There has also been a great demographic shift going on in America for a while. For example, in the 1950 census 87% of Americans claimed to be European, in 2010 64% made that same claim. As the same time, Asians went from 0.2% of the population to 5%, Latinos from 2% to 16%, and “multi-racial” wasn’t even a category but now is the identity claimed by 2% of our population. While these ethnic changes have taken place economic changes have occurred as well. There are now 10% fewer people in America considered middle class, and at the same time the cost of everything has risen dramatically, while incomes have not.
Non-Europeans are the majority of new immigrant to this country, and Lutheranism has traditionally grown with new immigrants from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway… Well guess what, there are now more Lutherans in either Ethiopia or Tanzania than in Sweden, more Lutherans in Indonesia than Denmark, more Lutherans in India than Finland, Norway, or the USA, more Lutherans in Nigeria than the Netherlands. For that matter, the majority of Namibians are Lutheran. You get the picture, our country’s ethnic demographic changes should only scare us if we see Lutheranism as being about Lederhosen and Lefse instead of Grace and Word and Sacrament and Cross.
As for the economics of it all, maybe this jolt to the middle class will help us hear those in poverty in a new way. Perhaps it can make us more thankful for those things we do have. Could we maybe become more creative in response to our limits? Even more generous?
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