+ Personally.  As someone with Hispanic heritage, I'm not sure which box to check.  My grandmother, a descendant of the Vallejo family, is the person through whom I claim and celebrate my Hispanic heritage.  One of my siblings checks "Hispanic" when asked to on forms, the others don't.  I didn't, mostly because I am not fluent in Spanish, and don't believe myself to be predominantly of one culture or another. 

 

+ Professionally.  As a pastor of the ELCA, I am keenly aware of the need for our churches to better reflect the diversity of the communities we are called to serve.  We are nowhere near the goals we aspired to reach in the formation of the ELCA for ethnic and cultural inclusiveness, at most of the levels of our ministry.  I am not sure my counting myself as Hispanic does justice to the work we have been called to do to be more inclusive, because I don't believe I am reflective of that goal having been realized in me.

 

+ Communally.  As a citizen of this country, I value a census being taken to help know how we can best be represented in government, and where that government can be represented in the services provided in the communities where we live.  But there is a part of me that wonders - what is the value of knowing the ethnicity of our citizenry?  Does asking this question deepen the divisions and tensions that already exist between people of different cultures, races and ethnicities, or does it help us to know and celebrate the rich diversity of peoples that make up our country? 

 

I offer all of this to you because I believe there are no easy or quick answers to any of these questions.  I recently attended the Anti Racism Workshop that was offered by the Racial and Ethnic Ministries Working Group of our Synod.  It was a challenging weekend, and left me with more questions than answers about these and other questions, including my own understandings and feelings about racism in our country and our church. 

 

At our upcoming Synod Assembly in Reno, our Keynote Speaker will be Dr. Victor Rodriguez, Chair of the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies, California State University, Long Beach, who will speak on the subject of "Cultural Racism, the Multicultural Church and the Anti-Racist Church."  He was one of the presenters at the workshop, and had a real impact on me.  I expect his presentations will be interesting and challenging for us to hear, and an opportunity to search our hearts, minds and journeys of faith for opportunities to live fully into the questions that are brought forward by census forms, goals for inclusiveness in our ministries, and our role as citizens in a diverse nation.

 

I encourage you to take the time to visit the synod website, if you have not already done so, to register for the assembly, download materials that will be needed if you are a voting member (and are available for anyone to read and review), and plan to be with us as we discern and discover what it means for us to be "Vital Congregations (in) Just Communities." 

 

God's Peace,

Bp. Mark