Patricia Davenport and Viviane Thomas-Breitfeld

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 On May 5th, 2018, Patricia Davenport was elected bishop by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod. She was the first African-American woman to be elected as a bishop in the ELCA. The next day, on May 6th, Viviane Thomas-Breitfeld was elected bishop by the South-Central Wisconsin Synod, becoming the second African-American woman elected as bishop. Several months later, the installations of Thomas-Breitfeld (August 18th) and Davenport (September 22nd) were significant moments in the racial diversification of leadership within the ELCA.

Davenport and Thomas-Breitfeld, as bishops, represent a more diverse embodiment of faith than was represented in the churches in which they were raised. Davenport was raised in a predominantly German congregation, and her family was only the second African-American family to become members. Thomas-Breitfeld was raised in the Augustana Lutheran Church, a denomination founded by Scandinavian immigrants in the Midwest. The two women did not see themselves represented very often within the leadership of their churches until a much later age.

Both Davenport and Thomas-Breitfeld pursued ordination after years of active participation within the church as lay members. While the church was very gradually becoming more diverse, they still encountered both racism and sexism in daily interactions. Thomas-Breitfeld experienced a race-based denial of call in 1988, when the congregation of Reformation Lutheran Church in Brookfield, WI, refused to approve her call because she was a black woman. In an interview with the Milwaukee Sentinel, Thomas-Breitfeld said, “To be rejected on the basis of race and gender, which are God-given traits one can’t choose, is disheartening and an affront to the Gospel.” Like other ordained women, she hoped to be respected for her spiritual calling and instead was denied because of her physical appearance.

Despite regular encounters with inexcusable racism, Davenport and Thomas-Breitfeld continued to pursue their callings within the church. Along their journeys, both women contributed to efforts to make the ELCA more racially diverse and sensitive to the challenges unique to being a person of color within the church and in America. Thomas-Breitfeld supported women and racial-minorities within the church through her participation as co-chair Task Force on Women and Justice, ELCA, and her appointment to the South-Central Synod of Wisconin’s Racial Equity Team. As the bishop of one of the ELCA’s most diverse synods, Davenport has emphasized the importance of the church behaving as a “beloved community” to combat narratives of hate within its community. To achieve this, Davenport continues to advocate for programs that challenge racism and provide assistance to those facing food insecurity and/or homelessness. She also serves as a member of multiple interfaith efforts in Pennsylvania to diminish barriers between peoples of different faiths.

The elections of Davenport and Thomas-Breitfeld were significant not only for their individual ministries but also for the visibility of women of color within the entire ELCA. They recounted receiving congratulatory messages from women of color within the church — both from young women of color seminarians who were inspired to stay within the ELCA to continue fighting for racial diversity and representation, as well as from older women of color who were finally seeing themselves represented within the church after decades of waiting. Many women of color hope that the leadership of Patricia Davenport and Viviane Thomas-Breitfeld is the beginning of a more racially-diverse election of women to leadership positions within the ELCA.

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