Decolonize Lutheranism -- A Northern California Installment

NICE . . . !  But have you got something in Jello???

Pastor Jeff Johnson was telling people about #decololonizelutheranism ("hashtag decolonize Lutheranism") on Sunday at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley.

I got a kick out of it for three reasons:

(1) It's exactly what I've been thinking about -- at a low level since moving to Berkeley from Chicago in recent months, as I've tried to get my bearings, and with growing intensity in the past few weeks since hearing Mark Braverman from Kairos USA speak in Santa Cruz. (See KAIROS: The Moment You've Been Waiting For?)

(2) Pastor Jeff put it in terms of what we're going to be doing over the coming months at the Chapel. (Some churches use the rubric "ordinary time" for these months between Sunday and Advent; we call it "movement time.")

(3) I got to see my Chicago friends like Kwame Pitts and Francisco Herrera in the #decololonizelutheranism video Pastor Jeff shared as part of his sermon. :-)

To be sitting in Berkeley and seeing in front of my eyes the spreading of this idea that started in Texas and was nurtured in Philadelphia and got agitated in Chicago felt like a real Pentecost moment.


Looking forward to seeing how this develops in the weeks ahead . . . !


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(See Syria: Do you dare make a human connection?)








I adapted the text of Exodus 4, about the way an "unexpected leader" -- Moses -- was encouraged to act, to tell the story in terms of the way leaders came forward against slavery in the US . . . .

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Perhaps what makes a book good for a discussion group is that it combines startling candor, brevity, and the courage to leap again and again into the middle of mysterious questions.

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