The Evangelical Lutheran Church Church (ELCA) has played a new card in the "most progressive denomination" game. I think a transgender bishop trumps a homosexual bishop any day,
From Premier Christian News came this report,
A US pastor has become the first openly transgender person to be installed as a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
Earlier this year, Rev Meghan Rohrer was appointed as the bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod to serve a six-year term leading one of the 65 synods, overseeing nearly 200 congregations in Northern California and Nevada.
During the installation service, Rev Rohrer said: “My call is ... to be up to the same messy, loving things I was up to before.”
The Lutheran and Episcopal church are the only two Christian denominations in the US that allow transgender people to become clergy.
"I step into this role because a diverse community of Lutherans in Northern California and Nevada prayerfully and thoughtfully voted to do a historic thing," the bishop said in a statement.
"My installation will celebrate all that is possible when we trust God to shepherd us forward."
Rev Rohrer, 41, was the first transgender person to be ordained in the ELCA in 2006 and the first to lead a church in 2014.
Bishop Rohrer, who prefers to be referred to by the pronoun "they", is totally unknown to my Lutheran friends, most of whom shrug and express total apathy to the news. Others have no problem with a transgender bishop, and I have not heard a single person saying that they are leaving the denomination.
Ah. ignorance is bliss.
Ignorance however can be hazardous to your spiritual health.
In the race to the bottom, with this move the ELCA might have just nosed ahead of the Episcopalians... for the time being.
Posts
We visited an ELCA church, with friends, while traveling this summer. It was appalling. The litany/confession was all about apologizing for offending LGBTQ+ people, and about "climate change." There was no creed. The preacher said he repented for having "always thought of Jesus as white." I don't know if he's ever read the Bible.
ReplyDeleteIt was not at all like Lutheran services I attended many years ago. I wasn't even sure it was Christian.
Sounds awful. A quick search of a 50 mile radius from my home shows many, many ELCA churches and only 3 ANCA churches. I hope that in the future those numbers will be reversed, and if the ELCA is doing this, their lights will go out before long.
ReplyDelete