We have been all over the map, or more accurately, all over the streaming services, during the COVID-19 isolation months as we searched for diversion from the end of the world as we know it. When a possible apocalypse looms just turn on the television.
One of the series we happened upon recently is Rebecka Martinsson, which as the name might suggest is Swedish. An edgy big city lawyer returns to her rural hometown for the funeral of a pastor who supported her in a turbulent earlier time in her life. This woman was an activist and rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, even as she was admired by others. Her death was deemed an accident until Rebecka begins to question the circumstances.
The unique plot feature is that the pastor had locked horns with members of the local hunting club ver the use of the church forest in which they had hunted for years. It got me thinking about the notion of a mainline European or North American congregations owning tracts of wooded land. My experience in ministry through nearly 40 years was with congregations which didn't have adequate parking, let alone a forest. In a day when many congregations are dissolving and selling property there isn't much chance that there will ever be a movement to own woods and forests as a Creation-care commitment, although I admire the Church Forests of Ethiopia.
Still, hey, a Lutheran pastor who might literally die for the trees? That's my kinda martyr!
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