12/08/2014

ELCA Presiding Bishop Delivers Video Message on Racial Justice

CHICAGO (ELCA) – In a Dec. 5 video message on racial justice, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton said, “Our nation and our church have been and remain deeply besieged by racism. Following the decisions by grand juries in Ferguson and New York, it has become clear that we have different experiences of life in this country. We continue to struggle. We continue to struggle in our conversation about race in our congregations, communities and places of business, even at our kitchen table.”

Eaton’s video message is available at http://bit.ly/1rXtlN1.

Also today, staff of the ELCA churchwide organization here gathered for a peaceful demonstration, prayer and conversation.

“We gathered in response to feelings of anger and frustration regarding the deaths of Black men and women and children in our communities of color and the sin that is racial injustice,” said Natalie Young, ELCA Youth Gathering administrative assistant. “We wanted to remember those lives that were lost, and we want to begin the conversations around what we as individuals and as a church and as a community can do to stop racial injustice.”

Young, who helped organize the event, said that after a moment of prayer, a group of staff members walked outside together, and “We laid down for several moments. We read aloud the names of some men, women and children that have died at the hands of not only police but neighbors (and others) for which their only crime was being a person of color.”

“We gathered here today (representing) a church that has been called into the world together, committed to making the world a more just and peaceful place to live,” said Dr. Ulysses Burley, ELCA HIV and AIDS strategy coordinator. “And because we are a faith of action, we act by protesting in solidarity, standing with those who have died at the hands of injustice that is sweeping this country.”

Judith Roberts, ELCA program director for racial justice ministries, emphasized the importance for the church to have “difficult conversations” around issues such as racial justice.

“The ELCA social statement, ‘The Church and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries,’ is relevant now more than ever. As a church moved by the cries of racial injustice – we are called to respond,” she said. “The decisions in both Ferguson and Staten Island have placed racism at the forefront of the evening news once again. We must have the difficult conversations that lead to systemic change. Today colleagues took visible public action followed by conversations that led us to think about what we can do in our daily lives within our own communities.”

The ELCA's social statement “Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture,” is available at www.ELCA.org/Faith/Faith-and-Society/Social-Statements/Race-Ethnicity-and-Culture.

The ELCA’s social statement “The Church and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries,” is available at www.ELCA.org/Faith/Faith-and-Society/Social-Statements/Criminal-Justice.