Friday, August 15, 2008

Things that make you go Hmmm

Presently the ELCA website is trumpeting a new production apparently underwritten by churchwide:

Native Nations: Standing Together for Civil Rights

Peter Coyote hosts “Native Nations: Standing Together for Civil Rights,” a television program the ELCA produced for air on ABC network affiliate stations. It chronicles the American Indians’ struggle for civil rights, and the creation of the National Indian Lutheran Board to raise funds and awareness for that struggle. Native Nations tells the story of standing together for sovereignty, justice and civil rights. The program will air October 12 through December 14.

Which caused Clam to wonder, is there actually ANY secular social/political cause on which Higgins Road would not spend benevolence dollars?

It is not that social issue are not important, to be clear. It is not that the American Indians were not generally mistreated, and quite grossly so, by European settlers. Indeed a portion of Mrs. Clam's heritage is a Native American nation that was forcibly resettled 1000 miles from their home. Clam gets the point.

What causes Clam to go Hmmm is the question of priorities. We are living in one great mission field here in the United States, and since the formation of the ELCA, new mission starts are down 60%. Nor are we doing better abroad -- gospel preaching missionaries in the field are also down 60%. And yet we find money to produce television series on what are manifestly primarily secular issues. (Clam has not seen the series yet, of course, hence he'll reserve judgment on the specific content.)

3 comments:

Pastor Zip said...

What does it mean that, to trumpet an interesting national story where the Lutheran churches made a positive socio-political difference, they go back to the 1970s and '80s and the pre-ELCA National Indian Lutheran Board?

Clam said...

I guess SOME actions of the predecessor church bodies DO matter.

Anonymous said...

Pretty much anything with Peter Coyote attached to it makes me go hmmm... (Actually, it's a little more of a wretching/dry heave sound)

The good ship ELCA...

The good ship ELCA...
Or the Shellfish blog...