Stone Choir: The Invention of Racism

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It has been an eventful few weeks.

I found out that my wife is pregnant.

I found out that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) is going woke.

Corey Mahler and Woe are back with a great new episode of Stone Choir in which they explore the history of the term “racism” and when it officially became a “sin” in the LCMS. They show that this “sin” is not mentioned in the Bible. It was unknown to Martin Luther. It was not in the Lutheran Confessions. It was unknown to the founders of LCMS. It was unknown for a century after the founding of the church which was segregated until 1947. The LCMS didn’t endorse integration until 1956 after the Brown decision. The notion that something called “racism” is a “sin” didn’t exist in LCMS until a generation ago.

We are told that “racism” is a “grave sin,” but literally no in the church knew this or was even making this argument for over a century. Instead, the “antiracism” craze swept through American culture during World War II and changed racial attitudes. The Truman administration committed itself to integration. The Supreme Court struck down segregation in public education in the Brown decision in 1954 and only then did the LCMS and countless other secular and religious institutions fall in line.

Note: Corey Mahler might be the first person in history to be banned from an LCMS church for the “sin of racism.” We can’t find any evidence that it ever happened during the antebellum era or the War Between the States or Reconstruction or the Jim Crow era or even in the late 20th century. The gravity of the “sin of racism” has soared as Wokeism has spread into the church since the death of George Floyd.