Press Release: Book Launch
Thanks:
Giving and Receiving Gratitude for America’s Troops;
A
Soldier’s Stories, A Veterans Confessions, and A Pastor’s Reflections
By Rev. Edgar S.
Welty, Jr, G.G. A., N.C.N.C., United Church of
Church
Aka Chaplain (Capt.) Edgar S. Welty, 31st. Reg’t
United States
Volunteers/America
Also Spec. Five
Welty, HQ Co, 18th. Eng. Bde. U. S.
Army,
Karlsruhe, West Germany, 1976-1980
Where: Book
Passage Bookstore, Corte Madera, CA
When: Sunday,
September 13, 2015; 7:00 pm
“A thoughtful collection of
stories and personal reflections
on the moral complexities of being a soldier-
written by a veteran for
veterans”
Dr. Scott Sullender; Prof. of Pastoral
Counseling
San Francisco Theological
Seminary
Author Bio.
Edgar Welty is a disabled veteran
and V. A. patient. He served as a volunteer for the Chaplains at the Veterans’
Administration’s San Francisco Medical Center.
He was in uniform in the U. S. Army
as a Construction Draftsman for four years from April 20h
1976 until April 21st 1980.
His vocation is as a minister of the Word and
Sacrament in the United Church of Christ. After earning a four year Master of
Divinity Degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary, he was ordained in 2000
for a call to United Church of Christ Congregation in Rochester New York. From
there he served as Pulpit Supply in two Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
congregations. The first was in the village of Cohocton. New York. The second
was in Tiburon in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He is
in the process of
writing/publishing two more books. The
first is a workbook entitled, “Spiritual Insight Training for Veterans”.
The Second shall be called, “God and America’s Wars”. He is also
planning a DVD on Christian Symbolism. With his wife, a wedding dress designer,
he is planning a book entitled, Ceremony: Planning Your Perfect Wedding.
He
is a Chaplain (Capt.) in the 31st. Reg’t, United States
Volunteers/America and a member of: the Disabled American Veterans, the
Scottish-American Military Society and Vets to Vets.
He
lives with his wife, Amy; cat. Willy; and Chihuahua, Pete in the “Sleepy
Hollow” neighborhood near San Anselmo, CA
From the Foreword of
Thanks
“Gratitude, too, is a divine calling”
Edgar Shirley Welty, Jr.
is a minister in the United Church of Christ, a
Reformed denomination. He has also served two Lutheran parishes as a pastor, and
this, I posit, is reflected in the present book. For one of the most compelling
Lutheran doctrines holds that every Christian has a divine calling to serve his
neighbors in all his worldly endeavors. If he does so in a spirit of love, Luther said,
the Christian renders the highest possible service to God and is therefore a member
of the universal priesthood in His secular realm where He reigns in a hidden way
through His masks, namely us.
Reformed denomination. He has also served two Lutheran parishes as a pastor, and
this, I posit, is reflected in the present book. For one of the most compelling
Lutheran doctrines holds that every Christian has a divine calling to serve his
neighbors in all his worldly endeavors. If he does so in a spirit of love, Luther said,
the Christian renders the highest possible service to God and is therefore a member
of the universal priesthood in His secular realm where He reigns in a hidden way
through His masks, namely us.
Uwe Siemon-Netto, writer
of the foreword is 78, an international journalist and Lutheran lay
theologian. He earned his Ph.D. in theology and sociology of religion from
Boston University. He is the author of eight books, including The Acquittal of
God; A Theology for Vietnam Veterans, The Fabricated Luther: Refuting Nazi
Connections and Other Modern Myths (St. Louis, 1993, 2007), and Triumph of the
Absurd: A Reporter’s Love for the Abandoned People of Vietnam (Corona,
Cal. 2015)
From the Introduction to Thanks
This
is a book about faith and moral issues facing America’s troops. Rev. Edgar S. Welty, Jr , as someone who
spent four years wearing U. S Army Uniforms, has plenty of “Soldier’s Stories”. But he doesn’t start
his book with these.
Instead he
introduces his work with the telling of Simon’s service when he carried the
cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ. He argues that “Service” is the same as Jesus’
call to: “Go an ‘Extra’ or ‘Second’ mile”. He further argues that Americans are
called by Jesus, God incarnate, and common decency to “Walk” a “Second Mile”,
for America’s troops and veterans. Finally he argues that this is necessary
because troops and vets are in trouble as demonstrated by things as their
suicide rates.
This sets up Part One “The Case for
Thanking”. Part Two relates his “Soldier’s Stories”. Part Three called, “A Veteran’s Confessions” records his stories
which could never be told by an Army Recruiter’ but deal with life as it is the
service and the before and after context of his time in uniform. Part Four is
his, “Reflections”, as, “A Pastor”.
His conclusion asks the question, “What Would God Have Us Do? And
partially answers that question with, “Avoiding Worshiping the Rate of Return
& Ourselves”. His “Final Word”
is for, “For Veterans in Particular and The Public in General”. Finally he has added a “Postscript” about
doing “Final Military Honors” at the gravesides of veterans.
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