wfn.org | Corrected: First African American Lutheran Bishop Honored

["Frank Imhoff" <Frank.Imhoff@elca.org>]

First African American Lutheran Bishop Honored 
LWF President, Brazilian Church Leaders in Panel Discussion on Ecumenism

SAO LEOPOLDO, Brazil/GENEVA, 31 October 2005 (LWI) - Participants in the
Fourth Conference of International Black Lutherans (CIBL) presented LWF
President Mark S. Hanson with a plaque commemorating Rev. Will L.
Herzfeld, presiding bishop of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran
Churches, a predecessor church body of the ELCA, 1984-1987.

Herzfeld, a former CIBL member, was the first African American to serve
as presiding bishop of a Lutheran church, and was a leader in the US
civil rights movement in the 1960s while pastor of a Lutheran
congregation in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He died in 2002. The CIBL
participants requested that the plaque be displayed at the ELCA
churchwide office in Chicago. 

During the CIBL conference, Hanson and Brazilian church leaders took
part in a panel discussion on ecumenism. Hanson explained his response
to concern about Lutherans' involvement in many different "full
communion" relationships. "I always say that's because our confessions
call us to seek deeper unity in the church but allow greater flexibility
when there is agreement on the gospel" with other churches, he said. The
conference was hosted by the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran
Confession in Brazil (IECLB) in Sao Leopoldo, October 11-17.

"We have a biblical mandate for ecumenism. With the growth of
evangelical churches, the question of unity is rising from within,"
IECLB President Rev. Dr Walter Altmann said. Rev. Luis Vergilio Batista
da Roja, conference bishop of the Methodist Church said ecumenism was
currently challenged to move from an institutional ecclesial to a
political agenda. Recognition of slavery as a crime against humanity was
essential for building new social relations, and was "a basic issue of
the church and of the Protestant movement," he said. Dr Rudolf von
Sinner, systematic theology professor at the IECLB theological college
said contextual reality was the main polarity in ecumenism. "Ecumenism
is linked to the world in one sense, so whatever we do in practical
terms has strong implications for diakonia," he added.

At a press conference, Hanson drew attention to the fact that 97 percent
of Lutherans in the USA were white, and that effort was needed to
overcome the widespread stigma of a white church. 

Founded in 1986, the CIBL comprises black Lutheran theologians both
clergy and lay from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North
America. (396 words)

(The ELCA News Service and IECLB journalist Caroline Straessman
contributed to this article.)

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(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 140
member churches in 78 countries all over the world, with a total
membership of nearly 66 million. The LWF acts on behalf of its member
churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith
relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights,
communication, and the various aspects of mission and development work.
Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service.
Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent
positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the
dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be
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*   *	*

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