Co-missioners,
Crossings, a pan-Lutheran community, has always contained within itself a range of viewpoints on matters political, ethical, and ecclesiological. We think that’s a good thing! The love of the Gospel has a way of bringing people together across seemingly insurmountable gulfs of opinion and identity. In Jesus Christ we have a primary identity as baptized children of God, forgiven and justified sinners who are renewed by the Spirit and united in one Body. Since this ultimate identity and unity outlasts and outranks whatever penultimate things might divide us, we don’t have to perceive difference or diversity as a threat. Trusting in the promise of Christ’s grace, our belovedness, belonging, and blessedness are already secure. Having thus no need to combat the enemy or protect our turf, we can listen to differing opinions and embrace diverse identities with genuine curiosity and a desire to understand.
In this spirit, we offer you a two-part article by the Rev. Dr. Mike Hoy on the ELCA’s struggles with diversity and the current discussion about the need for structural change. Some of you may find his perspective provocative. Good! True to the Latin root of that word (pro-vocare, to call forth), we hope that these texts will indeed call forth and stir up your own reflection and conversation …and perhaps a response. We mean it. Tell us what you think! Knowing Brother Hoy, I imagine he would like nothing more than to spark a lively conversation.
In this week’s section, he briefly traces the history of the ELCA’s failure to achieve authentic diversity, giving special attention to the challenge posed by the Task Force for Strategy Toward Authentic Diversity and comparing it to a piece by Bob Bertram on MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In other words, Hoy seeks to identify the working out of God’s Law and Gospel in and to the ELCA in light of its (I can say, our!) captivity to the sin of racism.
The following week, Hoy dives more deeply into the propositions of the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church and how that relates to DEIA and what Lutherans call “civil law”.
It should be noted that this two-part article was written before the most recent Churchwide Assembly with its relevant discussions and decisions.
Needless to say, we the editors don’t necessarily agree or disagree with everything written here, but we are certainly grateful to our brother Mike Hoy for his thoughts and the diligent work he put into formulating and presenting them for us.
Peace and Joy,
Co-editor Robin Lutjohann
for the Crossings Community
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Civil Law, the Gospel, and the Church:
Theological Reflections on the ELCA’s Path Toward Authentic Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)
by Mike Hoy
Michael Hoy
In April 2025, the ELCA released a document entitled “Response of the Church Council to the Recommendations in the Report of the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church” (hereafter, “Response”). [1] The whole 75-page document is worthy of a careful and critical review in order to provide a proper assessment of what the report actually claims. On the one hand, we want to avoid any erroneous assessments about the report and the work of the CRLC. [2] On the other hand, however, we do want the address the report of the CRLC responsibly—even theologically responsibly—in its recommendations toward a path of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). [3] This essay is focused on the latter of these concerns.
A Brief History of the ELCA on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity
In order to make this proper assessment, we will need to briefly review some of the ELCA’s history on the matter of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The ELCA held its Constituting Convention on April 30, 1987, and was officially formed on January 1, 1988, with the merger of its three predecessor church bodies—the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches. All of these predecessor church bodies were from largely white European roots. In an effort to become a church body more reflective of America’s cultural diversity, the ELCA adopted a goal (to be achieved within ten years) of becoming a church body with at least 10% of its membership comprised of persons of color and/or persons who primary language is other than English (what is commonly called the “10% rule”).
[4] Moreover, the ELCA adopted various policies and social statements in its history to reflect its goals and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity. [5] However, the ELCA has struggled throughout its entire history toward actually achieving this goal. The inclusion of LGBTQIA+ has only been fully reflected since 2009, though not without some backlash.[6] Establishing policies of equity in sex and gender came ten years later. [7] And even though there is an early social statement (1993) that labelled racism as “sin,” and some more recent concessions/confessions made with regard to injustices long committed against Native American and Alaska Native People,[8] the ELCA continues to struggle on the matter of authentic racial and ethnic diversity.
In 2013, the ELCA began to admit openly that it was failing in its institutional goal toward this objective of authentic diversity. Within two years, the Pew Research Center released its own report which demonstrated that the ELCA had the dubious distinction of being the whitest church in America.[9] At the 2016 Churchwide Assembly, in light of these failings, there was a temporary deletion of the 10% rule from the constitution because the goal had not been achieved. Nevertheless, the deletion did not escape the purview of some voting delegates at that convention, and the goal was reinserted. [10]
Nevertheless, it was at that same 2016 Assembly that the Task Force for Strategy Toward Authentic Diversity (hereafter, “STAD”) was established—a task force comprised entirely of black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC). At the 2019 Churchwide Assembly, the STAD report was adopted. Regrettably, over the course of the next few years the ELCA’s attention was diverted to addressing matters related to the pandemic.[11] But at the 2022 Churchwide Assembly, the following mandate was passed:
To direct the Church Council to establish a Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church comprised of leaders of diverse representation from all three expressions that, working in consultation with the Conference of Bishops and the Church Council, shall reconsider the statements of purpose for each of the expressions of this church, the principles of its organizational structure, and all matters pertaining thereunto, being particularly attentive to our shared commitment to dismantle racism, and will present its findings and recommendations to the 2025 Churchwide Assembly in preparation for a possible reconstituting convention to be called under the rules for a special meeting of the Churchwide Assembly.” [CA22.01.06] [12]
The ELCA Church Council’s reflections on the CRLC recommendations will be presented at the 2025 Churchwide Assembly in Phoenix (July 29-August 2, 2025).
Recreation of Martin Luther King’s Cell in Birmingham Jail – National Civil Rights Museum – Downtown Memphis – Tennessee – USA
From Wikimedia Commons
How Free Is The ELCA?
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963) was addressed to white moderate churchman who had objected to King’s protests, calling them “unwise and untimely.” Robert W. Bertram wrote an essay to lift up the “better question” of King’s “Letter”: “not how free they are but how they are free—when they are.” [13] And what is it that we need to be freed from? King’s “Letter” does not spare the depth of that diagnosis: we need to be freed from “the judgment of God…upon the church.” [14] “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” [15] This call to repentance in King’s “Letter” still serves as a critical call to repentance for white progressives today. [16] Nor is there any skirting the diagnosis which King has accurately perceived in God’s judgment. But there is a path through the diagnosis—a path, which King envisioned, is shared by all, even in the midst of our repentance. But simply knowing the diagnosis, even in our repentance, is not what finally frees us. The call of King’s “Letter” is to embrace “‘the gospel of freedom’… which by definition is ethnically unlimited.” [17] The final critical diagnosis of divine judgment is overcome by Jesus who is “an extremist in love—‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.” [18]
But what authorizes love to trump judgment, especially if the latter is “of God”? The answer for King, of course, is God, the same God, whose judgment is only penultimate to his forgiveness (p. 100). Granted, it is a fair question whether for King such a trumping of mercy over judgment ever really won out historically, say in the resurrection. Of the crucified Jesus “Letter” says merely that he “rose above his environment” (p. 92). By contrast, there is probably a more realistic mention of “resurrections” in the idiom of Black Power. Still, dare the church of America really fault the christological obscurities of a King—“who was nurtured in its bosom, who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen” [19]—if, even when it did say the right and orthodox things about Christ, it must not have said them very clearly, considering its record toward Christ’s black brothers? But what is also a matter of record is that some of these same oppressed brothers, the very ones who bear the onerous burden of acting out the divine criticism, are now in so many words calling over to the rest of the church: not only judgment but, despite and beyond that, “brother.” [20] Some have sealed that word with their blood. Evidently they must have some reason for hoping that that word, that last word, will succeed outlastingly. [21]
The Strategy Toward Authentic Diversity (STAD), composed from within the BIPOC community, echoes this same powerful legacy of King, but seeks to bring it into sharper focus for the ELCA. Their “Call for Confession, Reflection, and Healing Action” is filled with much of that same gospel-extremism one might find in King’s “Letter.”
The STAD report calls us to “go deeper,” as in the “deeper diagnosis” which these writers are not afraid to name as the “sin of racism … violating God’s intention for humanity.” [22] Nor are they afraid to proclaim this truth of that criticism to the ELCA: “Racism exists within the ELCA, boldly and outwardly as well as subtly and inwardly…. We have failed to realize our vision of a church that welcomes all people…. The ELCA continues to be the whitest denomination in the U.S.” [23]
But their goal is not to enslave the ELCA under the burden of the law. Their goal is to set us free through “the proclamation of the gospel. [24] Indeed, to “proclaim the gospel” is a phrase used several times throughout their report. To be sure, these writers also call the ELCA to repentance, a “metanoia movement” toward “a change of hearts and minds.” [25] But, as some of the writers of this document would clarify further, what is meant by the metanoia movement is that we confess our sins precisely for the good evangelical practice of leading us to acknowledge the truth of our sinfulness and to embrace the very promise of the gospel’s own forgiveness! “Luther recognized our sinful nature and our continual need to confess so that, through God’s forgiveness, we might be opened up to God’s grace. In the Lutheran tradition, confession is not meant as a method of self-flagellation, rather something that is, ‘lovely and comforting,’ because of the work that God does in us when God forgives us.” [26] Moreover, their message echoes the same unlimited ethnicity present in King’s “Letter” as a promise for the whole church: “[T]he church must embody Christ’s mission through the lens of a [the?!] crucified Jesus, who gathers all to himself in one family devoid of hierarchies and unhealthy power structures.” [27] “We have this ministry together. The spirit and intent… are to help us transcend the paralysis of guilt and blaming and reach a shared accountability, and honest relational engagement in the body of Christ.” [28]
As the CRLC mandate itself acknowledges, we are not exactly beyond “dismantling racism” in the ELCA. [29] It is still with us in 2025. Nevertheless, the question that remains is how the work of the ELCA has gone and will proceed in dismantling racism.
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Endnotes
[1] “Response of the Church Council to the Recommendations in the Report of the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church,” (April 3. 2025), https://elcamediaresources.blob.core.windows.net/cdn/wp-content/uploads/FINAL_CRLC_Final_Report_Recommendations_and_Church_Council_Response.pdf. “CRLC” refers to the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church.
[2] Retired Bishop Michael Reinhart (Northwest Intermountain Synod of the ELCA) sought to address some misrepresentations of the CRLC’s work in “The Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church: Myths and Facts,” https://bishopmike.com/2024/11/09/the-commission-for-a-renewed-lutheran-church-myths-and-facts/.
[3] DEI is an abbreviation for “diversity, equity, and inclusion”; but there are also some occasions within the report that “accessibility” is added (DEIA).
[4] Cf. ELCA Constitution, “Principles of Organization,” 5.01e. “At least 10 percent of the members of these assemblies, councils, committees, boards, or other organizational units shall be persons of color and/or persons whose primary language is other than English.”
[5] Cf. “Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture” (1993); “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” (2009); “Faith, Sexism, and Justice: A Call to Action” (2019). The ELCA will consider the latest social statement on “Civic Life and Faith” at its 2025 Assembly, which will address other issues including affirming the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, Christian nationalism, etc.
[6] The LGTBQIA+ community suffered many years of prejudice within and exclusion from the ELCA. When the 2009 Churchwide Assembly made statements for further r, there was an opening for fuller inclusion. Nevertheless, there were others within the ELCA who objected on biblical principles that the meaning of marriage would be compromised, and particularly as this applied to allowing persons in same-sex unions/marriages to serve in public ministry. The result was schism within the ELCA and the formation of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). It should be noted that same-sex marriages were formally recognized in the United States as early as 2004, and fully adopted in the United States by 2015.
[7] Women’s rights movements have a long history, well preceding the rise of feminism in the 1960s. While all three predecessor bodies to the ELCA accepted women in public ministry, women in the public ministry were largely a minority. The same may be said of those who were part of the LGBTQ community. Nevertheless, issues of sexism and patriarchy surfaced on many levels within American culture, and by the time of the 2019 social statement, there were many documented cases of sexual harassment and assault. The “me too” movement drew more attention to these issues, starting with the Tarana Burke case in 2006 and the multitude of cases in Hollywood and corporate structures in the hashtag #Me Too movement of 2017.
[8] This includes the adoption of the “Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery” at the 2016 Churchwide Assembly and the “Declaration of the ELCA to the Native American and Alaska Native People” was approved by the ELCA Church Council (September 27, 2021).
[9] Michael Lipka, “The most and least racially diverse U.S. religious groups,” Pew Research Center, (July 27, 2015), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/07/27/the-most-and-least-racially-diverse-u-s-religious-groups/; John Potter, “From vision to reality: How has the ELCA made progress on diversity since its 2016 commitments?” Living Lutheran, (June 18, 2019).
[10] “As the ELCA was unable to reach a constitutional goal of 10 percent people of color and/or whose primary language is other than English by 1998, it was removed from the ELCA constitution in 2016. The removal was attempted en bloc (without discussion) but was brought to the floor of the 2016 Churchwide Assembly by concerned voting members who saw the placement of the 10 percent goal in an en bloc motion as an offense made to marginalized communities within the ELCA.” Cf. “How Strategic and Authentic Is Our Diversity: A Call for Confession, Reflection, and Healing Action,” ELCA Churchwide Assembly, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, (August 9, 2019), 7, https://resources.elca.org/wp-content/uploads/Strategic_Authentic_Diversity.pdf.
[11] Cf. Abraham D. Allende, “The church and authentic diversity: Deeper understandings – December 2021,” Living Lutheran, (December 31, 2021). Bishop emeritus Allende was part of the task force that framed the STAD report.
[12] “Response,” 2.
[13] Robert W. Bertram, “How Free are the American Churches? A Clue from Martin Luther King,” in Sonderdruck au Begegnung: Beiträge zu einer Hermeneutik des theologischen Gesprächs, ed. by Max Seckler, Otto H. Pesch, Johannes Brosseder, Wolfhart Pannenberg (Gratz: Verlag Styria, 1972), https://crossings.org/how-free-are-american-churches/, 1 [page references to the online text].
[14] Ibid., 2. Cf. Cf. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. by James M. Washington, (New York: HarperCollins, 1986), 300.
[15] King, “Letter,” 296.
[16] Cf. Robin Diangelo, Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm, (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 2021); cf. also Robin Diangelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 2018).
[17] Bertram, “How Free are the American Churches?”, 3. Cf. King, “Letter,” 290.
[18] Cf. Ibid., 2; King, “Letter,” 297.
[19] King, “Letter,” 298.
[20] Ibid., 302.
[21] Bertram, “How Free are the American Churches?”, 2-3.
[22] “How Strategic and Authentic Is Our Diversity: A Call for Confession, Reflection, and Healing Action,” 2, 5.
[23] Ibid., 4.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid., 2.
[26] Priscilla Paris-Austin and Elizabeth Rawlings, “A Clarifying Response about the ELCA Strategy Towards Authentic Diversity,” Journal of Lutheran Ethics (April 2022), https://learn.elca.org/jle/a-clarifying-response-about-the-elca-strategy-towards-authentic-diversity/. In this context, they also cite Luther’s “Admonition to Confession” (1529), https://thebookofconcord.org/sources-and-context/admonition-to-confession/. Cf. also AC/Apol. 11 & 12.
[27] Ibid., 8. The italics are in the original report.
[28] Ibid.
[29] “Response,” 57.
