Bishop Ali Tote at the LWF Retreat for Newly Elected Leaders in Geneva. Photo: LWF/P. Hitchen
Bishop Ali Tote of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
(LWI) - As an immigrant, as a scientist, and now, as the first black bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), Ali Tote has always had a passion for working with marginalized communities. Born in Cameroon, he emigrated to Canada in search of opportunities to become a doctor, earning good money to support his family back home.
But an encounter with people living with disabilities in a L’Arche community led him to rethink his mission and to discover a vocation to ministry in the church. At the same time as serving as a pastor, he continued his medical studies and pursued an academic career, specializing in epidemiology and leading research into conditions that cause sickness and addiction in indigenous and other disadvantaged communities.
In May 2024, Tote was elected bishop of the Saskatchewan Synod in central Canada, where he has lived with his family for almost 30 years. During a recent retreat for newly elected leaders of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) member churches, he talked about his journey to leadership and about his work with Canada’s indigenous and black communities.
Tell us something about your childhood, growing up in Cameroon?
I am the second of eight siblings, four brothers and three sisters, so I always felt I had a responsibility to look after others in the family. My father was a civil servant, so we travelled a lot from city to city, but I also spent time with my grandmother in her village, so we had a mix of urban and rural life growing up.
Was the church an important part of your life back then?
Definitely, I can say that I grew up in the church. As a young boy, it was the highlight of my week, not necessarily because of my strong faith, but because on Sundays we had nice clothes and shoes to wear. But the church was a very empowering experience for me as children were encouraged to take leadership roles and I was happy to do that.
Even before my confirmation, our pastor trained me to preach and I gave my first sermon to a packed church at 11 years old. That led me to becoming a lay preacher at high school and I continued doing that when I left for university in Yaoundé. Of course, the pastor worked with me and reviewed what I wrote, but when we take time to equip and train young people early on, that is really grace in action.
Did you feel called to ordained ministry at that time?
No, I didn’t want to work in the church back then. My mother became very sick when I was young and I felt I had to work to help support my family. As a pastor in Cameroun, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. At university I studied natural sciences and I earned money by teaching and starting an institute to train people in computer sciences. As a result, I was exhausted and found I had less and less time to be engaged in the church.
It was at that point of exhaustion when a Buddhist friend told me about an opportunity to go to Canada to work with the L’Arche network which creates communities for people living with different kinds of disabilities. I moved to Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, in 1998 and it was working with the community there where my call to ministry began to emerge.
What struck you most about that experience?
You know, I moved to Canada, which was seen as a land of opportunities where I could become a doctor, doing good and earning lots of money. But that experience with L’Arche taught me that I was not there to save anyone’s life, as I had imagined. The men and women that I met there, many of them with serious developmental challenges, transformed me and taught me that I was also the one who needed saving.
From there I went on to the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon and I was ordained as a pastor in 2007.
But you also continued to study other subjects besides theology, didn’t you?
Yes, I have an MBA in innovative leadership and also a PhD in epidemiology, which looks at disease prevention and control by researching the health conditions and other factors that lead to people getting sick. You know my mum’s health weighed on me and also, more generally, the health of people in most of Africa where the average life expectancy, when I moved to Canada, was 46 years.
That figure has now edged up to around 60, but it is still significantly lower than in Canada and western countries where life expectancy is over 80 years. In Canada, there is a big gap for indigenous people who have a much lower life expectancy. These figures led me to pursue studies in epidemiology while I was finishing my Master of Divinity. Since then, I have done research into population health, focusing on indigenous, marginalized and immigrant populations.
That was not always easy for me, as a black academic, so I become co-founder of the University of Saskatoon’s black faculty and staff caucus, as well as a vice president of the Canadian Black Scientist Network, promoting excellence in research and supporting young black scientists in Canada.
As a pastor you were involved in various initiatives to support indigenous people, weren’t you?
Yes, I served on the board of a grass roots organization in Saskatoon called Prairie Harm Reduction which started working with people affected by HIV and AIDS, mainly involving those suffering with substance abuse. In indigenous communities, we see a cycle of intergenerational trauma affecting those whose kids were stolen from their families and placed in residential schools. This impacted the mental health of the parents as well as the children, who grew up with no role models and no parenting skills of their own.
It is a shameful legacy of our church that we were involved in the residential school system, but our Synod is now supporting this organization. I was also involved with another local group called Sanctum which offers sanctuary for women with substance abuse who get pregnant, offering them pathways to heal and to be able to keep their children. I look at my two daughters and realize how we take so much for granted, but when we walk with the marginalized, we understand how we have to live out the gospel that we preach.
What other challenges do you see in your new role as bishop?
It is an extremely challenging role, but I also know that the Lord is in charge, so I follow where the Spirit leads and try not to take myself too seriously. I think my task is to create opportunities for people of all backgrounds to gather, knowing that Jesus will work through each one of us so that we can learn from each other and grow together.
I have had many mentors and role models, including our former ELCIC National Bishop Susan Johnson, the longest serving bishop in our church history. We are grateful for her leadership and excited for the ministry of our new National Bishop Larry Kochendorfer.
Are ecumenical relations a priority for you in your ministry?
Definitely. One of my mentors was the late Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Bernard de Margerie who founded the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism in Saskatoon. Another example for me is the former Catholic Bishop of Saskatoon, now Archbishop of Regina Don Bolen, who gave a special greeting at my ordination a year ago. But it goes back to my childhood, as my mother was a Roman Catholic and my grandfather was a Catholic catechist, while my dad was Protestant and so that upbringing predisposed me to an interest in ecumenism.
The ELCIC is in full communion with the Anglican Church in Canada, as well as the Moravians and we also have strong relationships with the United Church. In the Saskatchewan Synod, we work with Roman Catholics as well as Ukrainian Catholics. Pastors and congregations are encouraged to reach out to other mainline Protestant denominations and collaborate wherever possible with any Christian community, given that we are all members of the Body of Christ.
Finally, what does it mean to be part of the global communion of LWF churches?
When you belong to an entity that is larger than yourself, it helps you to be less self-centered, to be more generous, more inclusive, more accountable. If we focus only on ourselves, we are not working for that unity which Jesus prayed for. So I think the LWF is a blessing for our church by helping us to build that unity and to become more accountable.
