Standing Accused of Glory: The Heidelberg Disputation and Racism in the ELCA
The Problem: As the US reeled from yet another eruption of racist violence, the summer’s usually fleet flow slowed to a leaden crawl after Charleston. And as the darkest truth came to light – that not only had two of the nine victims been alumni of the ELCA’s Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (Mother Emanuel's Senior Pastor Rev. Clementa Pinckney and Associate Pastor Rev. Daniel Simmons) but that even the shooter, Dylann Storm Roof, was an ELCA member – that already heavy burden began burning to the touch. Bishop Eaton's pastoral epistle , released the day after the attacks, gave a sobering summation of the feelings of many in the ELCA: “All of a sudden and for all of us this is an intensely personal tragedy. One of our own is alleged to have shot and killed two who adopted us as their own.” The Response: But as the white leaders of our overwhelmingly white denomination (nearly 94.8% by ELCA internal estimates, 96% according to the recent Pew study ) struggled