LOVE AS REVOLUTION

I always chuckle a little bit whenever someone asks me the question - often with furrowed-brow and misplaced intensity: "Can the ELCA be multicultural?" It's a tough answer. Internal estimates place the whiteness of our denomination at almost 95%. Pew Research results of diversity among US religious groups.The ELCA is second from the bottom. Click for larger. This summer's sobering PEW research study of ethnic diversity in US religious communities had us at 96% white , making us the whitest church in the United States despite decades of trying to be otherwise. So sure, there is cause for worry, but having been in the vanguard of this very discussion for some time now, I always sport a sly grin whenever this topic pops up - because there is some little-known good news that invariablly twists the corners of my mouth a jaunty angle. The ELCA already is multicultural. It's true. Firstly, I know this because since beginning Th.M./Ph.D. studies at th...

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...