Huffington Post needs a photo fact-checker

This is the photo that accompanies the Huffington Post article, "Evangelicals Talk of Boycotting GOP," a report on the Values Voter Summit, an evangelical right pow-wow, recently held in Washington.

The photo is obviously not from the Values Voter Summit, but is actually related to some event connected with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), as you can see by the logo, and also by the slogan, which was used at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly this summer.  The ELCA is not "evangelical" the way Americans typically think of "evangelicals," and it's easy to see how Huff Post could make the mistake. 

The name "Evangelical Lutheran Church in America" was chosen for our denomination during the merger process in the mid-1980's.   "Evangelical" is a good Lutheran word--Lutherans in Germany are known as "evangelisch," for example--but the popular understanding of "evangelical" is different in America than in Europe.  For Lutherans, "evangelical" simply means "gospel-proclaiming," which is the true meaning of euaggelion, the Greek word on which it is based.  In the United States, however, "evangelical" has become associated with the political right and cultural traditionalism, neither of which is descriptive of the ELCA.

This creates a bit of a "brand name confusion" problem.  We are not what some people might think we are.  Several years ago, right after the merger, my cousin asked me the name of our church.  I told her, and she said, "Yeah, but evangelical?"  I had to do some explaining, which is not a good sign.

American "evangelicals" constitute about 20-25% of the people in the United States.  The problem is that the other 75% doesn't care for them very much, and we are getting tarred with this same brush.  It was commendable of the ELCA to stick with the word, but I don't think we've made much head-way in changing peoples' minds on the subject.