IDENTITY

AFTER GRADUATING FROM CARTHAGE COLLEGE IN 1973, RICHARD J. PERRY JR. DECIDED IT WAS TIME FOR SOMETHING NEW.

He had been living in Kenosha, Wis., for several years while working on his bachelor’s degree, but now it was time for him to take a bold next step. After speaking with an esteemed mentor about his career, he decided to enroll in the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, even though he knew he would be a part of a small minority at the school.

“I think the year that I started at LSTC, there were 10 or 15 other African American students,” Perry remembers, “but I was excited about that because I had some peers that were like me.”

While some LSTC students who moved to Chicago needed time to adjust to city life, Perry immediately felt at home. As a Detroit native, he was used to the sounds of city life. The fast pace of urban life was his default speed.

Academic life at the seminary was a different story.

“I did not know a lot of the language in theology,” Perry said, reflecting on his first semester at LSTC. “That was something very new to me. I would go to the library after class and look up the words used to understand some of the lectures. I honestly had some apprehension as to whether or not I would be able to master the language Lutherans use when they talk theologically.”

That anxiety didn’t last long. Perry is a quick study, and his spirit is rarely deterred. With support from LSTC faculty, any angst he experienced about learning was eventually consumed by his curiosity, his love for helping people, and his passion for serving God.

“There were professors at LSTC who helped me think critically, who helped me to express what I was thinking, and who supported me and challenged me in what I was thinking,” he said. “I think that contributed to my desire to dig deeper. It meant a lot to me as a young African American student who was going to be in the Lutheran church as a pastor.”

Practicing Urban Ministry

When LSTC moved to Hyde Park in 1967, it instituted a Teaching Parish Program. This gave students an opportunity to work in congregations in the greater Chicago area, particularly on the city’s South Side. Perry was assigned to Reformation Lutheran Church, a faith community he described as “still racially integrated but going through a racial transition.”

Perry was captivated by urban ministry and believes many of his classmates were too. It reminded him of his experience working as a youth director in Detroit after the 1967 race riots and some of the dilemmas still faced in African American communities nationwide.

After completing his degree at LSTC, Perry was ordained and called to Calvary, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Gary, Ind. In 1980 he received another call to a church in North Carolina to serve as Director of Minority Ministries, where he served for eight years.

Like most LSTC alums, Perry stayed connected to faculty, who often asked about his plans to earn a doctorate. In 1989 he decided to no longer put off his call to teach and returned to LSTC as a doctoral candidate in theology and ethics.

Perry was deeply influenced by Dr. Phil Hefner, who served as his adviser during his graduate degree and doctoral programs; Dr. Robert Benne; and Dr. Albert “Pete” Pero, the first African American Lutheran to join the faculty at a Lutheran seminary.

“Dr. Pero helped me out because he understood what it meant to be a black and Lutheran and how one could bring their racial and cultural identity together with their denominational affiliation,” Perry said. “The concepts he introduced helped me make sense of my existence in the Church and also contributed to how I would teach Church and society or social ethics.”

After completing his doctoral degree, Perry was hired as faculty at LSTC and said he initially struggled to find his place.

“Like any new faculty person, you have to find your way in terms of your role within the organization, and so I became connected with a variety of people and organizations.”

Perry used his connections to benefit LSTC students. For instance, While serving on the board of the Urban CPE Consortium, Perry advocated for LSTC students to receive placement in city organizations and institutions where they worked with the homeless, the jobless, and those addicted to substances.

Later at LSTC, he led the Urban Ministry program that provided some financial assistance to students attending a consortium on urban pastoral education.

“LSTC gave me the space to explore many ways of thinking about God and how I should exercise moral agency when entering the world, and how to exercise leadership in a diverse world,” Perry said of his time as a student and professor. “As a faculty member, I wanted to do the same thing for students so they felt and understood LSTC as a place to explore their own leadership model that they undoubtedly would have to exhibit later.”

Richard J.

Jr., Professor Emeritus of Church and Society