Bishop James Muney of the ELCA VA Synod.

On this Friday, some things bear repeating (written Friday, August 18, 2017):

The first is to repeat my request that all of us lift up the town of Charlottesville, its people, its government and first responders, its injured from last weekend, and the families of Heather Heyer, Lt. Jay Cullen, and Trooper Berke Bates. I ask that you would lift up the congregations of St. Mark and Peace along with the many houses of faith in Charlottesville. In conversations this week with pastors in Charlottesville, we pray for a healing and a strengthening by the Holy Spirit for a returning of this place of people, commerce, culture, and learning to its vibrant sense of well-being and joy.

It bears repeating that we do not talk enough about the outright lie that the color of one’s skin contributes to the value that God has for them or the intelligence that one has or the content of the character of a person. We do not talk enough about the outright lie that says the south wasn’t built on the backs of people sold and regarded as property. We do not talk enough that we are “one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice FOR ALL.”

It bears repeating, that as a Lutheran Christian I regard my faith as founded upon a Galilean Jew crucified and risen from the dead, from faithful Jewish disciples and apostles of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee and a Pharisee from Tarsus and the key early centers of faith in Damascus and Syria. I give thanks for the crafter of the Nicene Creed, Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, described as black as tar. I give thanks for Bishop Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa, whose theology shaped the faith of an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, 1000 years later. My faith has been built upon the shoulders of Jews, Arabs, Africans, Greeks, Christians and martyrs of Asia Minor. It wasn’t until after 800 AD that my Anglo-Saxon ancestors even heard of Jesus Christ. I am honored to be grafted to the tree of faithful Israel that St. Paul speaks to in Romans 9-11.  As Christians we remember Ephesians 4: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

It bears reflection that the great anniversaries of the civil war have also been within our nation rises of white supremacy, particularly following the 50th, where the vast majority of our confederate statues were erected. And we recall the tens of thousands of hooded figures parading in the streets of cities across America in the 1920’s. Rather than let such anniversaries or public parades redraw lines, we should all learn from such events that our strength is in our rich resource of gifted people of all nationalities, cultures, faiths, and languages and the conviction that access to equal opportunity for all results in the strength of a united nation.

A PETITION FOR THE VARIETY OF FACES AND CULTURES

“O God, you created all people in your image. We thank you for the astonishing variety of races and cultures in this world. Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of fellowship, and show us your presence in those who differ most from us, until our knowledge of your love is made perfect in our love for all your children; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (LBW, p. 42)

I will join you in prayer this Sunday and I will be praying for your preaching, teaching, and worship of our Lord who emptied himself and came for us all.

Yours in Christ,
The Rev. James F. Mauney

Bishop Bill Gafkjen serves as Chair of the ELCA Conference of Bishops and Bishop of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the ELCA.

Racism—a mix of power, privilege, and prejudice—is sin, a violation of God’s intention for humanity. The resulting racial, ethnic, or cultural barriers deny the truth that all people are God’s creatures and, therefore, persons of dignity. Racism fractures and fragments both church and society. [The ELCA’s social statement, Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity and Culture][i]

In late July, I was honored and blessed to participate in a joint gathering of the African-Descent Lutheran Association (ELCA) and the Union of Black Episcopalians in Philadelphia. Over meals, in the hallways, and in plenary sessions I was able to listen deeply to the concerns of people of color, especially people of African descent, who are part of the church. I was honored to sit for part of an afternoon with ELCA rostered ministers of African descent and heard stories of painful experiences of marginalization, disrespect, and discrimination in our life together as the ELCA. During the opening worship service, I was invited to bring a greeting on behalf of the I-K Synod and, as its chair, the ELCA Conference of Bishops. In that greeting I thanked these dear sisters and brothers for their partnership in the gospel and for their persistent prophetic witness to the kind of beloved community Christ has made us to be and to how very far we still have to go in realizing that community.

On the flight home, I committed to three things: (1) engage the difficult process of facing and repenting of the ways in which I am complicit in, even a perpetrator of, racism; (2) do what I can in my various leadership roles in the church and as a citizen of this country to surface, challenge, and do something about systemic/institutional racism; and (3) share this with you, the good people of the I-K Synod, in this newsletter and invite you to join me on this journey.

And then Charlottesville happened. There, again, tragically, starkly, we saw the truth of what we said together in a social statement almost 25 years ago: Racism is sin and it fractures and fragments both church and society. Racism robs people of their God-given dignity. It privileges some at the expense of many. Racism kills. And, as a church and for so many of us as individuals, including me, we have done very little to challenge and change this great evil.

Did you know that the Southern Poverty Law Center – a well-respected group committed to identifying hate, combating intolerance, and dismantling racism – has identified 26 hate groups in Indiana and 23 in Kentucky? Most of them are white supremacist/nationalist groups of the ilk that were part of the troubles in Charlottesville.[ii] Somehow, we need to present a counter-witness to these groups, many of whom try to claim the name of Jesus. We need to step up our presence in the public arena – much like those from the ELCA and others who went to Charlottesville – to work toward a community that honors all, welcomes all, receives the gifts of all, and makes space for all, for every single one, to walk alongside others toward a beautiful future where we actually embody the community Christ has made us to be.

Of course, hate groups are the obvious ones to combat. As individuals, as local congregations, as a synod, as a church, we have a great deal of perhaps less immediately obvious need for self-reflection, confession, repentance, and change to engage ourselves…even and especially for things that are just so much part of the dominant local or broader culture or way of doing things that we don’t even see how they hurt, exclude, and denigrate people of races, ethnicities, and self-identities different from our own. This may be the most challenging and difficult work of all. But, for the sake of our sisters and brothers, for Jesus’ sake, we just have to do it. The love of Christ compels us. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” [2 Corinthians 5:18].

We will be working on these things synodically this fall. I hope that as the fall school year/program year begins, you will join me in finding ways to face and resist racism and its shadowy siblings. Together, we seek to not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds, our inmost beings, in the power of the Spirit (Romans 12:1), in families, in congregations, and in our communities.

This will not be easy, sisters and brothers. But, thanks be to God, this hard and necessary work is bathed in promise, for “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” [Jesus, Matthew 16:25].

Peace be with you,

Bishop Bill Gafkjen

[i] Download a PDF here: http://ow.ly/YEEn30ep7r5

[ii] https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map

A prayer written by Bishop Gafkjen the weekend of the events in Charlottesville can be found here: http://livingcommunion.blogspot.com/

Do Black Churches Matter in the ELCA?

A documentary film by Lenny Duncan, ANKOS films and Tangled Blue.

Teaser Trailer

Director’s Note

So, I’m doing a film. It’s really that simple, asking a simple question. Do Black Churches Matter in the ELCA? What does that even mean? The only answer I can give is to ask another question. What is the answer that immediately comes to mind when I ask, do black churches matter in the ELCA?

It might be a yes. Possibly with a caveat. Or a resounding no. Well, that will affect how you see this film.

So, this idea started as an independent study here at United Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. Like my exorcism work last year, it evolved. I was going to write a very sterile paper where I matched up the ELCA’s social statements, resolutions, and constitution with what we did with our money that year. The theological thinking behind it was going to be simple. Are we doing what we say we want to do? This was a simple task accomplished by looking at the history of what we have done. I would seek publication in some academic journal. It would have been powerful in its intent.

Follow the money.

It wasn’t until I started chasing the story down (in the undercroft of the seminary, in arguably the most complete Lutheran Archive in North America) that I started to realize what it needed was impact. It also was too important of a story to be stuck in the echo chamber, which is theological academia. Edit: White Academia. Edit: White cis het Academia.

This would be the death of this story. Why is that? Because the systems that are in place, that are being analyzed in this work, would unconsciously fall into the same demonic patterns it always does. This work would be outright rejected, picked apart by some academic desperate to prove the church bears no responsibility, or it would land with a feather fall and not a seismic boom.

So, as I scrambled to get camera equipment, to record some interviews for ease of later access for my research, it hit me like a thunderbolt. A Movie. A documentary. This would be an easy media format to access for churches, synod assemblies and people just interested. I could put it in several pieces on YouTube for ease of consumption.

I contacted the incomparable Jason Chesnut at Ankos Films, for help. I bought a starter DSLR camera. I reached out to the composers in residence at United Seminary in Philadelphia, Tangle Blue, for some royalty free tunes and beats. It came together so easily the indwelling of the Holy Spirit had to be all over it.

But what is the story? What is the story this film will tell you?

I’m about almost through shooting so I can share with you the story so far.

It is about a church, and white Protestantism and its seeming collapsing in on itself. It is about a system that got so use to being at the very center of a democracy and society, and is no longer in that privileged position. It is about the way it has treated its Black pastors and churches. It is going to point to the fact that while we scream for diversity in the ELCA we have some systemic inequities in the way we launch, nurture, and treat these ministries. Its focus will be Philadelphia and its history (mostly). How at one point baptized membership here was 58% Black Lutheran.

It is about a seminarian who spent 2 years studying the confessions, our social statements, and this church before joining. It is about what I found when I arrived. It is about being a Black Lutheran from one person’s limited perspective. I am not in the film directly but I am there. We will look through my eyes.

It is not a complete history of the prophetic witness of my elders who have labored long and wearily in this field. However, it will point to the fields of littered bodies I found when I arrived, and it will honor the efforts of those who came before me. This will also be limited by my “newness” to this church.

I recently visited the African American History Museum with Judith Roberts our Director of Racial Justice Ministries in the ELCA. As we moved through the history of the subjection of black bodies in this country. As we waded through rivers of spilt blood, and marveled at torrential downpours of black resistance the importance of the work I am doing became clearer. I already was getting a sense that I was doing holy work. However, the prophetic witness of Black Lutheranism over all that I saw that day rang out like a song I could hear just around the bend of every corner there. We stood together under the flag of my great-great grandfather’s regiment in the civil war.

We waited in the long line to see Emmet Till’s coffin. The four of us who were gathered together that day stopped and prayed silently that day in front of the coffin as Mama Till’s words came out of a nearby speaker. We drew a direct line from Emmet to Trayvon Martin in our hearts.

I hope that in some way this movie can contribute to and not take away from, the beautiful mosaic that is Black Lutheran History.

My hope is to gain access to a deep sense of lament and well of ancestral power I am accessing.

It is about a church that has fewer resources. Less relevance. An uncertain future. Death nipping at its heels as it races towards resurrection.

It is about a church whose only chance for survival is to turn to the prophetic witness of Black Lutheranism, and the leaders and peoples it has treated as second-class citizens in the kingdom of God.

It is about suffering servants, elders of the diaspora, and communities squeezed by empire being the literal incarnation of Jesus.

It’s about whether or not a church can actually listen to the cries and wisdom of the historically oppressed.

It’s about, “Do Black Churches Matter in the ELCA?”

BIO

Lenny Duncan is a Vicar at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church and Candidate for ordination to the office of Word and Sacrament in the ELCA. Formerly incarcerated. Formerly homeless. Formerly “Unchurched”. He is also the Evangelist for the #decolonizelutheranism movement, as well as a frequent voice on the intersection of the Church and the cries of the oppressed. He pays special attention to the #blacklives movement in his work, but also lifts the frequent intersection with other marginalized peoples.  He believes that the reason the ELCA has remained so white is a theological problem not sociological. He is currently an Mdiv Coop student at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and holds a Bachelors of Biblical Studies from Lancaster Bible College, with an emphasis in New Testament theology.

Let’s talk about HIV.

Maybe you’re thinking “What? HIV? I thought this blog was about racial justice.” or “Isn’t that issue over now?”

But consider this: as of July 2015, African Americans made up 13.3% of the US Population.¹ Yet African Americans made up 48% of HIV infections in 2015.² Latino folks made up 17% of the US population and 24% of HIV infections. Similar statistical trends hold true for other minority communities in the US.

This, siblings in Christ, is an injustice.

It is an injustice that black and brown communities do not have equal access to education about HIV, HIV testing, or sustained healthcare. It is an injustice that black Americans are over eight times more likely to test positive for HIV than white Americans. It is an injustice that this reality means that many people in this country get to believe that “HIV is over” when it is clearly not.

Not only is HIV not over, friends, and it is threatening resurgence now more than ever before. The US government is rescinding aid to those suffering from HIV both domestically and abroad. The new budget proposed by the current administration outlines cuts to Medicaid and the CDC that would be devastating for HIV patients in the U.S. along with cuts to the Global AIDS Fund and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Initiative (the latter enacted by President W. Bush) that would leave communities around the world without HIV education or treatment.³

The risk is again growing, especially among communities of color. The U.S. government’s commitment to care for HIV-positive citizens is waning. Our church must step up.

The ELCA outlines its own call to fight the HIV epidemic in the ELCA Strategy on HIV and AIDS, adopted by the Churchwide Assembly in 2009⁴. This Strategy acknowledges the realities of HIV in the U.S. and around the world, the church’s shortcomings in addressing these realities in the past, and our renewed commitment to walking alongside all who are affected by HIV – including disproportionately affected communities of color. The Strategy calls us to act through education, theological reflection, worship, and advocacy to ensure access to HIV resources for all.

I work as the Program Associate for this Strategy, and want to offer myself and the ELCA as a resource for you and your communities of faith as you wrestle with issues of healthcare, racial justice, and faith. Over the coming weeks and months I look forward to working with the ELCA Racial Justice program and with you all, communities across the ELCA, to tackle these issues together.

So how can you get involved?

1. Be sure to check our Facebook page for updated resources and information: https://www.facebook.com/ELCAHIVandAIDS/
2. Join us!

_{This year, our church will intentionally reflect on the call we accepted in the Strategy on HIV/AIDS on three separate days:}

• _{On June 27th, National HIV Testing Day – we encourage all ELCA members to lead by example in their communities and get tested for HIV, and to talk about HIV with their families and congregations.}
• _{On September 10th, “God’s Work, Our Hands” Sunday, we encourage ELCA congregations to spend this intentional day of service reaching out to organizations that serve People Living with HIV.}
• On December 1, World AIDS Day, we encourage all ELCA congregations to take time to learn more about the HIV epidemic in the US and around the world, and to incorporate HIV-specific language into their Sunday worship services.

3. Contact the ELCA Strategy Team with any questions, ideas, or for additional resources: sullivan@elca.org

The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:26 that “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

Our HIV-positive friends in Christ are suffering. Disproportionately they are poor or black or brown or LGBTQ+ or women. Our church will not be silent about this injustice. We will pray for healing and we will get to work to advocate with and for People Living with HIV/AIDS together.

Join us.

Savanna Sullivan
Program Associate, Strategy on HIV/AIDS

¹ https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/

² https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/racialethnic/africanamericans/index.html

³ http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/25/529873431/trumps-proposed-budget-would-cut-2-2-billion-from-global-health-spending

⁴ http://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/ELCA_Strategy_on_HIV_and_AIDS.pdf

Raise your hand if you saw a black person on campus today.

My peers and I exchanged apprehensive looks with each other as our professor opened his first lecture, on the first day of the semester, with this command. The course, “Anthropology of Race and Science,” filled a seminar room, twenty-five of us sitting around a large table, eyes focused on the faux wood table in front of us as we avoided eye contact with each other and with him. He asked again and hands were tentatively raised, faces lined with discomfort and apprehension.

Alright, now let’s talk about why that was so difficult.

From here, the tone of our semester was set and I spent fifteen weeks facing uncomfortable truths and challenges to my conceptions about the world around me.

In the anthropological world, race is no longer talked about as a biological difference among people as it once was in previous days of academia. Rather, it is discussed as what it is: a socially constructed category that holds value not because of some innate difference between peoples, but rather because we, as a society, have given value to it. Labeling something as a social construct does not mean that it lacks value or should flippantly be dismissed. I’ve seen this happen all too often on Facebook within the comments that people write on posts (I strongly recommend everyone stay away from reading these—it never ends well).

People often comment how “Well that (whether its race, gender, sexuality, etc.) is just a social construct” as if in some way, this dismisses the legitimacy of what social constructions do within society.

Yes, race is a social construct. And yes, race is very uncomfortable to talk about.

And yes, this is exactly why it is something we must talk about and why we must do something about it. Race is a social construct and it has been socially constructed in ways that create inequalities in our society. These inequalities are maintained through unequal access to healthcare or affordable housing. They are created by wage gaps and the criminal justice system. And they are enforced through the advantages that one group has over another.

I think most of us have no problem seeing the racism of the past century. But I also think most of us have a really hard time seeing the racism of today—the racism that allows these inequalities to persist.

When I was in Anthropology of Race and Science, I found myself confronted with these issues. And to be honest, I didn’t really want to talk about it. It was uncomfortable and difficult and I often left class feeling angry or hopeless. But it also helped me to see how racism effects people of color today. Our classroom was split about evenly: fifty percent were people of color and fifty percent were white. Our understanding of race in America today came from the first-hand experiences of our peers.

Racism isn’t over. It didn’t stop with the end of slavery or with the civil rights act or when we elected Barack Obama. Racism in America is still a very present thing. My place is not to speak for people of color as to how racism affects them. My role is to lift up and affirm their voices.

However, that doesn’t mean that I can’t, or that I don’t have to, say something. Whatever my place in society, I am a part of it. And therefore, I participate in the systems that create it. So, what I can say is this:

I am privileged. I am privileged because of my socio-economic class. I am privileged because of my gender. And I am privileged because I am white.

It’s a challenging thing to be confronted with such a proposition.

I am white and therefore, because of my whiteness, I have had opportunities and experiences that others do not. White privilege doesn’t claim that white people don’t work hard or that we are simply handed things left and right. It doesn’t claim that generations before us didn’t work hard, sacrifice, and skimp and save to allow us to be at the position that some of us are in.

What it does claim is that these barriers to success—the ones that our parents and their parents and so on had to work through to get to where they are—these barriers are not as high as they are for those that aren’t white.

Acknowledging my white privilege, took work. It didn’t happen overnight or with a sudden epiphany. It was a slow and continual process. Personally, I think one of the most important things we, as white people, must do is listen to the voices of people of color. We must seek out ways to affirm those that are often spoken over and find ways to use our privilege to do so. My white privilege gives me a unique opportunity because it means that once I’ve done the hard work that life requires, I’m not confronted with yet another barrier that I must overcome simply because of the color of my skin. As much as I’d like to say that I have completely confronted everything that comes with privilege, I haven’t. It’s a process I’m still working through and it’s one I think we all must work actively through.

My white privilege isn’t something I asked for or something bad that I’ve done. And it isn’t something that I can be judged for having. I know that as Christians, our hearts bleed for the inequalities of this world. We ache to heal and to reconcile; to give and to love. Our faith calls us to love like Jesus. To live our lives in a way that makes sure that people know we are Christian because the way that we love our neighbors is so radically offensive people don’t know what to do with us. And I think a good place to start is with my privilege. I believe that my privilege means that I must use it to do what I can to live in a way that affirms the love that Jesus showed. It means that I must use my voice to create room for people that aren’t often given a voice. And it means that I must continue to work through these issues.

I’m privileged because I’m white and I want to do something with that.

Kevin Tracey recently started the ELCA candidacy process. In the fall, he will begin working towards his Master of Divinity at United Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. In April, Kevin graduated with honors from the University of Pittsburgh with a dual degree in Anthropology and Philosophy. He spends most of his time at the bookstore, hiking and kayaking with his family.

Ecumenical Advocacy Days is a movement of the ecumenical Christian community, and its recognized partners and allies, grounded in biblical witness and our shared traditions of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. Our goal, through worship, theological reflection and opportunities for learning and witness, is to strengthen our Christian voice and to mobilize for advocacy on a wide variety of U.S. domestic and international policy issues.

Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD) 2017 was an enlightening, refreshing and healing event for people of all walks of faith nationally and internationally. The theme: Confronting Chaos and Forging Community was an important theme especially for the times we are in today. It was a great opportunity to hear speakers speak and be a part of workshops that discussed Racism, Capitalism, Materialism and Militarism which could be considered the big four that work in cooperation with each other. These big four are reasons for chaos, divided community, lack of resources and broken faith within and outside our nation. We are in times of coming together to grow and speak truths to power. We have to realize what is at stake and make efforts for changing the world that we see it best for all of humanity and not just a few. After three days of intensive learning of national and international issues around the big four we lobbied. We went to our representatives and senators to compel them of funding our communities and nation that will better the condition for housing, education, poverty, immigrants, veterans, criminal system, etc., especially for black and brown bodies who are particularly in the worst conditions. I highly recommend EAD for all faiths to be the change we want to see and to continue to fulfill God’s will on Earth as it is in Heaven. #ead2017

To learn more about advocacy for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, visit http://www.elca.org/advocacy.

To learn more about Ecumenical Advocacy Days visit https://advocacydays.org/.

Kendrick Hall in Washington, D.C. visiting Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota.

Kendrick Hall is a first year Seminary student  at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN.  He is pursuing a Masters of Divinity and will be ordained at Redeemer Lutheran Church in the Minneapolis Synod. He currently is a member and part time worker at Redeemer Lutheran Church. He currently serves a member of the leadership committee for  the African Descent Lutheran Association (ADLA) and Elisha’s Call.