The prolific and prophetic voices of Black people, Indigenous people and people of color in this denomination remind white folks such as myself that being a faithful Lutheran has very little to do with being polite. The Holy Spirit empowers us to tell the truth.
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The website for the Emanuel Nine Memorial shares a list of commemoration events throughout 2022, many available via Zoom.
Learn more how the Mother Emanuel AME Church grounds have been reconfigured to build the Emanuel Nine Memorial. This national memorial will be a place of contemplation, communion and conversation.
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Bishop Elizabeth Eaton will join faith and government leaders on June 17, 2022, to mark the seventh anniversary of the racially motivated shootings at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. Watch the event here.
The leaders will participate in a commemorative Bible study event that will kick off a yearlong Bible study across the country. The theme for the event, "What Kind of Soil Are We?," is taken from Mark 4:1-20, the Bible passage the Emanuel Nine were studying on the night they were murdered by Dylann Roof (who was raised in an ELCA congregation).
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As part of the 2019 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, voting members adopted a resolution designating June 17 as a commemoration of the martyrdom of the Emanuel 9—the nine people shot and killed on June 17, 2015, during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.
Our relationship to the shooter, as well as two of the slain, reminds us of both our complicity and our calling.
The resources at elca.org/emanuelnine are provided to help synods and congregations mark this commemoration.
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This June, inspired by a request from an AME congregation we asked the congregations of the ELCA South Carolina Synod to study the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4, to substitute it as their Gospel reading for Sunday, June 19, and to include the names of the Emanuel Nine in the prayers of intercession.
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For a long time, no one in Tulsa’s white or black communities talked about the massacre that destroyed the Greenwood district in May 1921. Those who were there remembered. A few kept the memory alive. But most simply chose to forget. Shrouded in silence for decades, it lay there in the heart of the city, eating away at it like a cancer.
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Our hearts grieve for those who have been killed and our souls cry out against more lives lost to the hatred birthed by racism. As we mourn those lives lost as a result of the racially motivated killings in Buffalo, we ask God to ease the continued suffering and trauma of our Black siblings throughout the nation and in our church. We are one body in Christ, so when one part suffers, we all suffer.
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In his Daily Meditation of February 6 on 1 Corinthians 12, Rev. Richard Rohr writes “Humanity consistently has to face the problem of unity and diversity. We’re not very good at understanding it. We habitually choose our smaller groups, because we don’t know how to belong to a larger group. That demands too much letting go.”
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The ELCA European Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice (EDLARJ) hosts a webinar series entitled Building an Anti-Racism Team: Next Faithful Steps on three upcoming Wednesdays: 9/7/2022, 10/5/2022, and 11/2/2022. Register in advance here. More info at edlarj.org/events and Facebook event.
This series is for anybody in the ELCA, specifically interested in connecting with other folks building or working at a synod, campus or congregational anti-racist team.
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Last week, history was made when the U.S. Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. She will serve as the first Black woman justice in the 232-year history of the Supreme Court. It is not the only, nor likely the last “historic first” for the highest court in the United States.
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California Lutheran University hosts an ELCA 5-part study series for ELCA Declaration to People of African Descent. Thursdays, 4/28-6/2/2022, 9-11am MST/PDT, 10am-noon MDT. Register here.
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As Bishop Eaton calls us to learn more about the inhumane history of the transatlantic slave trade as part of International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, we share historian Dan Carlin’s recent podcast on the subject.
“The Atlantic Slave Trade mixes centuries of human bondage with violence, economics, commerce, geo-political competition, liberty, morality, injustice, revolution, tragedy and bloody reckonings. That sounds like a lot, yet this show merely scratches the surface of this enormous subject.” Available free for a limited time on the show page, Apple podcasts, or in this post.
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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), in recognition of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, reaffirms its commitment to combat racism and white supremacy. This day is set as a recommitment in remembrance of the day police in South Africa killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid in 1960.
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On March 25, 2022, we commemorate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, declared by the United Nations in 2007. As we remember the victims of what has been called the “the worst violation of human rights in history,” Bishop Eaton calls us to “learn more about the inhumane history of the transatlantic slave trade and examine the paths that will lead us towards racial healing and justice.”
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With Black History Month approaching, the ELCA introduces "Now Is the Time: A Study Guide for ELCA Declaration to People of African Descent" to help congregations wrestle with the meaning of the declaration, adopted at the 2019 Churchwide Assembly, and its accompanying explanation.
The five-part study resource, with a guide and participant materials, is available at elca.org/Resources/Racial-Justice. Direct PDF links to the Explanation of the Declaration of the ELCA to People of African Descent are here: Document, Study Guide and Participant Materials.
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Have you ever seen a grassroots campaign for affordable housing? What about a ten year old preacher and professional artist? This is future church. New. Young. Diverse.
African Descent Ministries of the ELCA is celebrating Black History Month with a new series “Talks at the Desk,” sharing the diverse expressions of the church. View video trailer here. Join us each Wednesday in February at 6:30pm MST, 5:30 PST. For more updates follow @ELCAADM on social or check out facebook.com/elcaadm.
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In observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Bishop Eaton says acknowledging that we have a long way to go to dismantle structural and institutional racism, “we are actively wrestling with the ways the sin of racism shows up in our lives together as a church. We also know that grace gives us the freedom to face our sin.”
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We revisit A Prophetic Call the Church: The Letter from Birmingham Jail, presented last year by the Metro D.C. Synod. Rev. Dr. King’s prophetic call to action to the Church and fellow clergy is grievously and regrettably relevant over 50 years later.
As we honor Rev. Dr. King’s dedication to reforming the Church and American culture, you are invited to listen to 20 African-American voices of rostered leaders of the ELCA.
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The Southwest California Synod and the African Descent Lutheran Association, LA, present a Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration and Commemoration Worship Service, January 16, 2022, 4pm MST, 3pm MST, at adla-la.org. Guest preacher: The Rev. Patricia Ann Curtis Davenport, Bishop, Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod.
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In response to the verdicts in the trial of Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William Bryan in Brunswick, Ga., for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, we offer a word of prayer and healing.
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