"A Mighty Fortress" Far from Lake Wobegon:

21st Century Lutherans at the Confluence

of Religion and Ethnicity

by Wing Young Huie and Allison Adrian

Lao Evangelical Lutheran Church

Hmong Central Lutheran Church

Christ Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill

About the project:

Pervasive stereotypes of Minnesotans as Scandinavian and Lutheran dominate popular media about the area: A Prairie Home Companion’s fictitious setting in Lake Wobegon paints a picture of a culturally and racially homogeneous Minnesota. However, recent immigration to the Midwest has fundamentally altered Minnesotan demographics. Minnesota currently ranks highest in the nation for proportion of refugees to residents and second in the nation, after California, in the number of refugee arrivals. The Lutheran Church reflects these changes: Tanzanian, Hmong, Sudanese, Latvian, Liberian, Cambodian, Lao, Oromo, Amhara, Anuak, Latino, and Chinese immigrant communities have formed Lutheran congregations in the Twin Cities along ethnic and linguistic lines.

“A Mighty Fortress” Far from Lake Wobegon uses the Lutheran Church in the Twin Cities as an entry point to discuss immigration, Minnesotan identity and the significant role worship music plays in negotiating spiritual and ethnic identity. While Lutheran immigrant congregations may wholeheartedly adopt parts of the worship service from their North American mother churches, music is venerated as a personal expression from the homeland too precious to drastically alter in their new setting. Selected photographs, audio-visual recordings and hymnals from twenty different Lutheran services in the Twin Cities illustrate our increasingly global urban landscape and challenge archaic assumptions of who Minnesotan Lutherans are.