Women and girls disproportionately suffer harm worldwide. Some of this harm is intellectual, economic, or emotional. However, a great deal of it is physical and emotional. This is injustice based on gender, and sometimes sexuality, so it affects people who are LGBTQIA, too.
Through its political advocacy and direct services, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America works with many partners to end the immediate crisis of gender-based violence and to respond to people who experience it. The ELCA also works to address root causes of gender-based violence.
Soon after its formation, the ELCA affirmed in the social statement The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective the confession that because we are justified and redeemed by God through Christ, this church is empowered to care for others. Care for the neighbor includes seeking justice in social structures. As the social statement notes, "[This church] needs constantly to discern when to support and when to confront society's cultural patterns, values, and powers" (p. 4). The ELCA Gender Justice and Women's Empowerment program serves this purpose by addressing the social system of patriarchy and sexism and the ways it affects all of church and society, sometimes violently.
Throughout the Gender Justice and Women's Empowerment program resources, you will find resources to help you join the work to respond to crises of violence and to help you dig deeper into social issues and the church's "patterns, values and powers" which support violence or interfere with gender justice.
Social Issues
Gender-Based Violence
Human Trafficking
