortress, Publishers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Married to Ione (Agrimson), they are the parents of Aaron, Alyssa, Rachel, Ezra, Isaac and Elizabeth, and grandparents to Naomi, Kingston, Sam, Danielle and Sophia. Before moving to Chicago, Ione was the director of social work at Minneapolis and St. Paul Children\u2019s Hospitals.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are pleased to announce Mark Hanson has transitioned from his role as executive director of the Christensen Center for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,25],"class_list":["post-53166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-interreligious-dialogue","tag-mark-s-hanson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54080,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53166\/revisions\/54080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/interfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}