The Concordia Seminary Institute on Lay Vocation in St. Louis will host a forum titled, “Called to Be Human: Jewish and Lutheran Perspectives on Creation and Vocation,” on Thursday, March 15, at 7:30 p.m. in the Clara and Spencer Werner Auditorium. Rabbi Dr. Carl Feit of New York, a Talmudic scholar and biologist of world renown, will be the main presenter. Admission is free and no tickets will be issued. A reception will follow the lecture.

Orthodox Jews and Lutherans agree that God created humans in His image to serve each other. Luther called man “God’s cooperator.” Feit, the Dr. Joseph and Rachel Ades Professor of Pre-Health Sciences and associate professor of biology at New York’s Yeshiva University, will explore the common Jewish and Lutheran concepts of man’s role as “created co-Creator,” or God’s associate in the ongoing process of creation. In addition to biblical theology, Feit’s expertise includes immunology, cancer diagnosis, and the interface of science and religion. He received the B.A. degree from Yeshiva University, New York, N.Y., and the Ph.D. degree from Rutgers University, N.J.

“Christians are rediscovering the significance of the Lutheran doctrine that God gives assignments to all of us to serve our neighbors lovingly in our secular endeavors,” commented Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto, director of Concordia Seminary’s Institute on Lay Vocation. “If we do this to the best of our abilities, we render the highest possible service to God. Therefore, it is enormously important to hear from an orthodox Jewish scholar how deeply rooted this doctrine is in Scripture—his and ours.”

The forum respondent will be Dr. David L. Adams, associate professor of exegetical theology at Concordia Seminary. He received the B.A. degree from Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Ind.; the M.Div. and S.T.M. degrees from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis; and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. Dr. Siemon-Netto will serve as moderator.

The mission of Concordia Seminary’s Institute on Lay Vocation (ILV) is to promote the doctrine of vocation, which states that Christians are called to perform their duties in their everyday life in service to God. The ILV promotes this doctrine in symposia, seminars, lectures, magazine and online articles, and radio broadcasts on and off Concordia Seminary’s campus, in the United States and overseas. Director Siemon-Netto is a veteran journalist with a Ph.D. in theology and sociology of religion from Boston University.

For more information, call (314) 505-7009, e-mail layvocation@csl.edu or visit the Seminary’s Web site at www.csl.edu.