February has, since 1970, been recognized as “Black History Month” in the United States. Recognizing and coming to terms with white-washing of our nation’s history and putting the too-oft ignored culture and history of people of African descent is central to this month.

It’s also central to our work as the church. The history of black Lutheranism in America stretches all the way back to the baptism of Emmanuel at Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Matthew, New York City, in 1669. But since then, “the story of Black Lutheranism is littered with the bodies of our elders” says the Reverend Lenny Duncan, author of “Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US” and the upcoming “United States of Grace: A Memoir of Homelessness, Addiction, Incarceration, and Hope”.

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the whitest denomination in the US (96% white), black Lutheranism is often seen as “foreign” because it did not come from Germany or Scandinavia. Non-white people and traditions have been excluded from church life from the beginning (see the Reverend Jehu Jones, the first black Lutheran pastor in America, whom the church refused to pay during all of his years of service). White is the norm; non-white, the exception. Even today, the ELCA struggles to reconcile with its past and fully embrace a truly- multicultural understanding of Lutheranism and gifts of God in all people. “We say it,” says the Reverend Elizabeth Eaton, Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, “but our lives don’t show it.”

With that in mind, this month, we as church are doing the work of lifting some of the veil from our eyes that has prevented us from knowing about and acknowledging that vast and rich history of black Lutheranism. If you haven’t already, make sure to watch Precentor Susan’s video in which she talks about how that will be done through our worship music. And then watch this video put together by the Reverend Lenny Duncan from his seminary days, titled, “Do Black Churches Matter in the ELCA?” https://youtu.be/BtD41cytL9Q . Throughout this month we will talk about and learn about how black Lutheranism blesses global Lutheranism. We will lament our past inability to do so. And we will, by the grace of God, grow in our understanding of who we are as Christians.

I’m excited for this month, and I hope you are too!

Pastor Ken Ranos