The first Lutheran congregations were organized in Florida in 1859, in Lake City and Long Swamp which was located near present-day Belleview. Pastor Charles Bernheim reported that there were 24 white and 20 colored people. The book Masters and Slaves in the House of the Lord concluded that almost half of the first Lutherans were enslaved persons.

There is no escaping that conclusion. Several of the early Lutheran settlers in Marion County were slave holders including Adam and Wade Eichelberger and Adam Summer. Summer, by the way, gave his name to the town of Summerfield in south Marion County. It’s hard to comprehend that some of the first Lutherans in our community were enslaved people.

The Rev. John Bachman, one of the leaders of Lutheranism in South Carolina, was visiting Adam Summer in 1860. He wrote to his wife on April 1, “I preached today, (Sunday), and baptized Bachman Hazelius a boy of twelve, with skin as black as a Corvus-Americanu.” That’s the earliest record of a Lutheran baptism in Florida.

How much choice did a slave have about being baptized? There must have been some because not all enslaved people became church members, but still, they were regarded as property. I know that some Black people remained members of another nearby Lutheran church after the Civil War. It didn’t last because, according to a story I heard, the church was burned to the ground because Black and White people worshiped together.

These are facts about Lutheran history rarely mentioned. It’s something to think about during Black History Month.

Read John 8:36 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne