Black History Month gives me an opportunity to write a little about the earliest history of the Lutherans in Florida. Why would Black History Month have anything to do with Lutherans in Florida? Read on, because this story has some surprises.

The first surprise is that the Lutheran Church in Florida began right here in Ocala. In 1858 the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and Ministerium of South Carolina and Adjacent States sent Pastor Charles H. Bernheim to Florida as a missionary. He settled in Ocala since several Lutheran families already lived here. He supported himself by running Freestone Springs Academy located some miles south-west from where Joy is today. In 1859 the Synod received a request from twenty-three members of a congregation in Columbia County (Lake City) for admission to the Synod, and a similar petition from eighteen persons from Long Swamp, an area near present-day Belleview. That same year Pastor Bernheim reported that “twenty-four white and twenty colored members have been received.” Do the math. Almost half of the first Lutheran church members in Florida were “colored,” most likely slaves. That’s the second surprise about early Lutheranism in Florida.

Many of the white Lutherans in Florida were slave holders. Most southern Lutherans including many clergy accepted and defended slavery as a given. Ocalans John Eichleberger and Adam Summer (after whom Summerfield is named) were both Lutherans who served as officers in the Confederate army. It’s one of the sad stains on Lutheran history, but there’s more to the story.

I’ll have more next week.

Read Galatians 3:27-29 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne