Rev. Ben Groth is the pastor/redeveloper of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in New Orleans, LA. He is also a PhD student in the History Department at Tulane University studying the relationship between Christianity and white supremacy. He and his wife Chloe, a violinist and Suzuki Violin teacher, are thrilled to be living in New Orleans along with their two toddlers. Previously, Ben served as the College Chaplain at Berea College in Berea, KY, as the Associate Pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Menomonee Falls, WI, and as the Vicar at All Peoples Church in Milwaukee, WI. He has also served as a Director of Music in Lutheran and Episcopal congregations in Wisconsin and Connecticut.
Ben earned a Th.M. in Lutheran Ministry Studies from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago with a thesis titled Muddy Waters: The Struggle for Freedom through Baptism, Slavery, and Race in Colonial America and the Early Christian Churches. He completed his M.Div. from Yale Divinity School along with a Certificate from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. At Oberlin College Ben studied Piano Performance, English, and Religion. His honors thesis was titled Blood at the Root: The Troubled Legacy of American Protestantism as Seen Through the
Meaning of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” from the Ku Klux Klan to Martin Luther King, Jr.