Welcome the new executive director of ELCA Service and Justice! Service and Justice oversees several interconnected ministries, including ELCA Advocacy, AMMPARO, and Reconciling Works.

The Truth & Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies would initiate long-overdue steps towards healing intergenerational trauma and seeking justice for survivors and their families. While active in the Senate, the House must be urged to move forward the Truth and Healing Commission forward to passage.

How Strategic and Authentic Is Our Diversity: A Call for Confession, Reflection, and Healing Action is the report from an ELCA Task Force that was adopted by more than a two-thirds vote (855-13) by the 15th triennial Churchwide Assembly on August 9, 2019, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This 5-part study resource provides congregations with the opportunity to wrestle with the content and meaning of “Declaration of the ELCA to People of African Descent” and its accompanying explanation.

The ELCA Social Statement titled Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture expresses the ELCA’s calling to celebrate culture and ethnicity. This calling commits the ELCA to confront racism, to engage in public leadership, witness and deliberation on these matters, and to advocate for justice and fairness for all people. It was adopted by the 1993 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

[Research indicates] that, depending upon the issue, between half and two-thirds of Americans support religious leaders taking public positions on racism, poverty, war and immigration. Roughly a third report attending worship settings where their clergy or friends discuss these issues and the importance of politically acting on one’s beliefs.

The House Build Back Better (BBB) legislation takes important steps to address racial disparities rooted in this nation’s long history of racism and discrimination, which has created large gaps in both opportunities and outcomes in education, employment, health, and housing.

Throughout the history of the United States, Black spirituality and faith has been the centerpiece of Black communities. And over that time, houses of worship have served as an organizing space for the fight for racial justice.

On Sept. 27, Church Council approved on behalf of the ELCA “A Declaration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to American Indian and Alaska Native People.” This declaration addresses Indigenous ELCA communities, Indigenous communities in the U.S., and non-Indigenous ELCA communities.

Let’s talk about the issue tearing the American church and country apart. D. A. Horton joined global media manager Morgan Lee and senior news editor Kate Shellnutt of The Christian Century to discuss what critical race theory is, why it unnerves some Christians, and what can be done to help Christians stop talking past each other when it comes to addressing the reality of racial injustice.

“Juneteenth is not just a commemoration of an event that happened 150 years ago. It is a call to pay attention to those places where people are still not free and to join in this groundswell of a movement to make the freedom that the forefathers envisioned real for every person and for every group that still lives with and feels the sting of discrimination.”

Law professor Dorothy Brown breaks down three ways African Americans in urban areas are disadvantaged by the tax code — and some ideas to fix it.

The House of Representatives is expected to soon vote on H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. This bill would establish a new commission to study the lasting impacts of slavery in the U.S. and develop a set of recommendations for advancing reparations for affected people of African descent.

This church supports efforts to confront racism and white supremacy. In 2019, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly adopted a resolution condemning white supremacy [CA19.04.18]. ELCA members can join the efforts to end racism by participating in the ELCA Anti-Racism Pledge.

​On March 9, 2021, in response to the impending trial of Derek Chauvin, the Healing Our City Virtual Prayer Tent was launched. The daily prayer tent is expansive and inclusive, including people of all faiths, denominations, races, and orientations.

“If you want to get serious about racism as white folks, your theme should not be ‘Who is my neighbor?’ but ‘Who am I?”’

The spot in Minneapolis where George Floyd was killed speaks to those who visit.

Over the past year, attacks on Asian Americans have increased more than 150% over the previous year, including the March 16 murders of eight people, including six Asian American women, in Atlanta. Some of these attacks may be classified as hate crimes. But whether they meet that legal definition or not, they all fit a long history of viewing Asian Americans in particular ways that make discrimination and violence against them more likely.