Evangelical Lutheran Church Installs First Openly Transgender Bishop

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America put in its first overtly transgender bishop in a service held in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral on Saturday.

The Rev. Megan Rohrer will lead one of many church’s 65 synods, overseeing practically 200 congregations in Northern California and northern Nevada.

“My call is … to be up to the same messy, loving things I was up to before,” Rohrer advised worshippers. “But mostly, if you’ll let me, and I think you will, my hope is to love you and beyond that, to love what you love.”

Rohrer was elected in May to serve a six-year time period as bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod after its present bishop introduced 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 mentioned in an announcement. “My installation will celebrate all that is possible when we trust God to shepherd us forward.”

Rohrer, who makes use of the pronoun “they,” beforehand served as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in San Francisco and a chaplain coordinator for town’s police division, and likewise helped minister to town’s homeless and LGTBQ neighborhood. They studied faith at Augustana University of their hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, earlier than transferring to California to pursue grasp and doctoral levels on the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley.

Rohrer turned considered 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 youngsters.

The church is among the largest Christian denominations within the United States with about 3.3 million members.

This story has been up to date to appropriate the title of the church. It is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, not of America.

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