In the News: San Francisco Chronicle

Gay and transgender Lutheran pastors reinstated

Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle July 26, 2010 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Monday, July 26, 2010

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Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle

Megan Rohrer (right) and Craig Minich are reinstated at the service.

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Seven Bay Area gay and transgender pastors were reinstated into the national Lutheran church on Sunday after being barred for two decades from serving in the denomination.

It was a day of mixed feelings for the "Bay Area Seven" - the Revs. Jeff Johnson, Megan Rohrer, Paul Brenner, Craig Minich, Dawn Roginski Sharon Stalkfleet and Ross Merkel - who saw the event as an act of reconciliation with the church that once shunned them.

"We finally got to the direction we knew the Lutheran church was heading. It just took it longer to get there," Johnson said.

The pastors were welcomed almost a year after the national assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - the largest Lutheran denomination in the country - voted to allow gay men and women, with partners, to serve as clergy members, making it the latest Protestant church to allow such ordinations.

Gay men and women were previously allowed to become Lutheran pastors but had to take a vow of celibacy. Some within the church saw the rule as discriminatory, and in 1990 two San Francisco churches, First United and St. Francis, defied the policy by ordaining Johnson, a gay man, and a lesbian couple.

As a result, the two churches were expelled from the denomination. In the last 20 years, more than a dozen pastors nationwide were ordained in defiance of the church, three removed by trial and many denied the possibility to serve.

It was "a policy that ruined lives, destroyed faiths," Johnson said.

Rohrer, who serves in four churches and as a missionary for the homeless, said she did not feel Sunday was the day she became a pastor, but the day "the church gets to receive me as a pastor."

In an extension of that spirit of reconciliation, on Sunday the St. Francis congregation also overwhelmingly voted to return to the national Lutheran church.

"It's like an individual who was separated from his family after his mother kicked him out," said the Rev. Robert Johnson, head pastor at St. Francis. "The mother church has come around and said 'you were right.' "

E-mail Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera at amartinez-cabrera@sfchronicle.com

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

In the News: New York Times

Lutherans Offer Warm Welcome to Gay Pastors
Noah Berger for The New York Times

The Rev. Sharon Stalkfleet, center, was one of seven gay pastors at a welcoming ceremony Sunday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco.
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: July 25, 2010
With a laying on of hands, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had until recently been barred from the church’s ministry.
Enlarge This Image
Noah Berger for The New York Times

The Rev. Dawn Roginski, center, in white, one of seven gay pastors at a welcoming ceremony Sunday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco.

The ceremony at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco was the first of several planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its convention last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships to serve the church.

“Today the church is speaking with a clear voice,” the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said at a news conference just before it began. “All people are welcome here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God.”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, known as the E.L.C.A., with 4.6 million members, is now the largest Protestant church in the United States to permit noncelibate gay ministers to serve in the ranks of its clergy — an issue that has caused wrenching divisions for it as well as for many other denominations.

Since the church voted last summer to allow noncelibate gay clergy members to serve, 185 congregations have taken the two consecutive votes required to leave the denomination, said Melissa Ramirez Cooper, a spokeswoman for the church, citing a tally that she said was updated monthly. There are 10,396 congregations nationwide.

The Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ also allow gay ministers. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s general assembly voted at its convention earlier this month to do so, though the vote will become church law only if is ratified by a majority of the church’s 173 regional presbyteries. Two smaller Lutheran denominations, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, do not ordain ministers in same-sex relationships.

The seven ministers welcomed at the ceremony on Sunday had already been ordained and have been serving at churches or outreach ministries in the San Francisco Bay Area, but they had not been officially recognized on the clergy roster.

“The effect of them being brought onto our roster is they will now be part of our national database of pastors who are available for service in any of our 10,500 churches,” said Bishop Mark W. Holmerud, who leads the Sierra Pacific Synod, which includes San Francisco. He noted that while some congregations were open to consider hiring openly gay ministers, others were not — and each congregation is free to choose.

The Evangelical Lutherans designed Sunday’s special “rite of reconciliation” to mark the formal inclusion of gay ministers who were ordained in “extraordinary rites” that were not recognized by the church but were conducted by a group called Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. Three more gay pastors will be welcomed at ceremonies in September and October, two in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area and one in Chicago, Ms. Cooper said.

Amalia Vagts, executive director of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, said, “It’s been a long and hard journey for a lot of people, and it feels like this is a new beginning in the history of the E.L.C.A.”

She said that all together, there were 46 openly gay ministers who had previously been excluded from the church’s clergy roster and would now be accepted.

The change was made possible after the Churchwide Assembly, the Evangelical Lutherans’ chief legislative body, voted at its meeting in 2009 to allow the ordination of noncelibate gay pastors who are in monogamous relationships. The denomination appointed a task force to study the issue in 2001, and spent the next eight years in debate. In the end, the proposal to permit openly gay clergy members won just two-thirds of the votes, the minimum required for passage.

Some who opposed it are now poised to leave. The Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, a coalition of theologically conservative Lutheran churches, said his group expected to form a new denomination, the North American Lutheran Church, in August.

He said of the ceremony on Sunday, “It’s just another steady step taken by the E.L.C.A. to move the denomination further and further away from most Lutheran churches around the world and from the whole Christian church, unfortunately.”

Before the ceremony, one of the gay pastors, the Rev. Megan M. Rohrer, said it had been a long journey from her home in South Dakota — where fellow Lutherans regarded her sexuality as a demon to be exorcised — to being finally welcomed as a minister in the Lutheran church.

“It’s an invitation,” she said of the ceremony, “to join us in the pews every single Sunday, where not a single one of these pastors will care if you agree with us or if you think our families are appropriate. We’ll serve you communion, we’ll pray with you and we’ll visit you in the hospital.”
A version of this article appeared in print on July 26, 2010, on page A13 of the New York edition.

In the News: KRON 4

In the News: Associated Press

Gay Lutheran Pastors To Join Church Roster

by The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO July 24, 2010, 11:13 pm ET

Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay area and were barred from serving in the nation's largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church, but was later reinstated, will participate in the service.

The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last year to lift the policy requiring celibacy.

Churches can now hire noncelibate gay clergy who are in committed relationships.

"It's going to be an extremely glorious and festive ceremony because it's the culmination of decades of work to welcome LGBT people into the ELCA," said Amalia Vagts, executive director of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a nonprofit that credentials openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people for ministry.

Megan Rohrer, one of the pastors who will participate in Sunday's rite of reception service, grew up in South Dakota and attended a Lutheran college where she said students tried to exorcise her "gay demons" by throwing holy water on her. Some of those people are now Lutheran pastors in South Dakota, she said.

Rohrer, who is transgender and a lesbian, was ordained by four congregations in San Francisco in 2006, but could not join the ELCA roster until the denomination's national assembly approved the new policy in August.

"I didn't really believe the policy was going to change as quickly as it did," she said.

Rohrer said she is hopeful Sunday's service will be a "symbol" to young people that the Lutheran church is working toward becoming more welcoming of people of all different backgrounds.

Jeff Johnson, another one of the pastors who will be added to the roster, said the ELCA's position for years of not accepting the choice of some congregations to ordain gay clergy was painful and disappointing.

"The actions the church is taking on Sunday affirms the decisions of those congregations," Johnson, pastor of the University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, said. "The church is respecting our family, our partners, the choices we're making."

A small number of congregations have voted to leave the ELCA in response to the August vote. Johnson and Rohrer want Sunday's service to heal some of the rifts.

Johnson said the goal, in part, is to show people the church has space for many different opinions.

"There's room for them," he said. "It's a tolerant church."

The special rite of reception that will be used for the first time on Sunday was developed specifically to welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender pastors, said Melissa Ramirez Cooper, a spokeswoman for the ELCA.

Two more rite of reception services are scheduled for September in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area and another will follow in Chicago, Cooper said.

This article appeared online and in print in more than 300 media outlets, including: NPR, The Miami Herald, The Washington Examiner, the DC Daily Caller, the Fresno Bee, USA Today, Yahoo News, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Houston Chronicle, Manchester UK Guardian News, SFGate, Fox News, Star Tribune, Newsday, Seattle Times, ,

In the News: Argus Leader

Callison: Embracing the Church

Transgender minister to be received as ELCA pastor

Jill Callison • jcalliso@argusleader.com • July 22, 2010

evious Page

When Darlene Audus was a teenager, her Lutheran father discouraged his daughter from dating Roman Catholic boys.

She didn't understand that kind of prejudice then, and the 76-year-old Clark woman today doesn't understand the prejudice directed at her granddaughter, Megan Rohrer, a lesbian.

"I back her all the way," Audus says. "She's a super gal."

Rohrer, 30, is the first openly transgender Lutheran pastor ordained in the United States. Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. Only a very few choose to change their bodies through hormones or surgery.

On Sunday, Rohrer will be part of the first rite to receive gay pastors into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

"She's had a tough struggle to get where she's at," says Audus, a retired county auditor. "I'm proud because she kept at it. It would have been easy to give up. But I wished I could protect her from all those things."

"Those things," as Rohrer tells it in a telephone conversation from her home in San Francisco, include horrifying tales.

After graduating from Lincoln High School, Rohrer enrolled at Augustana College. In the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, the campus became a hostile place, she says.

"Aggressive football players would knock on my dorm room door and try to turn me into a straight person in violently sexual ways," she says.

In an attempt to exorcise Rohrer's "gay demons," students in her religion class threw holy water on her and sang hymns as she walked to class.

Rohrer moved off campus for three months, fearing for her safety.

But college faculty supported her, Rohrer says, and it also was the place where she discovered her calling and first fell in love.

"I would never wish an unsafe space for anyone, but sometimes having to take a stand helps push a person into a leadership position," she says. "I was able to find the determination to be a pastor in a church that wasn't yet ready to welcome me."

Rohrer entered seminary on the West Coast. She never considered joining a denomination that would welcome her as an openly lesbian pastor.

"Growing up in South Dakota, everything about my culture was Lutheran," she says. "I spoke Lutheran. A lot of the theology Lutherans proclaim and are excited about is kind of the natural way people live. It's hard to leave a culture behind."

Although her home congregation, Hope Lutheran, wouldn't fill out the necessary paperwork to allow Rohrer to pursue her calling, she says, she found support from the South Dakota Synod office.

Rohrer appreciates both sides' honesty.

"When you're in South Dakota, sometimes the person who disagrees with you most is your closest friend because they're honest with you," she says. "In bigger cities, it's different. If you disagree, you don't have to talk again."

Rohrer, who now runs a nonprofit agency for the homeless and serves four churches in San Francisco, was ordained outside the rules of the ELCA in 2006 - an extraordinary ordination. On Sunday, she will become a pastor in the ELCA.

That became possible when in August 2009, representatives of the ELCA voted to allow congregations to call pastors who were in "publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships."

Rohrer knows how difficult that vote was for many Lutherans. At the Churchwide Assembly last August, she and a Canton woman who opposed the change would pray together before every vote.

"Even when they're hoping the vote will go the other way, I really think God is bigger than this decision," Rohrer says. "I think our faith lives are bigger than this decision. I'm excited to be part of a diverse church where we can pray together."

Rohrer is in a committed, same-sex relationship and, for the past eight years, has served as a pastor to the homeless.

Many of the homeless she works with come from the Midwest. They left home either because their families rejected them or they assumed if their sexuality became public, they would be shunned.

"They left out of fear and never gave anyone the opportunity to accept them," Rohrer says. "That's another reason I continue to be engaged with congregations in the Midwest. We'll always have homeless as long as people can't openly welcome gay and lesbian people into families, church and school."

Audus could never reject Rohrer.

"It wasn't like you could go, 'That wasn't my granddaughter any more,' " Audus says of learning Rohrer is a lesbian. "It was just that the path would be a little harder."

Rohrer, however, might not agree that the path was any harder for her than anyone else. What she does acknowledge is that this is a world where secrets about sex lead to abuse of power.

"I want to be part of a church that holds me accountable, that asks me tough questions," she says. "I want to be part of a group of pastors that are honest about how they're forming healthy relationships. Being gay or straight doesn't matter. What matters is if you're in a loving relationship."

Jill Callison's column runs Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 331-2307.

You can find the original story here.

In the News: Bay Area Reporter

Lutherans receive LGBT pastors

Published 07/22/2010

by Matthew S. Bajko

m.bajko@ebar.com

	The Reverend Jeff Johnson

Twenty years ago two San Francisco Lutheran congregations ordained a lesbian couple and a gay man as pastors in defiance of their denomination's ban against non-celibate LGBT people becoming clergy.

The two churches' decision in 1990 set off a two-decade fight over the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's anti-gay policy. While the congregations were ultimately ejected from the ELCA for their decisions, 15 additional LGBT people became Lutheran pastors in the ensuing years through an extraordinary ordination process.

Although their local congregations considered them to be pastors, in the eyes of the national Lutheran Church they were deemed unofficial clergy. Church leaders subsequently disciplined many of the churches that ordained them.

Last year the national Lutheran Church revised its policies and dropped the requirement that LGBT pastors need to be celibate. This weekend six LGBT pastors ordained extraordinarily and two pastors who had been dismissed from the ELCA clergy roster will be received as full-fledged pastors in the church at a ceremony Sunday, July 25 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco.

"I think this is a very significant step for the church, which has been in this two-decade process of studying gay and lesbian people and talking about finding ways to include us. That process has now come to an end and the church has decided that LGBT people are to be welcomed fully as leaders and members of the church, so it is a huge step that the church has taken," said the Reverend Jeff Johnson, whose ordination 20 years ago as an assistant pastor at the city's First United Lutheran Church sparked the internal dialogue within the national Lutheran Church.

Johnson, 48, now lives in Oakland and is the pastor at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley. He will be taking part in the formal Rite of Reception service this weekend presided over by the Reverend Mark Holmerud, fourth bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod, which covers northern California and northern Nevada.

"I am deeply grateful to the [extraordinary] pastors, and the two pastors who were removed from the ELCA roster, for their grace and good will in being a part of this process," Holmerud said in a statement about the ceremony. He added that the actions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly "have brought us to a new day."

At the Sierra Pacific Synod assembly in May, Holmerud lifted a public censure and admonition placed on the Berkeley church in 2000 after it called Johnson as its pastor even though he was not on the ELCA clergy roster. At the meeting Johnson was also elected to serve on the regional synod's council pending his participation in this weekend's rite.

The other extraordinary Lutheran pastors taking part in the service are the Reverends Craig Minich, pastor of youth ministries at the Oakland-Berkeley Lutheran Youth Program; Dawn Roginski, pastor of parish programs at St. Francis Lutheran Church; Megan Rohrer, executive director of Welcome, which feeds the homeless in San Francisco; Paul R. Brenner at St. Francis Lutheran Church; and Sharon Stalkfleet with Lutheran Ministry to Nursing Homes in Oakland.

"I think you can't go through this kind of wilderness walking in the church and not be stronger because of it," said Rohrer, 30, who identifies as a transgender dyke and was extraordinarily ordained in 2006 by four San Francisco Lutheran churches. "It feels like coming out to your parents and having them react really poorly for a long time and then one day they change their mind."

The two pastors being reinstated this weekend are the Reverends Ross D. Merkel, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Oakland, and Steven P. Sabin, pastor of Christ Church Lutheran in San Francisco. In 1998 the ELCA removed Sabin from its clergy roster after he admitted to being in a committed, same-sex relationship while serving as pastor at Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Ames, Iowa.

"For two decades, many have been grieved and alienated by the ELCA's exclusion of gay and lesbian pastors blessed with loving spouses. I hope and pray that they can, like me, lay aside the hurts and take hope from the gracious power of God to renew and direct the church into evermore faithful and effective proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ," stated Sabin.

Retired Revered James DeLange, who was the senior pastor at St. Francis Lutheran Church in 1990, called this weekend's service a "vindication" for those who fought against the church's discriminatory policies and the beginning of the healing process for many Lutherans impacted by that struggle.

"For those of us who have been just staying with the struggle and have tried to work to try to change the policy this is a vindication of our efforts," said DeLange, who is straight and chairs the San Francisco Interfaith Council. "I am just glad I lived long enough to see the change of policy."

As for the lesbian couple his church ordained the same day as Johnson, the Reverends Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, DeLange said they now live in Minneapolis and are expected to have their own rite of reception sometime this fall.

Also this Sunday St. Francis will vote on whether to return to the ELCA. In a nearly unanimous vote, the 300 delegates at the Sierra Pacific Synod assembly this spring adopted a resolution inviting both First United and St. Francis to rejoin the national church. First United has yet to schedule a similar vote.

Johnson expressed mixed emotions about how long it has taken the Lutheran Church to fully embrace LGBT pastors.

"I think that the church's taking this step does not change the difficult things the church has done over the past two decades, so it is very important for people to tell the truth about the discrimination they have taken part in as we celebrate this momentous, wonderful happening," he said.

The formal Rite of Reception for the pastors is open to the public. It will begin at 4 p.m. Sunday, July 25 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, the corner of Franklin and O'Farrell Streets in San Francisco.

You'll find the original here.

ELCA News Release: Two Dismissed Pastors, Others Welcomed to ELCA Clergy Roster

ELCA News Service - May 25, 2010

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Two dismissed pastors have been welcomed back to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The candidacy committee of the ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod, Oakland, Calif., met May 24 and unanimously approved the reinstatement of the pastors to the ELCA clergy roster, and it also approved for reception six pastors from Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM).

According to the synod, a formal Rite of Reception for the pastors will be offered this summer.

The Rev. Ross D. Merkel, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Oakland, and the Rev. Steven P. Sabin, Christ Church Lutheran, San Francisco, have been approved for reinstatement.

In 1998 Sabin was removed from the ELCA clergy roster for being in a committed, same-sex relationship while serving as pastor at Lord of Life Lutheran Church, Ames, Iowa. His removal by an ELCA discipline committee drew national attention.

"I am relieved and happy that a long and painful episode in my relationship with my church family is ending. I look forward with hope to the restored partnership and opportunities for service that the actions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly and the Sierra Pacific Candidacy Committee have made possible," said Sabin.

"For two decades, many have been grieved and alienated by the ELCA's exclusion of gay and lesbian pastors blessed with loving spouses. I hope and pray that they can, like me, lay aside the hurts and take hope from the gracious power of God to renew and direct the church into evermore faithful and effective proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope that this will be the beginning of a new period of evangelical outreach for the ELCA aided by our new witness to the forgiveness and grace of God truly being for all people," said Sabin. "Like the psalmist, I can only observe with awe and gratitude: 'This is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.'"

ELM pastors approved for reception to the ELCA clergy roster are:
+ the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, pastor, University Lutheran Chapel of Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif.
+ the Rev. Craig Minich, pastor of youth ministries, Oakland-Berkeley Lutheran Youth Program
+ the Rev. Dawn Roginski, pastor of parish programs, St. Francis Lutheran Church, San Francisco
+ the Rev. Megan Rohrer, executive director, WELCOME, San Francisco
+ the Rev. Paul R. Brenner, St. Francis Lutheran Church, San Francisco
+ the Rev. Sharon Stalkfleet, Lutheran Ministry to Nursing Homes, Oakland.

ELM is an organization that credentials qualified candidates of "all sexual orientations and gender identities" for ordained ministry.

"Twenty years ago when I was ordained, we could dimly imagine that Lutherans would one day fully recognize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people," said Johnson in a May 24 ELM news release. "I'm very thankful for all who have helped to carry this struggle forward and for our church which has finally opened up to the new and exciting future God has in store for us," he said.

"I was very pleased by how the candidacy committee came together," said the Rev. Mark W. Holmerud, bishop, ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod. "This was a special meeting of the committee. We in the synod felt it was important to move forward with this process in a timely manner, so the committee agreed to this special meeting," he told the ELCA News Service.

"I am deeply grateful to the ELM pastors, and the two pastors who were removed from the ELCA roster, for their grace and good will in being a part of this process; to the members of the (Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary) faculty who made arrangements to be at this meeting, and to the candidacy committee for their faithful deliberations which have made it possible for these pastors to be brought onto the roster of the ELCA," said Holmerud.

"One of the things that was lived out yesterday was the sense that we were not examining the candidates but rather hearing stories of ministries from pastors who were already actively carrying out the gospel mission. That set the tenor of the meeting," said the Rev. Nancy Feniuk Nelson, bishop's associate, ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod.

"This was by no means an examination. It was a sharing about ministry and a celebration of ministry. We had a worship service that included the former ELM candidacy committee, the present ELCA candidacy committee, the ELM pastors and faculty from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, including the seminary president, the Rev. Phyllis B. Anderson. It was a very moving worship. Bishop Mark and I did the first interviews of all the candidates, and I became profoundly aware of how grateful I am to be a part of this process in this time of the church," Nelson told the ELCA News Service.

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary is one of eight ELCA seminaries.
Earlier this month at the synod assembly Holmerud lifted a public censure and admonition placed on University Lutheran Chapel of Berkeley in 2000 for calling the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, who was not a member of the ELCA clergy roster. Johnson was also elected at the assembly to the serve on the ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod Council.

In a May 6 letter to the congregation, Holmerud said by "lifting this censure, the members of the congregation of University Lutheran are hereby welcome into full participation in the mission and ministry of the Sierra Pacific Synod" and the ELCA.

Holmerud wrote that the actions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly "have brought us to a new day."

The 2009 assembly called for revisions to ministry policy documents, making it possible for Lutherans in committed, publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA clergy and professional lay leaders. The ELCA Church Council adopted the revisions to ministry policy documents April 10.

"This is another important day for so many in the church," said Amalia Vagts, ELM executive director. "It is wonderful to have leaders like Bishop Mark Holmerud and Bishop's Associate Nancy Feniuk Nelson and the members of the Sierra Pacific candidacy committee demonstrating holy hospitality to all," she said.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director
(773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
Twitter: http://twitter.com/elcanews

NY Times: Lutheran Group Eases Limits on Gay Clergy

By MICHAEL LUO and CHRISTINA CAPECCHI
Published: August 21, 2009 in the New York Times

After an emotional debate over the authority of Scripture and the limits of biblical inclusiveness, leaders of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination voted Friday to allow gay men and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as members of the clergy.

The vote made the denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the latest mainline Protestant church to permit such ordinations, contributing to a halting sense of momentum on the issue within liberal Protestantism.

By a vote of 559 to 451, delegates to the denomination’s national assembly in Minneapolis approved a resolution declaring that the church would find a way for people in “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships” to serve as official ministers. (The church already allows celibate gay men and lesbians to become members of the clergy.)

Just before the vote, the Rev. Mark Hanson, the church’s presiding bishop, led the packed convention center in prayer. When the two bar graphs signaling the vote’s outcome popped up on the hall’s big screens seconds later, there were only a few quiet gasps, as delegates had been asked to avoid making an audible scene. But around the convention hall, clusters of men and women hugged one other and wept.

“To be able to be a full member of the church is really a lifelong dream,” said the Rev. Megan Rohrer of San Francisco, who is in a committed same-sex relationship and serves in three Lutheran congregations but is not officially on the church’s roster of clergy members. “I don’t have to have an asterisk next to my name anymore.”

But the passage of the resolution now raises questions about the future of the denomination, which has 4.6 million members but has seen its ranks steadily dwindle, and whether it will see an exodus of its more conservative followers or experience some sort of schism.

“I think we have stepped beyond what the word of God allows,” said the Rev. Rebecca M. M. Heber of Heathrow, Fla., who said she was going to reconsider her membership.

Conservative dissenters said they saw various options, including leaving for another Lutheran denomination or creating their own unified body.

A contingent of 400 conservative congregations that make up a group that calls itself Lutheran Core is to meet in September. Leaders of the group said their plans were not to split from the Evangelical Lutheran Church but to try to protect its “true tenets” from within.

Among so-called “mainline” Protestant denominations, distinguishable theologically from their more conservative, evangelical Protestant counterparts, both the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ already allow gay clergy members.

The Episcopal Church has endured the most visible public flashpoints over homosexuality, grappling in particular in the last few years with the consecration of gay bishops. It affirmed last month, however, that “any ordained ministry” was open to gay men and lesbians.

Earlier this year the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) rejected a measure that would have opened the door for gay ordination, but the margin was narrower than in a similar vote in 2001. The United Methodist Church voted not to change its stance barring noncelibate homosexuals from ministry last year, after an emotional debate at its general conference.

But the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s heavily Midwestern membership and the fact that it is generally seen as falling squarely in the middle of the theological milieu of mainline Protestantism imbued Friday’s vote with added significance, religion scholars said.

Wendy Cadge, a sociology professor at Brandeis University who has studied Evangelical Lutheran churches grappling with the issue, said, “It does show, to the extent that any mainline denominations are moving, I think they’re moving slowly toward a more progressive direction.”

Describing the context of Friday’s vote, several religion experts likened it to the court decision last year in Iowa legalizing same-sex marriage.

“In the same sense that the Iowa court decision might have opened people’s eyes, causing them to say, ‘Iowa? What? Where?’” said Laura Olson, a professor of political science at Clemson University who has studied mainline Protestantism. “The E.L.C.A. isn’t necessarily quite as surprising in the religious sense, but the message it’s sending is, yes, not only are more Americans from a religious perspective getting behind gay rights, but these folks are not just quote unquote coastal liberals.”

The denomination has struggled with the issue almost since its founding in the late 1980s with the merger of three other Lutheran denominations.

In 2001, the church convened a committee to study the issue. It eventually recommended guidelines for a denominational vote. In 2005, however, delegates voted not to change its policies.

On Friday, delegates juggled raw emotion, fatigue and opposing interpretations of Scripture.

Before the vote but sensing its outcome, the Rev. Timothy Housholder of Cottage Grove, Minn., introduced himself as a rostered pastor in the church, “at least for a few more hours,” implying that he would leave the denomination and eliciting a gasp from some audience members.

“Here I stand, broken and mournful, because of this assembly and her actions,” Mr. Housholder said.

The Rev. Mark Lepper of Belle Plaine, Minn., called for the inclusion of gay clergy members, saying, “Let’s stop leaving people behind and let’s be the family God is calling us to be.”

Michael Luo reported from New York, and Christina Capecchi from Minneapolis.

» A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2009, on page A9 of the New York edition.

SF Chronicle: Lutherans Expel Two S.F. Groups

Lutherans Expel Two S.F. Groups
Congregations refused to defrock 3 gays
Monday, January 1, 1996 · Page A13

©1996 San Francisco Chronicle




Dan Levy, Chronicle Staff Writer

Two small San Francisco congregations that defied the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America by ordaining sexually active lesbians and a gay man worshiped for the last time yesterday as members of the national denomination.

St. Francis Lutheran Church on Church Street and First United Lutheran Church on Geary Boulevard were packed for the Eucharist and morning service, the last to be held as part of the 5.3 million- member denomination.

In 1990, an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America disciplinary committee suspended the churches for ordaining the Revs. Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart and Jeff Johnson, who are all graduates of official Lutheran seminaries but are not accepted as pastors because they refuse to take vows of sexual abstinence.
The committee ruled that the San Francisco churches would be expelled if the ordinations were not rescinded by yesterday. Under church policy, gays and lesbians can be ordained but are not allowed to be in same-sex relationships. There are no restrictions for heterosexual pastors.

Johnson, pastor at First United, was upbeat but a bit sardonic yesterday. He said the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the other main Lutheran denomination, is more conservative than the one that will not accept him.

``They don't even recognize gay and lesbian'' as a normal orientation, Johnson said. ``At least in this one, we're not sick, just excluded.''
Bishop praises church
Despite the expulsion, congregants said they are proud that the churches have stood by their gay pastors. Bishop Robert Mattheis of the Sierra Pacific Synod, which represents 220 congregations in Northern California and Northern Nevada, presided over the service at St. Francis and praised the church for being a pioneer.

``I grieve (the expulsion), but I remain hopeful that God is a God of the future,'' Mattheis said after the service.

James DeLange, senior pastor at St. Francis, where Zillhart and Frost serve, said no congregants have left his church as a result of the expulsion. Other Lutheran congregations in San Francisco have invited members of the two dissident churches to join if they want to remain a part of the national denomination.

St. Francis was founded over 100 years ago by Scandinavian immigrants, and since 1905 has been located on Church Street in the Castro district. First United was established in 1888 as San Francisco's first English-speaking Lutheran church.

After the morning service at St. Francis yesterday, congregants enjoyed refreshments and socialized as if it was just another Sunday.

``We're pretty well established in the community, and we're a strong and vital congregation,'' DeLange said. ``And I know there is a lot of support for us outside this church.''

But there were more visitors than usual, including Kris Johnson, an Upper Market resident who came to the service as a show of support for a gay friend.

``I came because I know about the work of this church,'' she said. ``I can't bear the thought of anybody being cut off for something they want or need.''

SF Examiner: Those People at That Church

Those People at That Church
San Francisco Examiner, 16 Feb 1995

ROB MORSE
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Thursday, Feb. 16, 1995

SOME jokers in the congregation call it Our Lady of Safeway, for its proximity to the supermarket across Church Street. Other folks don't notice the dark brick church at all as they get off the streetcar, even though it's in the middle of "the traffic of life," as parishioner Jack Lundin puts it.

Next time you jump off the J-Church at the Safeway take a look at St. Francis Lutheran Church. San Francisco's best is represented by "those people at that church," as the parishioners have called themselves in their new cookbook (The "Those People at That Church Cookbook").

The real San Francisco is a lot of things, but sometimes we are distracted from the real San Francisco by the antics of elected officials and unelected hate-mongers on the radio.

The spirit of San Francisco, in these plague years, is expressed by this scene of the extended Christian family at St. Francis Lutheran: Frail young men are escorted to the altar by strong older women, and in turn healthy young men escort frail older women to the altar.

Only in this city will you see such a communion.

Unlike most American churches, St. Francis Lutheran's young male parishioners are dying faster than older female parishioners. AIDS is a central issue in this church, as it is in all of San Francisco. "We don't have any choice but to stay here and keep slugging it out," said pastor James DeLange. "It's our calling."

The remarkable thing is that his church has continued to grow, drawing parishioners from all walks of life, ages and groups. Since the 1960s, the average Sunday attendance has gone from 20 to 100. In terms of giving (the monetary kind), St. Francis Lutheran is in the top 10 per capita in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), according to pastor Ruth Frost.

Unfortunately, the ELCA does not approve of St. Francis Lutheran having appointed as pastors Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, an openly lesbian couple, and Jeff Johnson, an openly gay man. At the end of this year, the Lutheran Church will expel St. Francis Lutheran.

The main effect so far has been that the number of parishioners has grown and contributions have doubled. Perhaps this is because, as DeLange puts it, "we try to be what someone has called 'the church that oughta be.' "

In the margins of the church's cookbook (and a very good cookbook it is) are parishioners' notes. Marti Lundin, a grandmother and retired educator, wrote: "We chose to join St. Francis Lutheran in order to be in a church where we can actually work on social issues rather than argue with people over whether we can even deal with the issues."

Those issues have included offering sanctuary to Salvadoran refugees during that country's civil war, as well as taking up the cause of gay and lesbian rights. When William Sloane Coffin delivered a sermon to San Francisco Lutherans three weeks ago, he titled it, "Liberty to the Captives and Good Tidings to the Afflicted."

In essence, that's the spirit of St. Francis Lutheran. It's also the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of this town, who said: "Where there is hatred, let me sow love."

Nowadays hatred is cultivated to reap ratings. That's in the unreal world of mass media, not in the real world of San Francisco spirituality.

Spirituality can be very real. That's one thing conservative Christians definitely have right.

It's as real as 37 little children, most from poor families, playing at the Friends of St. Francis Child Care Center. The church opened the center, which is now operated independently but with the church's spirit. The well-equipped playground lists a series of rules, first of which is "Play!" The second rule recognizes the realities of children's impulses: "Shovels are for digging."

The life of the spirit, of course, also is found in food. "Our congregation is growing in more than one way," says pastor DeLange, patting his stomach. His epilogue to the church's cookbook reminds us that that the Bible contains a lot of good food stories, starting with one in a garden.

At noon Wednesday, male parishioners had taken over St. Francis Lutheran's kitchen to cook ham for the weekly dinner for seniors. The seniors were doing before-dinner exercises with a 16-month-old child dancing in their midst. That child was Joy Noelle Hart, daughter of the church's lesbian pastors, Frost and Zillhart.

Noelle is the church's child, too. A 7-year-old in the congregation once asked Zillhart if she was Noelle's mom. "Yes, and so is Ruth," she said. The 7-year-old said that couldn't be. Then the girl caught on. "Oh, you're lesbians," she said, and went on to something else.

Too bad adults aren't always as sensible.


©Thursday, Feb. 16, 1995 San Francisco Examiner, All Rights Reserved

NY Times: Lutherans Punish 2 Churches for Gay Ordinations

New York Times, 19 July 1990
Lutherans Punish 2 Churches for Gay Ordinations
By JANE GROSS

SAN FRANCISCO, July 18 -- After an extraordinary public hearing, thought to be the first by a church on the issue of ordaining homosexuals, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America suspended two congregations today for ordaining an openly gay men and two lesbians.

The five-year suspensions, which fall short of the expulsions that were possible, come at a time when virtually all mainstream denominations are wrestling with homosexual ordination. The decision of the disciplinary committee, characterized anguish at the need to impose punishment, reflects that struggle.

The committee chastised the national church for having "ignored homosexual people and their story of faith," urged the two congregations "to continue to be a voice a a witness" and begged the church to reconsider its policy over the next five years.

If church policy remains the same and if the two congregations remain in violation of it five years from now, they will be expelled, the committee said. That decision drew a written dissent from 5 of the panel's 14 members.
Practical Impact is Limited

Until 1995, then, the suspensions have little practical impact on the two congregations, where the gay pastors wil continue their ministry without recognition from the national church.

The three ministers, Jeff Johnson at First United Lutheran Church and Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart at St. Francis Lutheran Church, were ordained last winter, providing the first real crisis for the 5.3-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The church, the fourth-largest denomination in the United States, was created in 1988 by the merger of three Lutheran groups.

Like many denominations, the three groups had tolerated gay clergy as long as they were silent, or at least oblique, about their sexuality. And like many others before, him, Mr. Johnson had been certified for the ministry by a bishop who knew of his sexual preference but chose not to make it an issue.

But the merged church took a more explicit approach, asking Mr. Johnson to take a pledge of lifelong celibacy and withdrawing his certification by the predecessor church when he would not. In response, a number of Bay Area Lutheran clergy banded together to press the issue by finding a congregation that would risk expulsion from the church by ordaining Mr. Johnson and by recruiting a lesbian candidate for another congregation.
Plea for Reconsideration

The national and regional bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America urged the group to reconsider. But First United and St. Francis chose to go forward with the renegade ordinations on last Jan. 20.

At the three-day hearing here, witnesses for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America argued that the church constitution had been violated when the congregations had ordained candidates not on the church's "call roster," which excludes "practicing" homosexuals. The two congregations acknowledged that they had technically violated the constitution, but argued that they were fostering the higher goal of the church to be an "inclusive fellowship."

The church called only four witnesses, including Bishop Lyle Miller of the Sierra Pacific Synod, Mr. Johnson's childhood pastor and longtime friend, who had with great ambivalence filed the charges against the two congregations. The four witnesses, all church officials, spoke of the chaos implicit in permitting congregations to ordain unauthorized candidates.

The two congregations called about 30 witnesses. Among them were pastors who described the routine practice of ordaining homosexuals as long as they disguised their sexuality, and gay men and women who said they had left the church because it insisted on such silence.
Testimony of Anguish

Mr. Johnson, Ms. Frost and Ms. Zillhart were among the witnesses. They described the process of publicly ackknowledging their homosexuality to church officials, being spurned and then finding congregations willing to let them work openly. ALso testifying were the senior pastors of the two accused congregations, the Rev. James DeLange of St. Francis, where half the 130 members are openly homosexual, and the Rev. John Frykman of First United, where not of the 100 members except Mr. Johnson is openly gay.

Both Mr. DeLange and Mr. Frykman said their congregations had acted in the best tradition of the Lutheran Church, which was born in a 16th Century act of protest. They also commended the disciplinary committee for agreeing to an extended airing of the issue, rather than hewing to the consitutional violation, which would have been resolved in minutes.

NY Times: Milestone in Church: Gay Clergy ordained

New York Times, 22 Jan 1990
Milestone in Church: Gay Clergy ordained
By JANE GROSS

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 21 -- When Jeff Johnson was a boy, he prayed in the Rev. Lyle Miller's church and went camping with the pastor's children. When Mr. Johnson entered the seminary, his spiritual mentor was as proud as if he were family.

Today, at First United Lutheran Church here, Jeff Johnson celebrated the eucharist for the first time as a newly ordained minister, but Mr. Miller was not there to watch.

Mr. Johnson is an open gay man, who, along with two lesbians, was ordained here Saturday in defiance of church rules. This morning the two lesbians, Phyllis Zillhart and Ruth Frost, presided at the Sunday service and baptized a baby at St. Francis Lutheran Church.

Lyle Miller is the bishop of the regional synod, the man who denied Mr. Johnson and the others ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and who is expected to discipline the two churches where they will serve.

The bishop guessed that neither he nor Mr. Johnson was "sleeping very well" these days. "This changes and strains our relationship," Mr. Miller said. "But it helps people see that we who function as bishops are not cold bureaucrats who make decisions without regard to human beings."

Mr. Johnson, a graduate of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, agreed that it was painful to challenge someone so dear to him. "But in the long run, it might be beneficial," he said. "We are not able to vilify each other or dismiss each other. We are forced to struggle with each other on a family level."

The struggle over gay ordinations, going on in virtually all mainstream denominations, is the most volatile issue facing the newly merged 5.3-million-member Lutheran Church. Mr. Johnson was certified for ordination just before the 1988 joining of three smaller denominations, which often accepted gay ministers as long as they were quiet about it.

But the merged church took a more explicit approach, asking Mr. Johnson to pledge celibacy and withdrawing his certification when he would not. In response, a group of Bay Area clergy members banded together to press the issue, find a church willing to risk expulsion by calling Mr. Johnson to be ordained, and recruit a lesbian candidate at the same time.

After a national search, they chose Ms. Zillhart and Ms. Frost, both graduates of the Luther Northwestern Seminary in St. Paul, who have lived together for five years. The two women were certified for ordination but later withdrew so they could live openly as a gay couple.

The two churches that hired the gay ministers came to their decisions by very different routes. Half the congregants at St. Francis are gay and consider it their mission to have a gay minister, said the pastor, the Rev. James DeLange. At First United Lutheran, which has no openly gay members, the pastor, the Rev. John Frykman, called it "a justice issue."

On Saturday, robed in white, the three candidates were welcomes into the church by about 40 Lutheran ministers, who conducted the ordination rites in place of the bishop. The sermon, a militant call for gay men and women to lead "unapologetic" lives, was delivered by the Rev. Carter Heyward, a lesbian who is a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and who was ordained in an unauthorized ceremony before the church accepted women as ministers.

Lutheran officials say they are sympathetic to those excluded from the ministry and have embarked on a study of sexuality and church policy. But they say the explicit challenge by the San Francisco churches is more likely to polarize the debate than to advance it.

The two churches take exception. "They are asking these people to stay ashamed while the church gets it act together," Mr. DeLange said. "For the people living this every day, this is not a theoretical issue, not something to be endlessly debated."

The three new ministers said their challenge had already succeeded by forcing the church to grpple with an issue it would rather defer. They said they expected to be punished and their ordinations invalidated, at least temporarily.

"It may not be this ministry; it may not be Ruth, Jeff and Phyllis," said Ms. Frost, a third-generation Lutheran pastor, whose late father was an esteemed theologian. "But if it is not Ruth, Jeff and Phyllis now, it will be Susan and Peter and whoever later on, because this will happen. This will come to pass."