Woke in the WELS: Lutheran Leadership Conference #2

 

This was the prayer of the church for the opening worship service at the WELS Lutheran Leadership Conference. The opening day was also the observation of MLK Day in the US. More woke.

Let's translate from the Woke:

• unwilling to walk on the path of our brothers and sisters - Allyship
• taken up with our own tradition - Perhaps the slide below sheds some light? (Dr. Fisher, keynote speaker at the conference) Whether it is a racial reference (white culture prevents sharing the Gospel with non-whites) or a liturgical one (that is, the old stodgy liturgy is not missional) our heritage somehow impedes the Holy Spirit...
• unwittingly - Unconscious Bias
• make us lights that expose racism - Anti-racists; that is, being colorblind is not good enough.

The same Rev. Dr. Fisher presided as liturgist a service at Wisconsin Lutheran High School where the pastor delivered a sermon linking Matthew 5:14-16 to the need to be antiracist. 

I think the ultimate litmus test of the idea that we are 'lights to be anti-racist' is to apply it to another hot social issue, the LGBTQ. Could you imagine a WELS pastor saying, "make us lights that expose the LGBTQ and show the way to God-pleasing sexuality"? I didn't think so.