Churchwide Representative

The Rev. Dr. Carmelo Santos

The Rev. Dr. Carmelo Santos (he, him, el) serves in the office of the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as Director for Theological Diversity and Ecumenical & Inter-Religious Engagement. He is an ordained pastor of Word and Sacrament in the ELCA and has served congregations in the Metropolitan Washington D.C. synod. Carmelo has B.S. (Chemistry), an M.Div., a Th.M., and a Ph.D. in Religion and Science from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He has taught Theology & Neuroscience, Ethics, and Latinx Theology at Georgetown University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico, among others. He is interested in the intersections of Pneumatology, Theological Anthropology, Liberation Theologies, Science, and Decoloniality. As a pastor he marched and advocated for the civil rights of immigrants and currently serves as chair of the board of CASA, a national organization for migrants and workers’ rights. He serves in the ELCA as part of the team that encompasses work in Theological Discernment (e.g., development of social statements); Racial Justice; Gender Justice and Women’s Empowerment; and Ecumenical & Interreligious Relations. He was the main author of the ELCA 500^th Anniversary Study Guide of Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian and is the author of Did God Make the Universe? A Bilingual Devotional for Kids with Big Questions and of: A Liberation Theology of the Brain: Neuroscience, Theology and Decolonizing Emotions, by Fortress Press, available beginning June 10.