Tag: American

Honoring Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries invited Pastor Jill Rode to reflect on this topic. For more information on AAPI Heritage Month, visit Asian & Pacific American Heritage Month. Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month brings me pride but also a complex mix of emotions. As a Korean American adoptee raised by a white Midwestern family, I have always felt my sense of culture, identity and belonging to be layered and, at times, uncertain. Though I celebrate this month, I also wrestle with where I fit within the broader Asian American narrative. I…

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Happy Arab American Heritage Month by guest author Dr. Ryan LaHurd

In observance of Arab American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries invited Dr. Ryan LaHurd to share his thoughts on this topic with our readers. April is Arab American Heritage Month. As an Arab American, I might be expected to write about all the great things Arab Americans have contributed to our culture. But as I think about anti-Arab attitudes in the United States and the massive destruction of innocent lives in the Middle East, I must focus on something more substantial. We used to hear that Inuit people have hundreds of words for snow. The later correction is that…

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Native American Heritage Month: Events from ELCA Indigenous Ministries

November is Native American Heritage Month. Racial Justice Ministries seeks to lift up the voices and work of our Indigenous siblings by highlighting the many events hosted by the ELCA’s Indigenous Ministries and Tribal Relations. We especially want to draw attention to the following two events:   15th Annual Vine Deloria Jr. Symposium Oct 11-15, 2025 Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (online)     National Day of Mourning November 27, 12pm Patuxet, MA     For more information visit: http://elca.org/indigenous                 ELCA Blogs

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My take: We are not newcomers Let us not just celebrate Arab American heritage—let us be changed by it

In honor of Arab American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries will be elevating the voices of our Arab and Middle Eastern Descent peers and reposting their works from other sources around the ELCA. The following is cross-posted from Living Lutheran. You can find the original post here. My take: We are not newcomers Let us not just celebrate Arab American heritage—let us be changed by it By Khader Khalilia | April 28, 2025 Marhaba (mar-huh-bah or mar-ha-bah). A simple word, ancient and powerful. Rooted in Aramaic and Syriac languages of early Middle Eastern Christians. It means more than just “hello.” It means God…

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My American Christian Voice

How can we use our voices for justice in Palestine and Israel as American Christians? ELCA Blogs

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The Soylent Green of American and Global Politics

God’s judgment, I would suggest, entails false choices often times. In this case, America is faced with a POTUS decision wherein Kamala Harris&co. seemingly are the archrivals of humanity all the way down. But then there is Trump. Trump has radically changed his tune in regard to abortion. He supports the accessibility of the abortion pill by mail; he has had the RNC, effectively, change their official platform on abortion and the abortion pill; he is for abortion in cases of rape and incest. Not to mention, he gave us the lockdowns, warp speeded the deadly vaccines, and is for…

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David Bentely Hart’s Orange Goblin and the American Heretics: Is There Salvation?

Is there salvation for the orangeman and his followers, the American heretics? According to David Bentely Hart there is not, he writes: For instance, if impoverished and terrified refugees arrive by the thousands at our southern borders, bearing their children with them, driven from their homes in El Salvador and Guatemala and Honduras by monstrous violence and hopeless poverty, much of it the long-unfolding consequence of our own barbaric policies in Central America, and our foul, degenerate, vicious, contemptible, worthless, brutishly stupid sociopath and dropsical orange goblin of a president and the little horde of oleaginous fascists who slithered out…

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