White Privilege – the Rev. Dr. Ray Tiemann Bishop, Southwestern Texas Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)

Bishop Ray Tiemann, from the ELCA’s Southwestern Texas Synod, provides a concise, practical response to discussions on race at my home seminary – the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago – as well as the church as a whole in the US. Taken from a speech he wrote in response to an article written by the Rev. Dr. Richard Perry, Jr,  (from the book On Secular Governance: Lutheran Perspectives on Contemporary Legal Issues) and presented before the LSTC Board of Directors, Tiemann makes a direct connection between the all-too-easily forgotten history of Jim Crow and the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Grey, and the victims of Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, SC. He then gives personal testimony of what he does, as a “White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant” to mitigate his own privilege as best he can – inviting others to do the same.  Please read, comment, and share. Let’s…