This post is written by Deanna A. Thompson, Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community and Martin E. Marty Regents Chair in Religion and the Academy

Each Lenten season provides dedicated time for Christians to examine brokenness, confess and repent sin, and explore opportunities to recommit to live more faithfully.

When Christians gather during Lent there is often time set aside for lament, the naming out loud of ways in which our collective life together is deformed, ways in which many of us wittingly and unwittingly support systems and structures that harm our neighbors and ourselves.

This year marks the second season of Lent since the pandemic began. Claiming more than half a million American lives and over 2.5 million people worldwide is difficult to process. We lament each of these deaths. Lament provides Lutherans an opportunity to bring our support systems in focus. In addition to lamenting this public health emergency, we also must not lose sight of another very real and ongoing crisis.

When Christians gather during Lent there is often time set aside for lament, the naming out loud of ways in which our collective life together is deformed, ways in which many of us wittingly and unwittingly support systems and structures that harm our neighbors and ourselves

Last summer’s killing of George Floyd has shined an important spotlight on racial injustice, prompting renewed calls for action and systemic change. This week brought the murder of eight people in Atlanta, six of them women of Asian descent. We say their names: Soon Park, Hyun Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan and Daoyou Feng. The sole survivor, Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, remains hospitalized with injuries. They are persons of innate worth and dignity, spouses and parents, loved by their families and friends, going about their daily business. Lord, have mercy.

While full details of the killings are still coming to light, we’ve learned that the shooter was also a Christian who was very involved in his church. Time and further investigations will likely give us deeper insight into how his identity as a Christian factors in to his awful decision to violently end the lives of these eight people. But the very fact he claimed a Christian identity cannot be ignored, especially by those of us who share this identity with him.

Tuesday’s attack was a calculated one. But it’s not an isolated instance of aggression by a white man against Asian American, Pan Asian and Pacific Islander communities.

Earlier this month, the Asian and Pacific Islander Association of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America issued a statement on anti-Asian violence. It called on Lutheran Christian communities “to declare a Sunday during this Lenten season to lament in order to express solidarity, help in healing and support the victims of violence against Asian Americans.” The statement urged the church and its leaders to show how they will “oppose racism, its death-dealing manifestations, and proclaim ways to move forward as a church and society where all God’s people of color can be free to build a world of true peace, equality, justice, and kindness with others.” The importance for communities of faith to heed these calls has only grown more urgent since the racially motivated murders in Atlanta.

As news of the Atlanta area attack broke, I am proud of our campus and community-wide response that has led to a positive, productive dialogue:

• Interim Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Dr. Maria Pabón has encouraged additional support for Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander Oles.
• Asian RACE faculty members hosted a teach-in on anti-Asian violence, with over 200 people attending virtually.
• The Asian Studies department expressed their solidarity with and support of the teach-in.
• College pastors led the community in expressions of lament and prayer for the victims, their families, and all who are impacted by anti-Asian violence.

As we reflect on this week’s tragedy, let us stand in solidarity with the Asian American, Pan Asian, and Pacific Islander communities and seize on this season of Lent to repent our individual and collective complicity in systems of violence.

As a college “nourished by Lutheran tradition,” may St. Olaf continue to lament all violence toward human and non-human lives. As we reflect on this week’s tragedy, let us stand in solidarity with the Asian American, Pan Asian, and Pacific Islander communities and seize on this season of Lent to repent our individual and collective complicity in systems of violence.