Death by DEIA. . .

When it comes to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, there should be little left to surprise or shock us but this is a new low for a church body which has long ago shelved its credentials as a Lutheran or orthodox Christian body.  The ELCA is a church body even whiter than the Missouri Synod and that is no small feat.  Yet the ELCA has taken as part of its core identity and values to promote the causes of diversity, inclusiveness, equity, and accessibility.  If this will not happen by a natural form of church growth, the ELCA will make this happen legislatively.  This is hardly a new approach for a church body whose 1988 merger was orchestrated by special interest groups, marked by quotas of representation, and built upon the idea of new is better than old.

A year or more ago the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America decided to contract with consultants to see how to make them more woke than they were.  Quite literally they paid a small fortune to audit their policies, procedures, and identity to see if they were living up to their values.  An external auditing group was engaged to “conduct a comprehensive audit of the ELCA’s governing documents for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA).”  The ELCA wanted to know how they were doing, where they were failing to implement the values of the DEIA practices and values they esteemed so highly and to recommend what should be done to make them become the woke body their leaders thought they should become as clergy, agencies, and institutions of the denomination.

Now all of this might be laughable if it were not that the leadership has clearly decided that this is the most serious of business -- even more serious than proclaiming Christ and Him crucified or confessing the creed or living up to the Lutheran Confessions.  You can read it all for yourself in the “Recommended Minimum DEIA Standards for Churchwide Organization” which include some of the following recommendations:

• Review and rewrite all personnel policies of the ELCA to reflect DEIA values.
• Set a new quota system to ensure that at least 10% of all the members of assemblies, councils, committees, boards, and every other organizational units must be Persons of Color and/or Non-Primary English Speaking Persons; plus another quota of an additional 10% of persons from Historically Underrepresented Groups (Gender Fluid persons, LGBTQIA+ persons, persons who possess a disability, etc.).  
• Extend the implementation of the Recommended Minimum DEIA Standards to congregations within the synods.
• Create an approved list of DEIA training educational materials and seminar providers (as well as those who have taken such training).
• Put into place much stronger DEIA personnel policies within synod offices and manage enforcement of those policies.
• Mandate annual DEIA training for all pastors, church staff and lay leaders (everyone on roster or serving as an elected or appointed leader) by an Approved Provider to include among other topics:

1. DEIA from a Biblical standpoint and why is it important...
2. The use of DEIA to advance the values of the Kingdom of God..
3. Identification of microaggressions against members of historically marginalized groups...
4. The resulting feelings of alienation and exclusion among members of historically marginalized groups due to microaggressions...
5. The Christian’s duty to intervene and alleviate microaggressions...
6. The means to a church more open, inviting and loving to members of historically marginalized groups (who have felt fear, rejection, or hostility from the ELCA on any level)...
7. Identifying and understanding Christian White Nationalism... the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement... and other groups involved in or opposed to DEIA...
8. The politics of DEIA, how this fits within the church, and what should not be addressed by the church...

Perhaps most concerning is the use of DEIA standards as another litmus test applied to pastors and those preparing for the pastoral ministry within the ELCA -- indeed one more strongly promoted than Biblical, creedal, and confessional orthodoxy.  What is also concerning is that little is publicly addressed about this move or about the actual standards being applied.  Indeed, as we have repeatedly seen in the past, the changes in the ELCA are promoted as one thing while ending up being something very different.  What has happened here is that the changes of the 2009 Church Wide Assembly no longer allow for possibility but have become enforceable standards that judge the people, policies, and actions of this church body.