Race, Ethnicity, Racism

[1] Last October when the JLE Advisory Council met to plan the issues for 2020 we decided to put the summer book review issue in June.  We, or at least I, envisioned professors on summer break from classes having time to peruse new books on the beach while pastors and lay leaders had a more relaxed […]

Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the United States is written by Lenny Duncan, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Duncan was a “free-agent Christian” until he met the ELCA through an open communion table. This revolutionary symbol of grace and welcome later led […]

This piece offers a unique perspective on white privilege and the internalization of racism. Read about how Rev. Peterman adjusted to living in and serving an African American community and how that experience has impacted her life and theology

Indian Residential Schools are a sinful part of Canada’s history that were facilitated and hidden by Empire. Bishop MacDonald explores the history of the schools as well as the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Reflecting on the context of Scripture, he uses the concepts of idolatry, systemic evil, and Empire to explore the role of Christians during the schools’ existence while calling on Christians today to examine their roles in relation to Empire. ​

Raye helpfully recaps the Lutheran Ethicists’ Gathering presentations–including Bishop MacDonald’s call to name and resist corporate evil through repentance and the establishing of right relationships. Raye also summarizes Dr. Sylvia Keesmaat’s analysis on Paul’s letters to the Romans as a useful model of how Empire is named and resisted in Scripture. The article asks its readers, “What is God calling those Christians benefiting from the empire of the United States to do? How can truth and reconciliation be reached?”​

[1] This book reestablishes Williams’s doctoral dissertation work at Fuller Theological Seminary, entitled: “Christ-Centered Empathic Resistance: The Influence of Harlem Renaissance Theology on the Incarnational Ethic of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” Williams’ exploration is a welcome journey into a domain of praxiological substance in a contemporary age where vain ideologies, boisterous pathologies, and impotent philosophies have become […]

[1] Rufus Burrow Jr.’s A Child Shall Lead Them is about the courage and contributions made by black children and youth, and some whites (282), in the struggle for civil and human rights in the United States. We see in this narrative how black children, youth and others aided the efforts of Martin Luther King […]

What does gentrification look like to a community living inside of it? Brau and Vasquez from Luther Place Memorial Church explore the congregation’s response to gentrification in Washington D.C.’s Logan Circle neighborhood. N Street Village ministries was founded out of the congregation to respond to the needs of the neighborhood. How does a congregation respond when poeple who are not impoverished move in, potentially forcing the poor out?​

That black lives matter should be obvious but unfortunately it is not. Black Lives Matter is not simply a rhetorical expression coined by a few. It is in fact an existential cry with deeply spiritual roots. Born from the depths of centuries of collective oppression (remember slavery, indentured servitude, Jim Crow,) it is an expression of the groans of the Spirit of which Paul spoke, the collective prayer of a people demanding their right to exist, their inalienable right to be.

Less can be more. Newman’s poetry speaks from the heart of the pain of oppression in a way that an academic article could not reach, not matter the world count. ​​We know that the personal is policitcal, but Newman’s work brings home the fact that the polictical is also intensely personal for so many voices not lifted up by mainstream media.​