Evangelical Church, based in Sacramento (California) elects first transgender bishop and the name of the Rev. Megan Rohrer is marked as the Rev.
Evangelical Lutheran Church elects first transgender bishop
The Rev. Megan Rohrer, a San Francisco pastor, was elected bishop of the Pacific Sierra Synod of the Protestant Lutheran Church in America.
A California Lutheran pastor has become the first transgender bishop of a major American Christian denomination.
The Rev. Megan Rohrer, was elected bishop of the Pacific Sierra Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Based in Sacramento, California, the assembly encompasses 36,000 members in 180 congregations in central California, northern California and northern Nevada.
“If we say all are welcome, all are welcome,” Eaton said in a statement.
“We believe the Spirit has given everyone gifts to build up the body of Christ.” He continued.
Rohrer was elected in the fifth choice, thereby edging out by only two votes the Rev.
Jeff R. Johnson, pastor of the Lutheran Chapel at UC Berkeley.
In 2006, Rohrer who uses their pronouns they/them was the first transgender person ordained in the ELCA.
In 2014, he became the denomination’s first trans pastor when he was called to Grace Lutheran.
Rohrer, 41, currently lives in the Bay Area with his wife, Laurel, and their children McKayla, 7, and Dominique, 8.
They were born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where religion is a big part of family life: both her mother and grandmother are Lutheran, and she had to be baptized at just a few weeks old.
As her queer identity began to solidify, fractures emerged: Rohrer was kicked out of a church youth group when she came out.
“That was a very tangible time in American history, especially for LGBTQ people.”
“For me those were some of the most intense moments as I experienced people questioning whether or not God could love me.”
“In religion classes at Augustana University, a private Lutheran college in Sioux Falls, classmates would sing hymns” to get rid of my gay demons,” Rohrer Kalw said.
But instead of walking away from his faith, Rohrer leaned into it. Credit goes to the support he received from faculty and clergy at Augustana.
“I had a campus pastor who, in the midst of the hardest things in my life, let me know that God had no problem with me being LGBTQ,” Rohrer said.
