Loehe, Liturgies, and Lives Mattering

Abstract

Those who stand in the legacy of Loehe get to consider the whole of his legacy. This includes scores of praiseworthy pieces—renewed liturgical practices extending beyond Sunday morning, prolific writings, thorough liturgical research, engaged preaching, dedication to serving marginalized communities, and so on. The Loehe legacy—as well as the notion of legacy itself—also contain problematic pieces—participation in colonizing practices such as purchasing ancestral homeland; building on Ojibwe, Apsáalooke, and Cheyenne land; and failing to examine lenses of religious and racial superiority. As the church comes to terms with our history of participation in increasing the precarity of life for indigenous people, the individual and communal practices around confession that Loehe reinvigorated can inform current practices.