From the Desk of Pastor Marsha, February 6, 2025
What’s Happening 2.6.2025
As many of you have probably heard by now, Lutheran Family Services was in the news when General Mike Flynn made these comments on X and Elon Musk later affirmed,
“Now it’s the “Lutheran” faith (this use of “religion” as a money laundering
operation must end”.) Lutheran Family Services and affiliated organizations
receive massive amounts of taxpayer dollars, and the numbers speak for
themselves. These funds, total BILLIONs of American Taxpayer dollars.”
Like many Lutherans, I was surprised and offended. Throughout my 31 years of ministry, I have seen Lutheran social ministries do a variety of, and an amazing amount of quality ministry. I know they are above reproach and have a great reputation for using their dollars very efficiently. They are recognized by the Chronicle of Philanthropy and Forbes as one of the nation’s top nonprofit organizations.
Our national Bishop sent out a video response almost immediately defending the work of Lutheran social agencies and Global Refuge, formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. (See link at the end of this article.) Our own Bishop Current also shared comments encouraging our support and sharing links to their Impact Report.
As Lutherans, it is important to know as much as we can about the work of these agencies so that we can be confident in our support and advocacy of their work on behalf of Lutherans everywhere. They are usually organized by state. Ours is called Lutheran Services in Iowa. There is a national office of a network of 300 Lutheran health and human services organizations across the United States called Lutheran Services in America. The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Forbes recognize it as one of the nation’s top nonprofit organizations.
I suspect many of you are familiar with some of their work as they have been a part of helping people in our communities for over 150 years now. Many of them started as orphanages. One story begins with, “German Lutherans at Salem Lutheran Church respond to the call of a local pastor to build a children's home for Civil War orphans in Andrew, Iowa. It was one of Iowa's first orphanages.” Eventually, an organization was formed to do more work in areas such as foster care, child welfare, assisting children with disabilities, and adoption. Perhaps you know a family that adopted a child through them. They also have created counseling centers, do work in elder care and meals, have services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and drug and alcohol rehab/counseling to name just a few of their services.
Both Lutheran Services in America and Global Refuge do resettlement work with immigrants and refugees. Lutherans began their work in this area following WWI helping primarily Lutheran immigrants rebuild their lives in America. That work greatly increased following WWII, resettling 30,263 Displaced Persons from Germany and Eastern Europe. Some of that work today is contracted by state and federal governments. LSS is performing work on behalf of governmental bodies that approve, contract, and monitor their work to ensure these contracts are fulfilled. The government requires a wide variety of private social service agencies like LSS, Catholic Charities, and many others, to perform work it lacks the personnel to carry out.
These two groups are not the only Christian organizations from which funds are being withheld and potentially cut altogether. Christianity Today published an article listing the many Evangelical social service agencies whose work has also been affected.
Without government funding of these parachurch organizations, countless people’s lives will be seriously affected. Children, the elderly, the disabled, individuals needing mental health care and so many more will be the ones who suffer.
~ Pastor Marsha
I encourage you to check out these websites to see what these Lutheran organizations are doing on behalf of Lutherans around the world.
Bishop Elizabeth Eaton statement: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0Pcc9FJ224Y
Lutheran Services of Iowa: https://lsiowa.org/
Lutheran Services in America https://lutheranservices.org/our-story/
Global Refuge https://www.globalrefuge.org/
Also, if you are looking for ways to speak out, below is a link to “Sun’s Up: Lutheran Toolkit to Speak out and Act UP in Support of LSS and GF.”
It was put together by Pastor Stephanie P. Jaeger, a pastor, professor, writer and activist. To read more about her and her work, click on https://www.publicchurch.info/about-pr-stephanie-jaeger.
