Are there Evangelical Lutherans in your area?

If you have made the journey to Columbus, Ohio this year for the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s (ELCA), then you either had your vaccines or been tested. You’ll be wearing a mask when you enter the convention center. You’ve also observed a leadership that has wrestled with an intersectional quandary: what happens when your first transgender bishop fires an Hispanic pastor on the vigil of Our Lady of Guadalupe?

You get to work. This is not the kind of work that encourages evangelization. It is not the teaching of children and administration of the sacraments. It will be done. This is Audre Ladye type of work .

“This time is for us to recall all our antiracist promises and apologies as a church and to make a public commitment to becoming an antiracist congregation,” Elizabeth Eaton, the leader of the church said Tuesday.

At the ELCA our hearts will not rest until we train in antiracism.

Eaton continued by stating that Guadalupe’s apparition, a feast not listed on the ELCA liturgical schedule, confirmed “that the Latine comunit,” a term which has recently replaced ‘Latinx, “is known, seen, and given dignity.” This speaks to the dignity of their being created in God’s image, regardless of how society treats them. Eaton ended her introduction by reminding everyone that this is “our common work” especially in a church .”

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Later she made an observation that confirmed the suspicions of all listeners: “On the screen to my right are various declarations and statements this church made over the years .”

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This is the job of an ecclesial organization: declaring and releasing statements. The minister admits of the perception that her organization is primarily a political one sustained by ad hoc committees, working groups, and press releases.

In a similarly political act, voting members of the assembly voted 741-59 on a “reconsideration to revise the social statement ‘Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust (2009)’ so its wording reflects current church understanding, church policy, civil law and acceptance of marriage of same-gender and gender non-conforming couples.” For those 741 members, Obergefell not only holds legal weight, but also reverses settled moral doctrine.

When church and state seem so apart, what is the need for unity?