The ELCA adopted its social message about gun-related violence and trauma in April, 2024. The message's themes focus on trauma, public health, and an ethic of shared responsibility for peacemaking, seeking to move beyond the strict polarization of gun rights vs. gun control.

In this election year, how might our Lutheran faith shape our thinking, acting, and voting on major issues? In this important 6-part series, ponder timely ELCA social teachings and learn tips for leading discussions in your own community.

The social message on "Immigration" presents basic themes for discernment on questions of immigration that our society is facing. It draws from Scripture and the experience of Lutherans in America as an immigrant church in a country of immigrants.

Reminder: The ELCA is developing a social statement on civic life and faith, the relationship of church and state, and related matters. The feedback period will be open until Sept. 30, 2024.

A new video from Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton addressing Christian Nationalism. Bishop Eaton says this dangerous ideology “is a perversion of the gospel and a threat to our democracy. It’s precisely because I love my country that I warn against it.”

The statement reads in part, “Whether we worship at a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple, America has no second-class faiths. All are equal under the U.S. Constitution. As Christians, we must speak in one voice condemning Christian nationalism as a distortion of the gospel of Jesus and a threat to American democracy.”

How Strategic and Authentic Is Our Diversity: A Call for Confession, Reflection, and Healing Action is the report from an ELCA Task Force that was adopted by more than a two-thirds vote (855-13) by the 15th triennial Churchwide Assembly on August 9, 2019, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The ELCA’s newest social message, adopted on Thursday, April 20, 2023 is entitled Earth’s Climate Crisis, a message on climate care. This project was authorized in light of the grim contemporary situation affecting our global home and the need for fresh action on the part of this church.

The preparation of this study is part of the process toward developing a social statement on these many topics related to civic life and faith. Participants’ feedback is key. The study response period is open through Oct. 15.

The Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice social statement explains the ELCA’s teachings on ecology and the environment, grounded in a biblical vision of God's intention for the healing and wholeness of creation.

Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton’s comments from 2020 on the work Lutherans are called to do around civic engagement and voting are still very relevant today.

The ELCA Social Statement titled Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture expresses the ELCA’s calling to celebrate culture and ethnicity. This calling commits the ELCA to confront racism, to engage in public leadership, witness and deliberation on these matters, and to advocate for justice and fairness for all people. It was adopted by the 1993 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

ELCA Social Message “Community Violence” urges us to become more involved in countering the reality and fear of violence in our communities and our neighbors’ communities, pursuing justice and seeking peace no matter how long the journey or complex the challenge.

The ELCA’s social statement entitled Abortion is grounded in the conviction that “Christians are united in Christ through faith with both the freedom and obligation to engage in serious moral deliberation.” It was adopted by the 1991 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective articulates the teaching of the ELCA on the church's relation to society and its public presence and responsibilities. The statement begins with the claim that the witness of the church in society flows from its identity as a community that lives from and for the gospel.

Would your church make a good polling place? Learn what #ELCAvotes has to say on the subject. Arizona statewide election dates are July 30, 2024 for the Primary and November 5, 2024 for the General Election.

As we watch more than 100 voting rights bills cross the desks of Arizona legislators, we’re thinking as people of faith and as members of the ELCA using a racial justice lens.

Discipleship in a Democracy. ELCA social teaching holds that all residents of the United States have a responsibility to make government function well—not to abandon our democracy but to engage it in a spirit of robust civic duty.