statements? I’m not planning to sign as many
letters as my predecessor did, but I do want to build coalitions around folks who aren’t the “usual suspects,” say the historic African-American churches or Pentecostal churches, around issues of immigration or mass incarceration, for example. We have many things in common, which we’ve seen through Christian Churches Together (an ecumenical forum). I think this could give our church a stronger voice.
Are there places where the church needs to have a stronger witness? I’m proud that we’re a public
church, and I want to build on [former Presiding] Bishop Mark Hanson’s work. We’re not Amish; we don’t withdraw from the culture. But there was a time when, as a church, we weren’t publicly engaged with the society or culture. We do food pan- tries, sustainable farming and urban farming. We clothe people and run aſter-school programs. Yet all of these things can be done perfectly well by secular organizations. What makes us different from well-intentioned, morally upright, involved atheists? We can’t think that we can silently
get together and have people notice what we’re doing and want to be part of it. We have to say how our lives have been changed by the love of God we’ve experienced in Jesus Christ.
What do you hope will happen as people begin to or continue to tell God’s story? I hope newcomers will walk into
ELCA communities where people live like the resurrection of Jesus is actually true. Tis flows out of genuine, wonderful worship where God’s presence is palpable. Worship shouldn’t be a collection of people
just going through the motions or getting together with like-minded people. Trough the death and resur-
rection of Jesus, all of our deepest human longings and fears have been answered. We don’t have to worry about saving or justifying ourselves. When someone cuts us off in traf- fic or in life, we don’t gesture in an obscene way or feel so cut down. We can know that we’re absolutely com- pletely loved by God in Christ, and the only death that really matters is the death that happened in baptism when we were joined to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Isn’t that something! It frees us to spend our lives in service to the world that God loves so much. It would be wonderful to see the
entire church visibly in the faith for- mation business and becoming more intentional about ordering our lives
around the basic spiritual disciplines of prayer, silence, reading Scripture, generous giving, worship and service. It’s like the Karate Kid’s “wax on, wax off”—practicing a way of being makes things possible. So many folks today say they’re
spiritual but not religious, like some folks I visited recently who are part of a new ELCA ministry in Detroit. Tey’re leery of church and see church people as making judgments and decisions, but not as a commu- nity guided by spiritual practice. We in the church really need to reclaim the spiritual part of who we are. Tat’s not un-Lutheran.
Author bio: Hunter is a section editor of The Lutheran.
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