adapted from the July 2023 Emmanuel Lutheran Church Newsletter

ELCA’s Social Statements are a resource to help us think about, discuss, and act as we seek to live in peace with our neighbors. ELCA.org describes them this way:

ELCA social statements are teaching and policy documents that provide broad frameworks to assist us in thinking about and discussing social issues in the context of faith and life. They are meant to help communities and individuals with moral formation, discernment and thoughtful engagement with current social issues as we participate in God’s work in the world. Social statements also set policy for the ELCA and guide its advocacy and work as a publicly engaged church. They result from an extensive process of participation and deliberation and are adopted by a two-thirds vote of an ELCA churchwide assembly.

Church in Society is that the church is in the world but not from the world. As the church, we have been called to be part of the world. As followers of Christ, we are to proclaim the love of God and the forgiveness and redemption of Christ through actions and words.

Our call as the church is not limited to proclaiming God’s message from a church building on Sundays. Nor is it limited to evangelizing people to attend church. God’s message permeates all of God’s creation. As followers of Christ, we are called to be part of society and help make a difference in the world for God. Thus, we are called by God, a God who is both in the world and beyond the world, to do God’s work in the world.

As we consider the idea of the Church in Society, the reality that we live in a polarized and divided society comes to the forefront. It is tempting to consider the divided political climate and society as a place too corrupted, too lost to the evil one for nice church people, for followers of Christ to wade into. Such a perception is precisely why followers of Christ need to try and make a difference in the world of division. The social statement on Church and Society acknowledges the fact that even followers of Christ will have differences of opinion and different methods to enact positive change in the world. Such differences can seem to be barriers at first. However, by continuing to go back to the basics of Christ’s love for the world, the entire world, we may realize our differences can be strengths that can help create effective change.

We are called to be a light to the world, no matter how much the world would prefer to stay in darkness.