KENYON, Minn. – Serving coffee after Sunday worship outside Holden Lutheran Church, Jeff Davidson said he remains anchored in the congregation his Norwegian ancestors helped found in 1857 among cornfields because it’s “very full of very supportive people.”
An hour’s drive north in a tough Minneapolis neighborhood, Lizete Vega shared the same sentiment as she helped her husband prepare a post-service taco lunch at Iglesia Luterana San Pablo — “a place where I feel that I belong.”
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A welcoming, open-minded community is how the sixth-generation farmer, the Mexican immigrant, and many other Minnesotans describe, with characteristic understatement, the foundation of their faith. It’s been in the national political limelight since Gov. Tim Walz, a Lutheran who was raised Catholic, brought his progressive legislative record onto the Democratic ticket as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate.
But the ways Midwest Lutherans live that faith in the public sphere — on social and political hot-button issues from immigrant integration to LGBTQ+ rights — can be as different as a marshmallow-topped hotdish from a prickly pear cactus salad.
And that’s true even within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the more liberal and by far largest Lutheran denomination in the United States with about 3.3 million members. Walz has made occasional references to attending an ELCA church in St. Paul, Minnesota, though his spokesperson declined to discuss details of his faith.
In congregations, on the contrary, the faithful far prefer talking faith and outreach than politics.
“You don’t come to coffee after church and start a political conversation or other hotbed issues, you know?” Davidson said as he served chocolate chip cookies and cheese slices for freewill offerings that the church will use to buy Christmas gifts for needy families. “I think we all need to just push some of that back and leave it back there.”
Pastors too keep partisanship away from the pulpit, knowing their congregants are ideologically divided.
“People are listening for their side of things, like, was that prayer conservative or liberal? People are always trying to decipher, ‘Oh, what’s pastor really saying’? Or, you know, ’Is she on my side or not?’” said the Rev. Elise Pokel of Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the suburb of Bloomington, which she estimates is evenly split politically. “And it’s like, well, I pledge my allegiance to Jesus.”
Lutheranism came to the Upper Midwest with 19th-century Scandinavian and German settlers, and it remains the dominant faith together with Catholicism. Potlucks and that staple of Midwestern lore, lutefisk — dried cod cured in lye — remain part of rural church life.
Lutheran social services agencies, especially the refugee resettlement programs, also brought to Minnesota large Hmong and Somali communities — the latter best-known in politics through U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis, a Muslim member of “the squad” of progressive House Democrats.
Lutherans themselves are relatively underrepresented in politics, perhaps because of their theological “two-kingdoms” approach, said Mark Granquist, a history professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul.
Inspired by the view that political and social life is ruled by different sets of principles than religious life, Lutherans tend to be less willing to apply religious understandings to secular institutions.
They are also ideologically divided. A recent survey by PRRI found that 68% of clergy in the ELCA identify as liberal, while only 23% of white mainline Protestant congregants do. ELCA leadership has issued teaching statements leaning toward liberal positions on issues ranging from racial justice to LGBTQ+ rights.
That can generate tensions, especially in politically blended “purple” congregations, said Bishop-elect Jen Nagel of the Minneapolis Area Synod — one of 65 ELCA synods nationwide.
Nagel, pastors and congregants are trying to navigate this bitterly divisive election season by embracing disagreements with humility while figuring out how to respond to Jesus’ call to serve others — the “freedom and service” tenets of Martin Luther’s reformation theology.
Like Pokel, the Rev. Dustin Haider, who serves both Holden and another congregation in the farmland around the hamlet of Kenyon, knows that people in the pews might be listening for what have become polarized code words – even preaching for “social justice” can be heard as a Democratic talking point.
“Where in our social do we need justice?” is how Haider approaches outreach.
Long a tradition at Holden, a quilt club has started at San Pablo, and the first blanket was donated at a recent Sunday service to a young Latino immigrant who just moved to Minneapolis.
The congregation, started by Swedish immigrants in the late 19th century, has become predominantly Latino, its Mass bilingual in English and Spanish. A new mural on its front steps features two traditional Swedish Dala horses between the Spanish words “sanación” (healing) and “resiliencia” (resilience).
A pride flag also hangs in the sanctuary, a sign that San Pablo has recently become a “Reconciling in Christ” congregation, affirming its welcome of LGBTQ+ members and celebration of same-sex marriages. The ELCA allowed partnered gay and lesbian people to be pastors in 2009, well before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
San Pablo’s inclusivity gratifies Vega, the council president, who with her nine siblings was raised Catholic in a small Mexican village. After her father migrated alone to the United States, leading her mother to divorce, she and her siblings felt singled out at church, so they only snuck in to pray when it was empty.
“We all have the right to belong to some place, people can’t make you feel inferior,” Vega said. “Faith is love. It’s loving everyone as we are.”
San Pablo’s pastor, who was born in New Jersey after his family fled civil war in El Salvador and is married to another male pastor, has made belonging a central theme for the church. Thirteen-foot banners with parishioners’ portraits hang on the church’s side, next to the question “When have you felt a sense of belonging?”
“I have experienced what it feels like to be rejected and to be looked down upon,” said the Rev. Hierald Osorto. “I serve a God that says all belong. And if we mean that, and we say that, we have to live it in actionable ways.”
Transfiguration is also a “Reconciling in Christ” congregation, and while not all members embraced that process, they have stayed in the church, said Pokel. The Fargo, North Dakota native and mother of two became its lead pastor after serving in rural and Minneapolis congregations.
At a recent Sunday's “ministry fair,” its foyer featured all Transfiguration clubs, the one in charge of quilting “memory bears” for mourning families next to that distributing pride bracelets and beads.
“(Jesus) loved everybody, and everybody should mean everybody,” said Ryan Hanish, leader of Transfiguration’s “Reconciling in Christ” group. They also participate in the suburb’s annual Pride celebration, where many are surprised to see a church presence.
“They can understand that not all churches are going to be judgmental,” Hanish said.
Across geographical, ethnic, and political differences, the glue that seems to hold these Lutheran congregations together might just be that willingness not to judge.
“You can’t be judgmental. You need to be looking out for the folks who need your help,” said Patrick Leehey, who with his wife has been a member of San Pablo for more than a dozen years.
“We don’t have to always be pushing that our way is the only way,” Davidson echoed. “These strong-willed opinions don’t always necessarily get you where you want to be.”
And therein lies a political but nonpartisan lesson.
“The church can be such a model to America,” Pokel said. “We’ve a place for everybody – the call isn’t to be the same, but to love.”
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