Churchwide Representative
 Mark S. Hanson,
ELCA Presiding Bishop
The presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is elected to a six-year term by the Churchwide Assembly. In addition to fulfilling such roles as preacher, teacher and administrator of the sacraments, which traditionally belong to the office of bishop, the presiding bishop of this church serves as president and chief executive officer of the corporation and oversees the staff, budget, and overall administration of the church.
The presiding bishop chairs the biennial Churchwide Assembly and provides for the preparation of agendas for the assembly, the Church Council and its executive committee, the Conference of Bishops, and the Cabinet of Executives. The presiding bishop is also the chief ecumenical officer of this church, and provides leadership and care for the bishops of the synods.
In August 2001, the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) elected Mark S. Hanson to serve as presiding bishop.
Before being elected 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.
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.
He has served as president of the Minnesota Council of Churches; vice chair of the ELCA Conference of Bishops; vice president of the Lutheran World Federation, and is a member of the executive council of the National Council of Churches USA.
In 2003, he was elected president of the Lutheran World Federation, a position he holds concurrently with his position as presiding bishop of the ELCA. In this position, Bishop Hanson has the opportunity to speak with Lutherans throughout the world about the social, economic, and political injustices that we, the people of God, are called to confront.
The son of a Lutheran evangelist, Hanson is by reputation an advocate for social justice, especially issues that impact the poor, including racial justice, housing, welfare rights, and immigration rights.
Since being elected presiding bishop, he has received several honorary degrees, including Doctor of Humane Letters from Augsburg College, Doctor of Humanities from Capital University, Doctor of Divinity from Lenoir-Rhyne College, Wartburg Theological Seminary and Wartburg College and Doctor of Divinity from The Academy of Ecumenical Indian Theology and Church Administration.
He is the author of Faithful Yet Changing, the Church in Challenging Times and Faithful and Courageous, Christians in Unsettling Times both from Augsburg Fortress, Publishers.
Married to Ione (Agrimson), they are the parents of Aaron, Alyssa, Rachel, Ezra, Isaac and Elizabeth, and grandparents to Naomi and Kingston. Before moving to Chicago, Ione was the director of social work at Minneapolis and St. Paul Children’s Hospitals.
View the video
"Meet Bishop Hanson"
Meet Bishop Hanson
Learn about Mark S. Hanson,
presiding bishop of the ELCA.
Watch Video
[10 min.; 2001]
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Bible Study Leader
 Dr. Ralph W. Klein
Ralph W. Klein is Christ Seminary-Seminex professor of Old Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC). A member of the faculty since 1983, Klein served as Dean from 1988-99 and again in the spring semester of 2005. Prior to joining the Seminary's faculty he was professor and chair of the department of exegetical theology at Christ Seminary-Seminex, St. Louis, Mo.; assistant professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis; and an instructor at Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Ind. In 1998, he was a guest professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
An ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Klein is committed to the church-at-large. He was a member of the St. Louis Task Force on Soviet Jewry, the stewardship committee for the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, ELCA, and a member of the board of directors and chair of the Social Policies Committee of Lutheran Family and Children's Services, St. Louis.
He founded and chaired the Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah Group for the Society of Biblical Literature, and served on the Commission on Accrediting of the Association of Theological Schools and as a member and chair of visiting accreditation teams to other seminaries. He recently directed the LSTC self-study in preparation for the renewal of the seminary's accreditation by the Association of Theological Schools and the North Central Association.
Widely published, Klein has written for the Christian Century, Concordia Theological Monthly,Currents in Theology and Mission,Harvard Theological Review, Interpretation,Journal of Biblical Literature, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Word and World and the Zeitschrift fuer die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. He has been editor of Currents in Theology and Mission since 1974 and is an associate editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly. His books include Textual Criticism of the Old Testament, Israel in Exile, a commentary on 1 Samuel in the Word Biblical Commentary; Ezekiel: the Prophet and his Message; and the commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah in the New Interpreter's Bible. He has completed an extensive commentary on 1 Chronicles for the Hermeneia Commentary Series, (scheduled for publication by Fortress press in 2006) and will complete an equally comprehensive commentary on 2 Chronicles in the next few years. Over the years he has published more than 1300 book reviews and short notices. At the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta, November 22, 2003, he was presented with a Festschrift: The Chronicler as Theologian: Essays in Honor of Ralph W. Klein.
Klein received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, and the Master of Divinity degree from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. At Harvard University, he received the Doctor of Theology degree and was a Teaching Fellow and Rockefeller Fellow. During recent sabbatical leaves, Klein has studied at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, at Cambridge University in England, and at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany.
Klein chaired the joint technology committee for the Lutheran School of Theology and McCormick Theological Seminary and was the project director for a $300,000 Lilly Foundation grant to LSTC that has enhanced the use of technology in the teaching-learning process. He has also developed a web site on the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East that provides links to more than 10,000 internet sites and access to a substantial number of his own articles, including comments on the Old Testament lessons for every Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary.
Klein and his wife, Marilyn, are parents to two grown daughters and grandparents to five grandsons. On almost every Sunday during the academic year he teaches adult forums in Chicago area congregations. He also is a tennis player and an avid golfer.
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