For the first time in its history, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has installed an openly-transgender bishop.
Rev. Megan Rohrer addressed part of their new congregation when they were installed Saturday.
“My call is ... to be up to the same messy, loving things I was up to before,” Rohrer said at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. “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.”
Related
Rohrer will oversee almost 200 congregations in the northern parts of California and Nevada that make up one of the church’s 65 synods. They move into the role 11 years after first being ordained when the church opened its ranks to allow LGBTQ pastors in 2010.
Since then, Rohrer has served as both a pastor in San Francisco and a chaplain coordinator for the SFPD.
“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.”