{"id":5280,"date":"2021-01-25T22:08:17","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T22:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?p=5280"},"modified":"2021-04-01T22:36:49","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T22:36:49","slug":"overcoming-elca-racism-with-authentic-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/overcoming-elca-racism-with-authentic-diversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming ELCA Racism with Authentic Diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s disclaimer:<\/strong> This article was prepared and written by the author in his own capacity. There are a number of underlying assumptions made in this article that are demonstrably false.\u00a0The editor and advisory council of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics urge readers of this article to read the Strategy for Authentic Diversity<\/u><\/a> and the Clarifying Response<\/u><\/a>\u00a0 to this article alongside this essay. This article, like all articles in the Journal of Lutheran Ethics represent the views expressed by the individual contributor to JLE, not the views of the editor, advisory council or of the ELCA.<\/p>\n

[1] Our nation and perhaps the wider world have arrived at a k<\/em>airos<\/em> moment. The groundswell of support for \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d may propel our society across the threshold to a new era of equality, justice, and multi-racial community. ELCA leadership has begun to take its own action by drafting, \u201cHow Strategic and Authentic is Our Diversity: A Call to Confession, Reflection and Healing Action.\u201d[i]<\/a> This document has been drafted in good faith by conscientious colleagues in our beloved church. Yet, I believe that it needs critique and significant redrafting.<\/p>\n

[2] What I fear is that, if executed, this strategy would backfire. It would actually perpetuate the very institutional racism it seeks to overcome. Why? My answer is subtle, but I will attempt to make it clear. Then, I would like to tender an alternative way to think about ELCA white racism and the strategy for overcoming it. In brief, here is my two-pronged recommendation: (1) we should cease feeding the unhappy consciousness of the ELCA white leadership and remove this white leadership from the center of our spiritual attention; and (2) we should ask people of color\u2014perhaps by collecting anecdotes or even conducting in-person surveys–about what they need and would like to see happen in the ELCA.<\/p>\n

[3] To say it another way, our strategy should include reversing the center of focus from the white axis and make the people of color the center. The present Authentic Diversity document will likely boomerang because it keeps the white axis in the center and peripheralizes once again those considered to be non-white.<\/p>\n

[4] Let me alert you that I use a few terms that require specific definition. By unhappy consciousness <\/em>I refer to a spiritual mindset that feels good when feeling miserable. By fragile soul <\/em>I refer to the compulsion to always be right, even if confession of sin contributes to being right. By white spirituality <\/em>or white-centered spirituality <\/em>I refer to the dominant mood within our national church that maintains racism by, paradoxically, keeping attention directed to the white center even if that attention takes the form of confession, reflection, and healing. Finally, sin boldly! <\/em>and the robust soul <\/em>indicate a faith stance that focuses not on reiteration of contrition but rather on the love of neighbor that sets the neighbor\u2019s interest in the center.<\/p>\n

SEVEN OBSERVATIONS ABOUT ELCA INSTITUTIONAL RACISM<\/p>\n

[5] Our Authentic Diversity strategy perpetuates a self-centered form of spirituality. I suggest that this spirituality is an example of the unhappy consciousness. Let me explain with seven observations.<\/p>\n

[6] OBSERVATION 1: The spirituality of today\u2019s ELCA largely perpetuates the pre-Reformation spiritual practice of the fragile soul, especially self-flagellation. This is an exercise in what philosopher G.W.F. Hegel called the unhappy consciousness (das ungl\u00fcckliche Bewu\u00dftsein<\/em>) to describe a self that is divided within itself.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

[7] How does unhappy consciousness work in spiritual practice? Imagine yourself to be a monk or a nun in a medieval monastery. You are practicing asceticism, that is, you are abstaining from worldly pleasures to pursue spiritual goals. You have made vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. You cultivate self-sacrificial habits such as prayer, hospitality, compassion, and almsgiving. You request a physical flogging to rid yourself of sins such as pride or judging others. The more you suffer, the better you feel. The inverted logic goes like this: the unhappier I am the happier I am.<\/em> The degree of your happiness becomes correlated to the degree of your agony.<\/p>\n

[8] Just how does this unhappy consciousness manifest itself in ELCA leadership and in the Authentic Diversity strategy? Whips are gone. To replace self-flagellation by whip, today\u2019s leaders invite verbal flagellation by those who call racism a \u201csin\u201d and pin it on those belonging to the group self-designated, \u201cwhite.\u201d The more severe the denunciation, the better (we) white progressives feel. \u00a0The dirtier we feel, the more justified we feel. Now, contrition, confession, and repentance are good things, to be sure; but perpetuation of this ritual is not the path to overcoming ELCA racism.\u00a0 \u201cCall for Confession, Reflection and Healing Action\u201d will likely guarantee the continuance of this form of spirituality.<\/p>\n

[9] OBSERVATION 2: If we \u201cdig deeper into the history and emerging theology\u201d of the Lutheran tradition, something important will get uncovered: today\u2019s dominant spirituality of the unhappy consciousness actually ignores Martin Luther\u2019s emancipation from the fragile soul and his embracing of the robust soul, the soul of the bold sinner.[iii]<\/a> Here is what Luther actually says: “Christian individuals do not live in themselves but in Christ and their neighbor, or else they are not Christian. They live in Christ through faith and in the neighbor through love.”[iv]<\/a> This means, according to St. Olaf theologian Deanna Thompson, that we are liberated from living our lives \u201cobsessed with our own failings and imperfections.\u201d[v]<\/a> By ignoring Luther\u2019s doctrine of Christian freedom, our white progressives can keep obsessing about their own failings and imperfections. Institutional racism will persist through this Kairos<\/em> moment without interruption.<\/p>\n

[10] OBSERVATION 3: The Authentic Diversity strategy along with widespread media rhetoric blurs the once sharp distinction between prejudice and racism.[vi]<\/a> Prejudice <\/em>denotes personal or cultural bias, whereas racism <\/em>denotes impersonal institutional structures that function in a discriminatory way. If we use the term \u2018racism\u2019 when talking about \u2018prejudice\u2019, it will turn everyone\u2019s attention to white spirituality. It will keep the whites at the center of attention.<\/p>\n

[11] BACKGROUND. Toward the end of the 1960s, America\u2019s civil rights leaders had made a large number of white friends, friends who were passionately dedicated to equality and justice. Even so, these African American leaders observed something puzzling. Although their white friends were no longer racially prejudiced, institutions were not changing. Institutions with non-prejudiced white liberals in charge still put up barriers to block advancement by minorities. African American leaders applied the term, \u2018racism\u2019 [institutional, structural, or systemic racism], to institutional discrimination regardless of whether the white guard is prejudiced or not.[vii]<\/a><\/p>\n

[12] During the birth process of the ELCA in 1987, a firm commitment to vigilance in the struggle to overcome prejudice against minority races and against women was declared. Officially, the ELCA would be a church body adamantly opposed to prejudice; and the ten percent representation rule became an institutional expression of that heartfelt commitment. The \u201cmetanoia movement, <\/em>a change of hearts and minds about the violent sin of racism and the value of diversity, equitable inclusivity, and racial justice,\u201d took place at that time 33 years ago. However, despite this official denunciation of prejudice, the ELCA for three decades has continued to be a racist institution \u2013 \u201cThe ELCA continues to be the whitest denomination in the U.S.\u201d — failing to attain its goals of becoming a racially diverse church. An invisible force seems to be frustrating its non-prejudiced leadership. What might that force be? Perhaps it is the unhappy consciousness at work.<\/p>\n

[13] By ignoring the distinction between institutional racism and personal prejudice, the Authentic Diversity strategy permits today\u2019s Lutherans to return to 1987 and wallow again in the matter of prejudice, a matter already settled. By returning to the period of \u201cConfession, Reflection, and Healing Action,\u201d resources would be squandered and made unavailable for dealing with the present problem, namely, institutional racism. Here is my single most important recommendation to the drafters of Authentic Diversity: change this to more pragmatic priorities!<\/p>\n

[14] OBSERVATION 4: Thank God that the ELCA is already ethnically diverse, even if the numbers may be disproportionately distributed.<\/p>\n

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[15] OBSERVATION 5: Unfortunately, the Authentic Diversity strategy redefines the ELCA racially\u2014that is, the ELCA becomes a white church.<\/p>\n

[16] Importantly, whiteness is not a stable category. Whiteness meshes together from the various traditions just those Lutherans who represent the idea of the white race. Even more curiously, the construction of whiteness takes a language family, Spanish, and turns it into a non-white racial group. Race? Language? More than fifty percent of those whose primary language is Spanish in the U.S. declare themselves to be white.<\/p>\n

[17] Yes, we see this as a confused form of prejudice in the wider society. But, I ask: why would the ELCA feel compelled to follow suit? Regardless of how distinct and individual people are, the Authentic Diversity strategy has constructed a single privileged in-group defined against everybody else as the other, as an out-group. Is this not the very problem we had sought to overcome?<\/p>\n

[18] When a German speaking immigrant joins the ELCA clergy roster, he or she does not get marginalized into the category of someone whose language is other than English. Nor into the category of a person of color. Why? ELCA othering applies only to people who speak Spanish. Curious. De facto<\/em>, our white leadership determines who is \u201cin\u201d and who is \u201cother.\u201d How long must this continue?<\/p>\n

[19] By keeping white spirituality as the center of ELCA focus, I fear, Authentic Diversity will make all non-white church members and pastors feel like they do not belong. Because the ELCA \u201cis a predominantly white, middle-class church, most of whose members are of European descent,\u201d this description subtly justifies a prescription: the dominant group is a single race, the white race. This step keeps the white race in the center and the non-whites at the periphery, perpetuating the very problem this strategy is aimed to solve.<\/p>\n

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[20] OBSERVATION 6: The Authentic Diversity strategy authorizes a one-way criticism process. Those not included in the white race are encouraged to verbally flagellate the white-privileged-center. Why? So that the whites can feel spiritually justified. There is no obvious need for non-whites to receive similar admonition or feel justified through this process. [I do not recommend a two-way criticism, please be clear].<\/p>\n

[21] Paradoxically, this one-way criticism paves the way for the fragile white soul to purchase an indentured servant to serve its unhappy consciousness. The direction of spiritual critique will maintain white-centeredness and perpetuate the institutional racism we want to see overcome. Let me be clear: the negative critique regarding residual prejudice may very well be warranted. The problem is the white-centeredness of a spiritual practice that could consume the whole church.<\/p>\n

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[22] OBSERVATION 7: The result of the Authentic Diversity strategy would most likely keep the ELCA centered around whiteness; and it would do so while feeling morally justified. Here is the risk that gives me nightmares: those Lutherans now defined as non-white will feel excluded. They may even feel they have become indentured to white spirituality. By placing non-white Lutherans into serving the insatiable spiritual masochism of the unhappy consciousness, white Lutherans will maintain a firm grip on church structures while feeling morally justified. Unless the Authentic Diversity strategy gets reoriented, I fear this will be the ELCA fate.<\/p>\n

[23] Because of the obnoxiousness of current white-centrist spirituality, just this past year one of my finest Latin American M.Div. \u00a0students at our Lutheran seminary in Berkeley has decided to delay if not avoid ordination entirely. \u201cThere were an awful lot of \u2018statements\u2019, \u2018confession\u2019, and \u2018repudiations\u2019 but not enough\u00a0action that backed up all that talk. As an aside, I also had the realization that this aspect of \u2018all bark and no bite\u2019 is probably the reason I did not pursue ordination any further.\u201d[viii]<\/a> By keeping the focus on white spirituality, the drafters of Authentic Diversity would in effect discourage the ordination of people of color and thereby perpetuate an all-white clergy.<\/p>\n

[24] Now, let us turn this around. Let us ask: what should we\u2014\u201cwe\u201d includes all people of color and all people dubbed \u201cwhite\u201d\u2014do together?<\/p>\n

SEVEN RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MAKING AUTHENTIC DIVERSITY WORK<\/p>\n

[25] I.\u00a0 Grow Awareness. <\/strong>As part of our growth in awareness, we need to recognize that the category, People of Color,<\/em> is a construction to distinguish white people from non-white people. This particular construction creates categories that, like the wrong sized shoes, don\u2019t fit. People of Color<\/em> is a category invented to help in the construction of its counter category, white people. Therefore, we should dig up our buried awareness: individuals and groups within the category People of Color<\/em> can and do see things differently–even disagree with one another–and wish for an array of different things. We should not allow our distinctiveness to get lost in the blurry blah category of color.<\/p>\n

[26] Similarly, we should be aware that white people are not just white. They represent multiple histories and multiple traditions. And as individuals they do not see things from a single point of view. Except, of course, when they think of themselves as white. Let\u2019s try to crack and even shatter that category: white.<\/p>\n

[27] II. Spiritual Healing One: Be Careful of Feelings. <\/strong>Do not under any circumstances praise a white liberal Lutheran who cries crocodile tears when confessing his or her sin of racism. If that white liberal Lutheran requests that you verbally flagellate him or her for complicity in racial injustice, keep quiet. Do not grant this request. Deny it. Why? To scold a white Lutheran to such a degree that he or she feels worse than dog poop only reinforces the unhappy consciousness. Condemning an unhappy consciousness will only make such a fragile soul feel victorious in spirituality; and he or she will cast off any further responsibility for seeking out the needs of non-white neighbors within this holy communion. If we deny this fragile soul the sense of self-righteousness attainable through verbal self-flagellation, he or she might feel compelled to seek out justification from God\u2019s grace. Not a bad idea, come to think about it.<\/p>\n

[28] Much of what we are addressing here lurks in the shadows of feeling, not reason. \u00a0If a white liberal Lutheran asks that you\u2014if you happen to be a person of color–verbally flagellate him or her with denunciations of the sin of racism, then say this: \u201cWhen you make me serve your white spiritual privilege, I feel excluded. I feel that our church belongs only to you, and not to me.\u201d Nothing could be more devastating. This will break that fragile soul into more pieces than Humpty Dumpty.<\/p>\n

[29] Be aware that some African Americans are not ready to flog white progressives. They have cynically liberated themselves from servitude to white-centered spirituality. Writing in the Atlantic, <\/em>John McWhorter says, \u201cI neither need nor want anyone to muse on how whiteness privileges them over me. Nor do I need wider society to undergo teachings on how to be exquisitely sensitive about my feelings.\u201d[ix]<\/a><\/p>\n

[30] Nothing could destroy the self-image of an ELCA white fragile soul more devastatingly than for a person of color to say: \u201cI don\u2019t want to share my feelings with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

[31] Despite this, I recommend that all of us within the ELCA attend to the feelings of those excluded from the white center. But, the white center will have to ask people of color about those feelings, it seems to me.<\/p>\n

[32] III. Spiritual Healing Two: Invite Everyone to the Table. <\/strong>Yes, the Authentic Diversity strategy yearns for previously muffled voices to be heard in the ELCA. Unfortunately, the perpetuation of white-centered spirituality will keep those peripheral voices muffled, even if they are sitting around a shared table.<\/p>\n

[33] Referring to the antiracist ELCA in-group, \u201cThey only talk to themselves,\u201d observes Dr. Carl Peterson, a Lutheran of African Descent and member at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Upper Arlington, Ohio. White-centrism \u201cis not helpful or meaningful for moving forward to overcoming their institutional racism. To take meaningful action, they must study and understand the root causes for the racism by talking to people of color. And then ask: how do we correct or remove these causal sources.” [x]<\/a> Dr. Peterson feels excluded from the unhappy consciousness of the fragile white soul. Can we turn this sense of exclusion into a strength? At least temporarily?<\/p>\n

[34] IV. Spiritual Healing Three: Metanoia for the Fragile Soul. <\/strong>The ELCA needs spiritual healing, to be sure; but not the spiritual healing prescribed by the Authentic Diversity document. We need a metanoia on the part of white fragile souls that abandons the unhappy consciousness in exchange for pragmatic steps forward, especially the inclusion of previously unheard voices who voice their own needs, expectations, and hopes.<\/p>\n

[35] The metanoia or turn-around regarding racial prejudice already took place when the ELCA was founded in 1988, at least officially speaking. Residual prejudice may remain in individuals, to be sure; but the problem today is institutional racism. To resolve this problem, the metanoia we need is for the white-privileged-center of the ELCA to repent from its spiritual narcissism and open itself to treating those it calls \u201cpeople of color\u201d as full partners.<\/p>\n

[36] If our holy communion is to leap over the hurdle of institutional racism, we need to tie the laces on our pragmatic running shoes. \u201cWe are not sure what is the most pragmatic path to this loving service,\u201d observes Journal of Lutheran Ethics <\/em>editor, Jenifer Hockenberry.[xi]<\/a> Rather than run around incessantly in the chest-beating circles of the unhappy consciousness, editor Hockenberry is leading us on the right track toward practical policy and perhaps personnel changes.<\/p>\n

[37] Such a pragmatic step is already recommended and partially implemented in Authentic Diversity: \u201ccreate a task force entirely of persons of color from regions and synods across the country, so that views and voices of this church so often unheard or unheeded might benefit the whole church.\u201d Further, Authentic Diversity\u2019s recommendations to enhance the TEEM program and parallel efforts to install diversity in parish ministry and administrative ranks are good examples of this pragmatic emphasis.<\/p>\n

[38] V. Treat racism as its own problem. Retain the category People of Color<\/em>, at least temporarily. \u00a0<\/strong>We should not admit into the ranks of People of Color<\/em> white women or white LGBTQIA+ friends and fellow travelers.<\/p>\n

[39] Why? While it is important to consider intersectionality and how women of color, and LGBTQIA+ people of color experience racism in unique ways, it is important to focus some effort specifically on race. Issues surrounding the place and role of women and LGBTQIA+ persons within the ELCA are important in themselves. I simply recommend that they be kept separate from the issue of racism. By trying to satisfy two or more agendas at the same time, strength of focus will get lost.<\/p>\n

[40] As long as the category, People of Color,<\/em> has been constructed, draw upon the strength of its identity. Keep membership tight. As soon as possible, jettison it.[xii]<\/a><\/p>\n

[41] VI. Avoid Anti-Racism Training. \u00a0<\/strong>According to the ELCA strategy document, \u201cELCA synods, seminaries, colleges, and universities to require their staff and rostered ministers to participate in antiracism training\u2026\u201d People of Color should boycott these events and deny the white power structure its self-legitimization. Non-white presence at such training events would silently ratify this narcissistic spiritual habit. I recommend that people of color stay away. Just say \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

[42] Before we proceed, let me make it clear that my objection to antiracism training in no way endorses former President Donald J. Trump\u2019s position on this matter.[xiii]<\/a> My concern is completely independent. I wish to combat overt and covert white supremacism in all its forms; and I say so categorically without compromise. The problem with antiracism training in the church setting is that it backfires; it actually reinforces white-centrism.<\/p>\n

[43] Despite the name, antiracism<\/em> workshops do not deal with racism. They only re-wallow in the history and dynamics of prejudice and its resulting injustice. The people of color invited to these workshops pay their dues by distancing themselves from the guilty whites in attendance which, paradoxically, both pains the whites and delights the whites. Ironically, the person of color becomes excluded from this internal spiritual contortion.<\/p>\n

[44] The net product of an antiracism training event is institutional racism. At an event that could be a very precious moment of spiritual unity, the person of color becomes the servant to distinctively white spiritual privilege and ceases to share in the communion.<\/p>\n

[45] BACKGROUND. The very day I arrived to become a professor at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS) in 1978, my faculty was by coincidence engaged in an antiracism seminar. When I retired after four decades of teaching, PLTS was even more racist\u2014measured by number and proportion of African American students–than when I\u2019d begun. Not prejudiced. Racist.<\/p>\n

[46] I initially felt proud to be a member of a multi-racial faculty committed to overcoming prejudice and racism. I regularly team-taught liberation theology with a black faculty colleague. The entire institution of PLTS got on board with the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa in the 1980s. The institution divested and supported international efforts for racial justice; and it did so with admirable authenticity and commitment. Apartheid fell in the mid-1990s. We rejoiced. However, PLTS could not and did not find a way to establish authentic connections with communities that could have benefitted: local and international Chinese Christians, Korean Christians, Spanish speaking churches, or African Americans. My diagnosis? Not prejudice. Rather, it is the unhappy consciousness. White-centrism took over, reinforcing institutional racism through verbal self-flagellation.<\/p>\n

[47] Antiracism workshops continued at PLTS sporadically and then regularly, all incurvatus in se. <\/em>During one such campus antiracism workshop a black woman student ran out actually screaming. Yes, screaming. I asked her what might be wrong. She exclaimed, \u201cI just want to belong. I just want to belong. And they won\u2019t let me.\u201d Here is the point: after four decades of conscientious battling against racial prejudice, this ELCA institution remains a racist institution.<\/p>\n

[48] Again, my friends, do not trust the teary-eyed white progressive who thanks you for making him or her feel badly about racism. Er, ah, I mean, prejudice. Antiracism workshops, to borrow from Karl Marx, are the opiate which lulls us into maintaining white-centrism.<\/p>\n

[49] VII. Lead the ELCA beyond institutional racism by acknowledging the specific needs of specific communities. <\/strong>After rejecting the white-centered spirituality of our fragile souls, this is the most important piece of advice I offer here: ask the People of Color what is needed to go forward<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[50] Pastor Lenny Duncan provides a great start on this. See his videos on the question, \u201cDo Black Churches Matter in the ELCA?\u201d[xiv]<\/a><\/p>\n

[51] Instead of directing attention to the unhappy consciousness of white Lutherans as a single monolith, we must direct our attention to the actual needs of those within the ELCA and outside the ELCA in our neighborhoods.\u00a0 Send emissaries out of the synod office and out of the institution into the neighborhoods and ask just what needs could be met or opportunities facilitated by the ELCA to immigrants, Chinese communities, Korean communities, Mexican communities, African American communities, the homeless. <\/em>To be authentic, we must allow ourselves to get to know each community and person for who they are. They are not just \u201cthey,\u201d not just \u201cother\u201d, not just People of Color!.<\/em><\/p>\n

[52] Back within the ELCA, we should try to understand the actual spiritual and cultural needs of each sub-tradition within the Lutheran communion, regardless of race. Try to understand why there is a rivalry between Norwegians and Swedes, between rural and urban, between organ music and praise bands. Try to understand just how African Americans feel about the tensions they experience arising from brutal law enforcement, privatized prisons, loss of health care, and the vicissitudes of ordinary family life. Try to understand how Indian Lutherans, Chinese Lutherans, and Latinx Lutherans take differing perspectives on multiple matters. And try to understand empathetically just what occupies the attention of others on the periphery of the ELCA. The way to discern those needs, expectations, and hopes is to ask.<\/p>\n

[53] Angela T. !Khabeb, pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, shines a light unto our path ahead. \u201cWe need the Spirit to blow through our nation as a mighty rushing wind, purging it of systemic racism and white supremacy. This is the work of the church.\u201d[xv]<\/a><\/p>\n

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Notes:<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> \u201cHow Strategic and Authentic is Our Diversity: A Call for Confession, Reflection and Healing Action,\u201d adopted by the fifteenth triennial Churchwide Assembly on August 9, 2019 at Milwaukee, Wisconsin; https:\/\/download.elca.org\/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository\/Strategy_Toward_Authentic_Diversity.pdf?_ga=2.268667378.2061013074.1595792543-301935741.1595430762<\/a> .<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> One’s consciousness “feels itself in the bitterness of soul-diremption. It is the movement of an infinite yearning..a yearning [for what] is the unattainable ‘beyond’ which, in being seized, escapes or rather has already escaped.\u201d \u00a0Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind: The Unhappy Consciousness. <\/em>http:\/\/www.stjohns-chs.org\/general_studies\/philosophy\/Romantic\/hegel.html.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> \u201cThe healthy or robust soul, in contrast, fuels a self like a log fuels a roaring flame. The healthy soul, in contrast to the fragile soul, lives out of theonomy <\/em>(God, theos, <\/em>with nomos<\/em>). Theonomy looks like autonomy (being a law unto oneself, auto<\/em>); but the center of the autonomous self in this case is rooted in the center of ultimate reality, God. The log here is God’s log, an everlasting source of spiritual, psychic, and even physical fuel for life.\u00a0 As we said just above: a healthy soul is centered in the divine center; and this shared centering comes to us as a gift of God’s grace.\u201d Ted Peters, Sin Boldly! <\/em>(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015) 22.<\/p>\n

[iv]<\/a> Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” tr., Timothy J. Wengert, The Annotated Luther <\/em>eds., Hans J. Hillerbrand, Kirsi I. Stjerna, and Timothy J. Wengert (6 Volumes: Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015-2019) 1:467-538, at 530.<\/p>\n

[v]<\/a> “At its best, Luther’s conception of neighbor-centered Christian freedom suggests that we no longer need to live lives obsessed with our own failings and imperfections. That we are freed up to turn outward, toward our neighbors in love, that our lives are lived in community with and for others–these expressions of wild space help us pay closer attention to the precarities that often prevail in subaltern contexts.” Deanna A. Thompson, “Wild Spaces of Neighbor-Centered Christian Freedom in Subaltern Contexts of Gender, Race, and Illness,” The Alternative Luther: Lutheran Theology from the Subaltern, <\/em>ed., Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen (Lanham and Minneapolis: Lexington and Fortress, 2019) 157-172, at 168.<\/p>\n

[vi]<\/a> The document includes a phrase, \u201cpersonal woundedness perpetuated by racism and racial prejudice,\u201d indicating that the difference is acknowledged. Further, \u201cThe ELCA recognizes the perpetuation of racism still exists within the denomination despite personal good intentions.\u201d This would suggest engaging the racism, not the personal good intentions. Nevertheless, the document ignores racism and prescribes a strategy to invest resources on the good intentions. Here is the confusion illustrated: to counter \u201cthe deep and pervasive wound of racism\u2026Our church must fully engage in a metanoia <\/em>movement\u2014a change of heart and mind\u2014that will, in partnership with the gospel, generate redemptive recognition, restorative justice, and the conscious development of capacity for healing.\u201d This is a marvelously inspiring aspiration. Yet, it\u2019s like a wrench that does not fit the bolt.\u00a0 We traversed the metanoia movement in 1987. The problem in the 21st<\/sup> Century is institutional racism. Returning to 1987 amounts to a diversion of resources.<\/p>\n

[vii]<\/a> \u201cRacial biases not only occur in individuals, but are also embedded in our institutions\u2014what sociologists refer to as \u2018structural\u2019 or \u2018systemic\u2019 racism\u2026.Systemic racism refers to the well documented fact that most of our institutions\u2014in politics, law, education, and health care, to name a few\u2014are fundamentally organized according to assumptions and policies that work to the disadvantage of communities of color and Blacks in particular\u2026.None of these policies is necessarily the result of individual intent, overt bias, or malice.\u201d Adia Harvey Wingfield, \u201cSystemic racism persists in the sciences,\u201d Science <\/em>369:6502 (24 July 2020) 351.<\/p>\n

[viii]<\/a> Personal communication.<\/p>\n

[ix]<\/a> John McWhorter, \u201cThe Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility. The Atlantic <\/em>(July 15, 2020); \u00a0<\/em>https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/author\/john-mcwhorter\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[x]<\/a> Personal communication.<\/p>\n

[xi]<\/a> Jennifer Hockenberry Dragseth, \u201cA Note from the Editor: June\/July 2020; https:\/\/elca.org\/JLE\/Articles\/1328<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[xii]<\/a> This is a principle borrowed from Saul Alinsky who in turn borrowed it from Heraclitus. If white people think you are a person of color, then own it and turn it into a power vector. In every other context, forget it.<\/p>\n

[xiii]<\/a> \u201cExecutive Order 13950 \u2013 Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,\u201d https:\/\/www.dol.gov\/agencies\/ofccp\/faqs\/executive-order-13950<\/a>; Jacob Knutson, \u201cTrump pushes to expand ban against anti-racism training to federal contractors,\u201d Axios (September 23, 2020);\u00a0 https:\/\/www.axios.com\/trump-discrimination-training-federal-contractors-63b3515d-9720-4d53-abfd-530262f9f9b8.html<\/p>\n

[xiv]<\/a> \u201cDo Black Churches Matter in the ELCA?\u201d https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BtD41cytL9Q<\/p>\n

[xv]<\/a> Angela T. !Khabeb, \u201cFire in my bones: A reflection on the Floyd protests and unrest in Minneapolis,\u201d Living Lutheran <\/em>5:4 (August 2020) 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our nation and perhaps the wider world have arrived at a Kairos moment. The groundswell of support for \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d may propel our society across the threshold to a new era of equality, justice, and multi-racial community. ELCA leadership has begun to take its own action. However, our strategy must include reversing the center of focus from the white axis. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-african-american","category-racism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOvercoming ELCA Racism with Authentic Diversity - Journal of Lutheran Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/overcoming-elca-racism-with-authentic-diversity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Overcoming ELCA Racism with Authentic Diversity - Journal of Lutheran Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our nation and perhaps the wider world have arrived at a Kairos moment. 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