1st transgender bishop installed .. SAN FRANCISCO (AP)

Evangelical Lutheran church installs 1st transgender bishop
today



SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is set to install its first openly transgender bishop on Saturday.
The Rev. Megan Rohrer will lead one of the church’s 65 synods, overseeing nearly 200 congregations in Northern California and northern Nevada, following the installation service at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

Rohrer was elected in May to serve a six-year term as bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod after its current bishop announced his retirement.
“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,” Rohrer said in a statement. “My installation will celebrate all that is possible when we trust God to shepherd us forward.”

Rohrer, who uses the pronoun “they,” previously served as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in San Francisco and a chaplain coordinator for the city’s police department, and also helped minister to the city’s homeless and LGTBQ community. They studied religion at Augustana University in their hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, before moving to California to pursue master and doctoral degrees at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley.

Rohrer became one of seven LGBTQ pastors accepted by the progressive Evangelical Lutheran church in 2010 after it allowed ordination of pastors in same-sex relationships. Rohrer is married and has two children.

The church is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States with about 3.3 million members.


~Evangelical Lutheran church installs 1st transgender bishop (msn.com)

Hello @Desdichado, I certainly hope you are wrong about the more conservative branches of the Lutheran Church!! I left my former denomination, the PCUSA (Presbyterian Church, USA), back in the 90's because it was clear that, sadly, there was no stopping it from heading where it has now gone

The thing is, I didn't feel it so much in my local church because it was probably the most conservative church left in the PCUSA. Of course, just five miles away from us was a PCUSA church that was probably the (or at least among the) most liberal churches in the denomination at that time (the 90's) as they were, for instance, ordaining gay ministers, marrying gay couples (under the table, so to speak), and leading protests against the crisis pregnancy center across the street from them, because the center was Pro-Life. There were, in fact, a number of days when my local PCUSA church was protesting just two blocks away outside of the Planned Parenthood center, for Pro-Life, while the other, local PCUSA church was protesting for abortion rights outside our Crisis Pregnancy Center

So, what a single church does within a denomination may or may not be representative of the whole. Just FYI, my old PCUSA church tried to remain in the denomination as a conservative voice, but they eventually had to leave it and are now part of a more conservative Presbyterian denomination.

Again, I hope you are wrong about the LCMS and the other, conservative Lutheran denominations.

God bless you!

~Deut

I wish I was wrong. I really do. I have a heart for the old mainline denominations because of their patrimony. Alas. Good organizations become corrupt. It's the way of things. Moral entropy.

Hello @Icedaisey and @Roughsoul1991, these are frightening times to be sure The Lord Jesus acted in a very unusual manner (for Him anyway) toward the money changers in the Temple (because they made the Temple into a den of thieves). That being the case, I wonder how He would react to the kinds of (what seem to be FAR worse) things that are going on in our churches today if He was still living among us

~Deut

So much for the Catholic Church being Christian, and believers in the Gospel of Jesus, huh?

On August 17, 1980, a United Church of Canada task force released In God's Image, its report on sexual ethics which recommended the admission of homosexuals into the ministry and tolerance of premarital sex. Although the report accepted abortion under qualified circumstances, it rejected abortion on demand.

With union talks with the Anglicans already at end, talks with the Disciples of Christ also ended in 1985.

In 1988, the commissioners passed a statement called Membership, Ministry and Human Sexuality that stated "all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, who profess their faith in Jesus Christ are welcome to be or become members of The United Church of Canada" and that "all members of the United Church are eligible to be considered for ordered ministry." Taken together, these two statements opened the door for openly gay men and women to join the ministry.

On May 24, 1992, Tim Stevenson was the first openly gay minister ordained by the United Church of Canada.

In 1997, the Reverend Bill Phipps was elected Moderator at the 36th General Council. Controversy again descended on the church when later the same year, Phipps stated in an interview that 'I don't believe Jesus was God' and that he did not believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead.

In 2005, the church urged the Canadian Parliament to vote in favor of same-sex marriage legislation; after the legislation had been passed, the church urged the government not to reopen the issue.

In 2012, the 41st General Council elected Gary Paterson as the first openly gay Moderator.

In 2015, a debate emerged regarding whether or not United Church minister Gretta Vosper, an avowed atheist, was suitable for ministry. The United Church instituted an ecclesiastical hearing that could have led to her dismissal as minister. However, in 2018, Vosper and Toronto Conference reached a settlement in which all outstanding matters were resolved. Vosper continues to serve at West Hill United Church.

The United Church of Canada approved a historic apology to LGBT people and elected
its first openly lesbian moderator at its triennial general council on Aug 14, 2015.

My apologies, as in searching out material for the above information, I lost the source page for the majority of it.

I admire the Lutheran denomination for its history and owe a debt to a small Lutheran church for the community it provided me two years ago, but even the more conservative wings of the denomination are compromised.

My LCMS church had two ministers.

The first was a former minister who still had some clout. He got himself defrocked when he left his wife for some trollop, but still hung around in an ad hoc capacity. The congregation knew the circumstances were seedy. He would preach from time to time.

The second, official minister was a liberal who hid his leftism behind a paper-thin non-partisanship. Politics as such wasn't a huge priority for him, but he was pretty smart in how he used circumstances to carry the leftist ball downfield so-to speak. There was a super cringey occasion where this black lady showed up and the CRT bromides just spewed from his mouth. She was visibly uncomfortable.

I say this with some sadness as I think he was vigilant in keeping most of his theological opinions biblically grounded. But if these two are representative of the most conservative major Lutheran denomination, it's no surprise the more liberal branches are promoting trannies.