ELCA issues progress report on European American Lutheran Association

by Frank Imhoff, ELCA News Service

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Multicultural
Ministries issued a progress report on the formation of a
European American Lutheran Association (EALA). In November 2006
the ELCA Church Council "affirmed the creation of a European
American Association in the ELCA." Since that action ELCA
Multicultural Ministries hosted a conference call and a two-day
meeting to formulate a plan for creating the EALA to further
antiracism work in the church, the report said. "The EALA will
stand alongside the American Indian and Alaska Native, African
American, Black, Arab and Middle Eastern, Latino, and the Asian
and Pacific Islander Lutheran associations."

The report said the EALA is "tentatively scheduled to come into
official existence with an organizing conference in the summer of
2008. A preliminary informational and organizational gathering
will take place in Los Angeles as part of the Spirit of Wholeness
in Christ: A Racial Ethnic Multicultural Event, July 12-15,
2007."

The association's primary membership will be "people who self-
identify as European Americans and understand themselves to have
inherited a history that is full of honor and faithfulness as
well as being full of access to power and privilege. The members
of the EALA will be people who agree that racism is present in
society and institutions. The association will seek to provide
communication, networking and resources to move people and
institutions toward an antiracist identity," the report said.