We affirm the God-given sanctity of all life and the essential dignity and equality of all people. Though scattered globally, we are a single family. Quite simply, this means that we cannot regard anyone as being outside or inferior or less deserving, regardless of race, sex, or gender identity or expression, national origin, citizen status, age, religion, sexual orientation, ability, or political or economic views.

We confess that we continually, through our attitudes, speech and actions, individually and as a group, favor some and denigrate others. We have been silent in the face of injustice, the abuse of people and desecration of God's natural creation.

We are grateful for a Reformation heritage that acknowledges and affirms that all people are of equal worth and dignity, created in God's image. In its insistence that God's free grace is a gift for all people, the Reformation laid the foundation for the global affirmation of universally-guaranteed human rights.

We therefore reject any and all forms of prejudice based on race, sex, or gender identity or expression, national origin, citizen status, age, religion, sexual orientation, ability, political or economic views.  We will call out prejudice within ourselves and our communities.  We reject any and all expressions of antisemitism.  Discrimination against Jews in word or in deed will not be tolerated among us.  Nor will we tolerate discrimination against Muslims, Blacks, Indigenous peoples, Roma, Sinti, Dalits or other minoritized groups, whether this is evidenced in personal relationships or in the policies of public or private institutions.

We affirm our faith in the one God who created heaven and earth, who redeems the whole of creation, and whose message of hope embraces all. The gods of blood and soil, family, race, nation and ideology are gods of injustice.  They are ultimately powerless before the one God who alone is sovereign.

We confess that we have cloaked our nation and our ideologies with symbols of our faith in an illicit attempt to give them ultimate value. We have put flags in our chancels, sung nationalistic hymns, preached and prayed in ways that confer ultimate value on one nation above all others.  We confess the fact that masses of poor and marginalized people in numerous countries are the victims of the exploitative economic and trade policies that have, in large part, been established to grant special privilege to our country.

We are grateful for the heritage of the Reformation and its insistence that no earthly object of loyalty, whether nation, blood, soil, ideology or institution, including the church itself, can be accorded ultimate status. As Martin Luther insisted, "We must fear, love and trust in God above all things." To do otherwise is idolatry.

We therefore reject the illegitimate claims of any nation to be morally exceptional to all others. We reject in particular the Doctrine of Discovery by which European nations claimed the right to colonize and exploit the lands of indigenous peoples in North and South. Although repudiated by the Vatican, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and other church bodies, this doctrine remains a weapon of dominance and exploitation.

We affirm the ancient covenant of God with Abraham and its meaning for all the families of the earth. We acknowledge the special role played in the conveyance of this blessing by the families of the children of Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We acknowledge that the promise of the land was never meant to be unconditional or to be understood as a privilege.  Rather the promise of the land carries with it a covenant responsibility to ensure that it can be a blessing for all the nations.

We confess that our Lutheran tradition contains elements that have been unjustly demeaning of and harmful to the Jewish people. Martin Luther has made statements and written tracts against Judaism that are repugnant and have caused great harm. The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has rightly distanced its member churches from these statements.

We confess that some among us who claim to follow Christ have made derogatory statements against both Jews and Muslims, fueling the fires of antisemitism and Islamophobia. The ideology of Christian Zionism in particular is a heresy, a false narrative that distorts Jewish, Muslim and Christian teachings. By transforming the Israeli--Palestinian conflict into a religious conflict, Christian Zionism is distorting all three Abrahamic faith traditions while creating widespread hostility and alienation.

We confess that we have been silent in the face of the harmful claims made by both Palestinian and Israeli extremists. Most destructive have been claims made by both Hamas (in the Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement) and by members of the Cabinet of the Government of Israel who claim a God-given exclusive right to the whole land, from the Nile to the Euphrates.

We confess that some among us have been silent in the face of growing violence in the Holy Land. After decades of violent oppression against the Palestinian people, Hamas carried out a massacre of Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023.  This is to be categorically condemned along with the abuse of civilians taken hostage. We likewise condemn the retaliatory bombing of civilian population centers by the Government of Israel. Relentless bombings directed not only against Hamas militants but against large segments of the Palestinian community have killed over 60,000 and maimed over 150,000 people, primarily women and children. Thousands still remain buried beneath the rubble. This is nothing short of genocide.  In its provision of bombs to the Israeli Defense Force for this purpose, the United States has been an accomplice to this genocide.

We confess further that we have made only a feeble response to the Nakba (the Catastrophe), the violent displacement and dispossession of Arab Palestinians that began in 1948. With much of the global community, we have stood by as illegal settlements have been built on Arab land and as the human and civil rights of Palestinians have been violated and the suppression of Palestinian culture has been carried out by the State of Israel. We have been all too silent as the illegal Israeli occupation denies Palestinians their civil, national and political rights.

We are grateful for the heritage of the Reformation and its clear affirmation of civil authority as a gift of God to maintain peace, justice and good order in society. At the same time, we acknowledge the legitimacy of the Reformation's call for resistance by the citizenry when the ruling authority becomes cruel and unjust (Martin Luther's treatise, Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed).  Following the counsel of St. Peter and the Apostles that "we must obey God rather than any human authority" Acts 5:29), we support the churches of the Holy Land and commend them for their commitment to non-violent resistance to decades of oppressive rule.

We reject the claims of Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists that God has given them the land unconditionally, from the Nile to the Euphrates. It is this claim that has undercut all peace negotiations and is presently making a two-state solution virtually impossible. We also reject the ideology of Christian Zionism, its unbiblical worldview, its misuse of scripture, as well as its present employment as a weapon against the Palestinian people.  We reject claims by the government of the United States to any ownership of Gaza and to any right to develop it for its own purposes.

We affirm the centrality of this biblical mandate as manifest in the life and ministry of Jesus where it takes on its most radical meaning, namely, to take special care to love, include and serve those who are marginalized, excluded or denied health care, food or the basic material goods needed to sustain life.

We confess the fact that the hard realities of gross inequality constitute the daily condition of masses of poor and marginalized people in numerous countries. It is they who are the victims not only of our personal greed but also of the effects of our economic and trade policies.  In the face of the growing economic divide and the degradation of nature caused by the systemic demand for compulsory growth ("growth imperative"), we acknowledge that the system on which it is built needs to be radically restructured.

We are grateful for a Reformation history in which the biblical witness was brought to bear not only on the level of personal sinfulness but also on the level of injustice and inequality created by the structures of the economy. We acknowledge Luther's critique of the early profit economy and his collaboration with the political authorities to establish institutions for wealth-sharing (the Common Chest) that brought constructive change to the political economy of Europe. We recall with gratitude the way in which Luther's understanding of scripture led to the creation of community-wide health care for the sick and disabled and provided public education for women and men as well as institutions that provided care and financial security for orphans, widows and the aged.  We also are grateful to all international ecumenical church organizations which have formally rejected exploitative trade policies, namely, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in 2003, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) in 2004, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Pope Francis for the Vatican in 2013.

We therefore reject a personal lifestyle that is out of keeping with the demands of our faith. We reject the policies of our government that have not served the masses of poor and marginalized people in the world.  We reject the economic and trade policies that serve to guarantee wealth for the few while condemning masses of peoples to poverty.