Elle Dowd’s firsthand account of the Ferguson uprising

Elle Dowd could write a lot of books. She could write about being openly bisexual and Chris­tian. She could write about attending seminary while parenting two children and stewarding a social media ministry that inspires, encourages, teaches, and challenges thousands of followers. She could write about her revolutionary work decolonizing her denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or about her partnership with the Disrupt Worship Project.

But Dowd has chosen to write a firsthand account of the Ferguson uprising and her participation in it. She frames this participation in a classically Lutheran way: repenting of her White moderate political tendencies, she is baptized through the uprising in ways that resemble her baptism into Christ. She explains it this way:

Baptism for Lutherans is not a singular event. It is an ongoing, lifelong journey that is complete only when our time on earth is over. I have experienced antiracism as a white person to be this way too. We are captive to the sin of white supremacy and cannot free ourselves. Racism is hundreds of years older than you or me. It is a web of lies and systems that was created for the benefit and protection of people like me, but it also acts as a suffocating trap for me and everyone else.