As new students wandered onto the campus of Concordia Seminary last September, they were joined by another group of theological rookies — mostly midcareer types — joining the school’s program that allows students to train for the ministry online.

As the consultants, electricians, farmers and entrepreneurs in the Specific Ministry Pastor Program met up before reconnecting online from hundreds or thousands of miles away in the coming weeks, one student’s story truly rocked.

David Ellefson was an honest-to-God founding member of the legendary thrash metal band Megadeth.

Ellefson’s studies at Concordia illustrate why distance-learning seminary programs are increasingly popular nationwide as the convenience of online education brings new candidates to divinity schools who don’t have to uproot their lives to attend.

But for Ellefson, his new quest for the ministry is also about a peculiar foray through the apparent contradictions of rock and religion that began in his childhood.

Ellefson grew up in the church. Each Sunday, his family drove from their farm in southwest Minnesota to Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, where David attended Sunday school and was confirmed at age 16. His mother sang in the choir; his father was active on the building committee.

Just a few years after his confirmation in the summer of 1983, Ellefson moved to Los Angeles. Within a week, he had formed a band and named it Megadeth for the unit of measurement equal to the death of 1 million people by nuclear explosion.

Soon, he was playing bass on stage in front of thousands of heavy metal fans in New York with other bands like Metallica and Slayer. In 1985, Megadeth released its first album, “Killing Is My Business … And Business Is Good!”

In the 1980s and 1990s, Megadeth gained a reputation for an intelligent take on heavy metal, earning several Grammy Award nominations, and was known for its album covers, many of which depicted a character named Vic Rattlehead, a skeleton whose eyes, ears and mouth were fused closed with metal.

But by the time Ellefson was 25, the rock star lifestyle had caught up to him. In a 12-step recovery program, he was reintroduced to his faith and embraced it. He moved to Arizona, married and had children. He eventually landed at Shepherd of the Desert Lutheran Church, a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod congregation in Scottsdale.

“I came from a good family, not a broken home,” said Ellefson, 47. “That became a model for me, and I saw church at (the) center of it.”

The Rev. Jon Bjorgaard, pastor of Shepherd of the Desert, asked Ellefson to start a contemporary worship service. Ellefson began to use lyrics from the Old Testament as a springboard for song writing, penning praise music and worship songs with a soft-rock hook.

“For a Christmas service, I remixed some classics, not quite in a Megadeth fashion, but in a pretty heavy rock fashion,” Ellefson said.

Combining his musical abilities and his faith led Ellefson to a deeper exploration of Christianity, he said. And it led him to start a new music ministry within the walls of Shepherd of the Desert.

He called it MEGA Life, partially a play on Megadeth. But it’s also a reference to a verse from the Gospel of John: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

MEGA Life became so popular that Shepherd of the Desert bought a new space for the ministry. Last year, Bjorgaard asked Ellefson and MEGA Life director Jeremy DaPena to enroll in Concordia’s Specific Ministry Pastor Program.

“Most people want to become a rock star,” Bjorgaard said. “David’s a rock star who wants to become a pastor.”

After two years at Concordia, Ellefson will be eligible for ordination, something he hopes will happen. “People take you more seriously when you’ve gone through the proper training to be able to help them,” he said.

David Wollenburg, director of Concordia’s distance learning, said more than 100 students are enrolled in the program, which is limited to students who have been sponsored by someone already working in the ministry. Classes include “Lutheran Distinctions,” “Preaching I & II,” “Introduction to Worship” and “Scripture and Faith.”

Wollenburg said students are as young as 35 and as old as late 60s, and their interests are just as varied — from church planting to inner-city ministries. Students return to campus every so often for “residential retreats.”

The trend of distance learning at divinity schools “is definitely growing,” said Eliza Brown of the Association of Theological Schools, the accreditation body for U.S. seminaries. But there is some debate about its merits, she said.

“Some feel you can’t be adequately formed as a church leader unless you’re engaged in a residential program that has serious face-to-face formation components,” she said. Despite that concern, 124 seminaries accredited by the organization offer some form of distance education.

As Megadeth kicks off a new tour with Motorhead, Ellefson plans to tackle his studies during down time on the Megadeth tour bus with his laptop and some books. He’s under no illusion about how difficult it will be.

“This is going to be the acid test,” he said.

Classes begin each Monday, and on Tuesday nights, Ellefson and eight other students wired in from around the country sit in on a two-hour live session with a professor teaching from a Concordia classroom. Once a week, he meets with Bjorgaard to discuss that week’s work. Finally, late in the week, he uploads his homework for the professor to grade.

“It makes higher education possible for me,” he said. “As a guy my age, to be involved in any kind of higher learning is a great thing. And so far, it’s worked.”

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday (Jan. 11) unanimously threw its support behind a church school that fired a teacher, using a widely watched church-state case to bolster a legal doctrine that exempts religious institutions from some civil rights laws.

Religious groups heralded the ruling as a firm assertion of religious freedom that keeps personnel decisions about religious employees where they should be: within a church, synagogue, or mosque.

“The court hasn’t spoken this clearly on a church-state matter in almost 20 years,” said Rob Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who wrote an amicus brief on the case in support of the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School.

“This is bedrock,” Garnett continued. “All the justices came together to say if religious freedom means anything, it means governments can’t interfere with religious institutions’ decisions on who is going to be their minister or teacher.”

Those who advocate for the separation of church and state said the court has now set the bar far too high for employees of religious institutions who seek redress against discrimination.

“The really terrible thing about this decision is that if you fire someone and religion is just a pretext, it can’t be addressed by courts,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“It’s just a gigantic new exception, a new loophole to the civil rights law for religious groups that will not be shut in a very long time — if ever.”

The Hosanna-Tabor case revolved around Cheryl Perich, who had been elevated by the Lutheran church that ran the school to a “called teacher” position, one with some religious responsibilities. Though most of her duties were secular, Perich spent part of each day teaching religion and sometimes led chapel services.

Diagnosed with a sleep disorder, Perich took a leave of absence in 2004 and was replaced by another teacher. Cleared by her doctors to return to work, the church refused to reinstate her.

Perich filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, arguing that the school was hiding behind its religious protections to ignore the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The EEOC ruled for Perich, but she lost a lawsuit against the school in federal court in 2008. The school successfully argued that the doctrine of ministerial exception, which is well established in state courts, gave it broad hiring and firing powers over all religious employees, even if they engaged in nonreligious activities.

Lawyers for the school argued that the Lutheran tradition requires that disagreements within the church be settled within the church, and that Perich had flouted this requirement by going to court.

Perich appealed, and in 2010 the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor. The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, gave the final victory to the church, grounding the decision in the First Amendment’s guarantees of free exercise of religion, and a prohibition on government establishment of religion.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan filed concurring opinions.

“The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission,” Roberts wrote.

“The First Amendment has struck the balance for us,” Roberts continued. “The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.”

Said the Rev. Paul Undlin of Hosanna-Tabor, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod church that ran the now-closed school: “It is amazing when a church from Redford, Mich., stands up for its rights and ends up going all the way to the Supreme Court. Praise God for giving the justices the wisdom to uphold the religious freedom enshrined in our Constitution.”

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Lutheran churches in Indonesia have approved several steps to revitalize their commitment to fight the AIDS epidemic.

Two conferences on HIV/AIDS called “Embracing Life: Our Common Responsibility” were organized by LWF (Lutheran World Federation) Indonesia from 6-10 November. Sixty youth delegates and church leaders attended.

Among the steps they announced: setting up HIV/AIDS desks in each of Indonesia’s 12 Lutheran churches, including HIV/AIDS in the curriculum of theological colleges, confirmation classes and even Sunday schools and raising funds in congregations to support HIV campaigns and those infected with the virus.

Bishop Langsung Maruli Sitorus had urged youth at the conference “to break the roof of prejudice and stigma in the church to bring solace to the HIV infected.”

Youth delegates also suggested concrete steps like launching a youth communication network, youth forum to spread awareness on HIV/AIDS, collecting funds and even taking up preventive treatment and care for stigmatized HIV-infected people.

“I was scared about it (HIV/AIDS). Now I have the courage to embrace an HIV-infected person. Everybody in the church should be made aware of the stigma HIV carries,” Hesron Hanshen Sihombing, a theology student, told ENInews.

The Rev. Veikko Munyika, coordinator for the HIV and AIDS desk of the LWF, told ENInews that “it is extremely encouraging that the plan of action is specific and practical, challenging theological seminaries, church groups such as Sunday school boards, confirmation class committees, youth and adult leaders.” Munyika is a pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia.

Prior to the conference, only one of the 12 Lutheran churches in Indonesia had adopted an HIV/AIDS policy. According to a UNAIDS report in 2010, the HIV epidemic in Indonesia was among the fastest growing in Asia and that the figures could climb from 330,000 in 2009 to 500,000 by 2014 without increased prevention.

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Pope Benedict XVI’s recent words of praise for Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant reformation, has set abuzz speculation on the possible “rehabilitation” of the spiritual leader as the Lutherans’ 500th anniversary approaches.

Bishop Nikolaus Schneider, Germany’s top Protestant bishop, was so elated by the Pope’s words on Benedict that he told journalists that Luther had, in effect, been rehabilitated.

“Luther has experienced a de facto rehabilitation today through this appreciation of his work,” Schneider, who also heads the Evangelical Church in Germany, said, according to Reuters.

Schneider, who had just come from a private meeting with the pontiff, said, “We heard this very clearly from the mouth of the pope. What follows now formally is another question … but that’s not so important for me,” Reuters reported.

Exaggerated

Rev. Federico Lombardi, Vatican Spokesman, disagreed. “To say that would be exaggerated. What this is about is having deep faith and I think it emphasizes the commonalities we have in our love of faith,” Reuters reported.

With the pending celebration of the 500^th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses of 1517, some Protestants are hopeful Luther will not be viewed by Catholics as a heretic, but as a leading Christian theologian.

Erfurt’s Bishop Ilse Junkermann told Reuters, “It would be nice if they could declare him a doctor of the Church.”Erfurt’s Augustine Monastery is where Luther once served as a Catholic monk and later became a theologian.

Other Lutherans are irked at the thought that their founder should need to be “rehabilitated,” and argue that they do not need to have a stamp of approval from the Vatican.

Pope visits Luther’s monastery

When the Pope visited Germany, one of his stops was a historical visit to the Erfurt Augustine monastery where Luther was a monk. Thies Gundlach, a deputy of the German Lutheran Church told the AP, “Leaders from both sides of the church were quick to underline that the pontiff’s mere presence in the heartland of the Reformation was a key signal to how vastly relations have improved.”

Gundlach told the AP, “It must be recalled that the pope has come to this monastery in Erfurtas, a gesture that is an indication that he is fully aware of its meaning.”

Luther was ordained in Erfurt and later became a professor of theology. However, he began to dispute some teachings of the Church in 1517, sparking the Protestant Reformation which later became the Lutheran church.

This led Pope Leo X to excommunicate Luther in 1521 as he issued a decree where he said Luther was “the slave of a depraved mind,” and that his followers were a “pernicious and heretical sect.”

Things have changed in recent decades. Today, some Lutherans and Catholics are seeking the formation of a joint commission to examine Luther’s excommunication and the Reformation.

First pope to read Luther

Benedict, who is German, is the first pope who has read the writings of Luther and has expressed admiration for Luther’s focus on Jesus, his highlighting of the Bible, and deep faith.

When Benedict was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he played a leading role in navigating the 1999 Catholic-Lutheran accord which reached agreements on some theological issues and enhanced relations between the two faiths.

Benedict, during an ecumenical service that was held in the chapel of the Augustine monastery, praised Luther’s “deep passion and driving force” in his beliefs, even though he did not outline any concrete plan on how to better unify Christians – to the disappointment of some.

There still remain obstacles to a more congenial accord, even though Schneider said the Lutherans would be amenable to meeting the Catholic Church halfway by not insisting that Luther is presented as “an untouchable hero who never did anything wrong,” Reuters reported.

On the side of the Vatican there is a traditional hesitation to officially undo the work of a previous pontiff. However, some Vatican officials suggest that there is no need to rehabilitate Luther because upon his death, the ban had expired.

Cardinal Edward Cassidy, a top 1999Vatican ecumenical official had a different suggestion saying, “One cannot do anything for Martin Luther now because Martin Luther, wherever he is, is not worried about these condemnations,” Reuters said.

During the ecumenical service, Schneider said to the pontiff, “It is time to take real steps for reconciliation,” and suggested that Catholics celebrate alongside Protestants during the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation which will take place in 2017.

Schneider told Reuters that he has yet to invite Benedict personally to the 2017 Lutheran commemorations. “I have not reached that point, but I invited [Benedict] to take a different view of our celebration as one of the power of the Gospel and the theology of God.”

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The split continues to widen in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over the ordination of gays who are in committed relationships.

According to The Gazette, the ELCA still remains strong, in that out of 10,000 churches in the U.S., only 291 have left as of 2009 to join other, more conservative Lutheran denominations.

However, while the number of those who have left ELCA remain small overall, what is significant is the speed at which groups which leave, manage to reorganize–and their tremendous rate of growth outside of ELCA, according to The Gazette.

Last August, defectors from ELCA formed the North American Lutheran Church, just one year after ELCA decided in a General Assembly to permit homosexuals in committed relationships to become ordained clergy, The Gazette said.

What’s more, the speed of growth of NALC is unprecedented. When it was launched it had 18 churches in its group, including St. Luke’s Lutheran Church. Within four months, the number has more than tripled with a total of 70 churches, and 17 more undergoing the process to join, The Gazette reported.

This is incredibly quick, considering that it took six years for former Episcopalians to create the Anglican Church in North America after a gay Episcopal bishop was elected in 2003, according to The Gazette.

Paull Spring, former bishop of ELCA’s Northwestern Pennsylvania Synod and current head of NALC said the speed of their reorganization was the result of a consultation he had with Episcopal Church dissenters, The Pulpit reported.

Spring told The Pulpit, “They felt they didn’t move as fast and lost lay supporters. So we wanted to move fast.” He added that NALC and ELCA do not communicate saying, “They don’t respond, don’t talk.”

Other churches that have undergone great internal friction over the issue of the ordination of gays are The Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church and the American Baptist Church USA, The Gazette said.

Beyond the issue of sexual orientation

David Wendel, pastor of St. Luke’s Lutheran and one of 17 regional deans of NALC (charged with Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah) said that the issue is beyond that of sexual orientation.

Wendel told The Pulpit, “The sexuality issue is not really the issue. We did not discuss that. The issue is the change in biblical understanding in the ELCA. There are some pastors who don’t believe in the resurrection.”

Wendel said that with NALC, gays can be ordained, however, “A homosexual person who is single could be ordained and is expected to be celibate,” The Pulpit reported.

NALC and other ELCA defectors will be able to keep their property, so long as they remain aligned with a Lutheran denomination. Wendel told The Gazette, “We don’t call this a schism. Lutheranism has a flexibility that allows for this realignment.”

As of now, NALC has no U.S. central location, as it is only four months old and NALC positions will only hold until next August. Spring said he will not likely run for reelection, The Gazette reported.

Spring told The Gazette, “It’s been a very stressful time, personally. There is sorrow over a lost relationship. But what are you supposed to do when the parent body goes against Holy Scripture?”

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For the first time, the Lutheran World Foundation installed recently a Latin American as its new general secretary in the chapel of the Ecumenical Center in  Geneva, Switzerland.

Rev. Martin Junge, a 48-year-old Chilean will, as eighth general secretary of the LWF, lead some 70 million Christians in 79 countries. He succeeds Rev. Dr. Ishmael Noko from Zimbabwe, according to the Lutheran World website.

Junge will hold the post for seven years. He stressed in his installation sermon the importance of continuing to foster inclusion, dialogue, healing and transformation, the website said.

Basing his sermon, entitled Together on the Road to Emmaus, on Luke 24, Junge posed the question Jesus asked, “What are you talking about as you walk?” and said the church should embrace an attitude of “listening before speaking, giving space to ongoing conversations that individuals and entire societies are having,” and seeking to understand life experiences within their contexts, the website said.

Junge cited his own experience, the website said, having grown up in a context where intense discussion of liberation theology prevailed. He said the biblical sharing of bread at the table is like the “communion of churches.”

Junge said, “Tables become the very place of inclusion, healing and transformation. The gathering of different people around an inclusive communion table is very much in line with the fundamental Lutheran theological understanding of justification by grace,” the website said.

Junge is married and has two children. He was previously area secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean at the LWF Department for Mission and Development since Sept. 2000, the LWF website.

His major accomplishments in this post were to lend vision and strength to the LWF’s work, and to implement and build its advocacy program towards the issue of illegitimate foreign debt in the region, the LWF website said.

Junge said he would like the 60-year-old LWF to acknowledge and celebrate diversity while continuing to foster dialogue. Last July the LWF, in seeking more balance, resolved that leadership bodies will have at least 40 percent lay people, 40 percent women, and 20 percent young people aged 30 or younger, The Christian Post reported.

Regarding churches that disapprove ordaining of women, LWF has urged these churches to prayerfully consider the fact that these women may have a God-given calling which such conservatism curtails, The Christian Post said.

According to The Christian Post, the LWF said, “The pain of this exclusion and the loss of their gifts mean suffering and loss for the whole of the church.”

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Three more conservative churches split recently from the largest Lutheran denomination in the country and formed their own church, amid the more accepting position that has been taken by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America toward gay clergy, and their recent ordination of gay bishops who are involved in committed relationships.

The First Lutheran Church in Philip, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Long Valley, and Trinity Lutheran in Midland, who form part of the Lutheran Coalition of Renewal voted by an overwhelming margin of 98 percent to 100 percent to leave the 4.5-million strong ELCA and create the North American Lutheran Church, the Rapid City Journal said.

Meanwhile a fourth church, Deep Creek Lutheran Church of Midland/Hayes has already voted 12-0 to part ways with ELCA, and has its second vote scheduled for Sept. 5, the Rapid City Journal said.

Other churches that are set to break ties with ELCA are the Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran church in Lead, and Immanuel Lutheran Church in Whitewood, whose first votes also showed vast margins, the Rapid City Journal said.

Lead’s second vote is scheduled on Sept. 26, while Whitewood will have its second vote on Oct. 10. Rev. Frezil Westerlund, pastor of the four churches said, “We are not divided on this at all. We just feel renewed, like the Holy Spirit is moving among us,” the Rapid City Journal said.

While NALC opposes the gay clergy directive that ELCA passed in its convention last year, they say their focus is less on sexuality and more on returning to Lutheran traditions while the gay issue was simply the last straw, the Rapid City Journal said.

Bishop Paull Spring, who will head NALC, cited for example ELCA’s incorporation of language that eliminated male references to God such as “Father” and “Son,” and instead using gender-free words like “Creator” and “Savior,” the AP said.

Spring said, “The broader issue [was]: Which is the authoritative voice of the church today? Is it holy scripture, which Lutherans have always confessed, scripture alone, or is supposed to be some combination, that as well as some mood of the times?” AP said.

In general, churches leaving ELCA perceive a gap with local congregations, and many departing churches would have left even without the 2009 gay clergy policy, the Rapid City Journal said.

So far 199 churches have left ELCA after two congregational votes, with another 136 who only need a second vote before it becomes official. There are 10,239 ELCA churches totaling 4.5 million members. Over the last 20 years some 500,000 church members have left ELCA but many individual congregations also prospered proportionately, that share the sentiments of NALC, the AP said.

Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE said, “The average person out there who’s interested in a Christian church wants the real thing. They want Jesus. They want the gospel. They don’t want something else,” the AP said.

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Anne Rice explained in more detail recently what she meant when she said she has quit Christianity, but not Christ.

Rice described her spirituality as basically involving prayer which she said is “Talking to God, putting things in the hands of God, trusting that you’re living in God’s world and praying for God’s guidance. And being absolutely faithful to the core principles of Jesus’ teachings,” the Los Angeles Times said.

She said however that she will miss some Catholic rituals like Mass, Holy Communion and the Eucharist. But she adds, “It’s a communal meal…and I don’t feel that I’m part of the community anymore,” the Los Angeles Times said.

She said she would go back inside a church, mainly for private prayer “as long as nobody there is offended by my presence.” Rice also said that being raised as a Catholic involves being culturally Catholic throughout one’s life, the Los Angeles Times said.

Rice said, “Your whole approach to art, your whole approach to music, to architecture, to literature, all of this has been shaped by Catholic thinking and the Catholic tradition. So that’s not something that you can put aside. I mean, my novels were Catholic novels when I was calling myself an atheist,” the Los Angeles Times said.

Best known for her vampire novels, Rice mentioned aspects of Catholic teaching which she takes issue with. “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life,” the Los Angeles Times said.

Rice also said that she could find no scriptural basis to justify the positions taken by many churches and denominations, nor could she see any scripture to justify an anointed, hierarchical priesthood, the Los Angeles Times said.

Although she lauded the Lutheran Church which ordains gay pastors, Rice said she is not inclined to become a Lutheran nor join any other church, the Los Angeles Times said.

Rice’s son, Christopher, the only living member of her family, is a gay rights activist and a bestselling writer as well. Rice says her choice was not influenced by her son’s sexuality, NPR said.

She says, “Even when Christopher was a little baby, I had gay readers and gay friends and knew gay people, and lived in the Castro district of San Francisco, which was a gay neighborhood. And so my experience with gay people long preceded Christopher coming out of the closet and becoming a gay novelist,” NPR said.

Rice does not plan to write again about vampires. At that time she said her life was dark and meaningless, “where anything can happen to you and there is no real almighty witness, and I can’t go back to that, I don’t believe that anymore, the Los Angeles Times said.

But with her new choice, she feels “new freedom to confess my fears, my doubts, my pain, my conflicts, my alienation. You know, I don’t really like disappointing all my Catholic friends, all my Christian friends and contacts. I really don’t like it. It’s painful. But I did what I felt I had to do,” NPR said.

Father Raymond J. de Souza, in an article he wrote on the National Post, said “There is no way to get to Christ without the Church. From the beginning the Christian story is about the Lord fashioning a people of His own — the Christian Church and our elder brothers, the Chosen People themselves, the Jews. It is to that people that God reveals Himself, and everything we know about Him is mediated through that revelation to His people. So Christ without Christianity (and Judaism) is not possible, no matter how unappealing we Christians can be.”

Amy Julia Becker of Princeton Theological Seminary wrote on Beliefnet that she had two thoughts regarding Anne Rice. She wrote, “One, that part of remaining committed to Christ is remaining committed to Christ’s people, bumbling, bigoted, messy, sinful, people. Two, that sometimes when people leave the church they are offering prophetic words to those left on the inside.”

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Seven gay pastors were reinstated recently into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America after having been barred from service for some 20 years.

The pastors, also called the “Bay Area Seven” are Reverends Jeff Johnson, Paul Brenner, Dawn Roginski, Ross Merkel, Megan Rohrer, Craig Minich and Sharon Stalkfleet.

They will be officially recognized on the ECLA clergy roster, making them eligible to serve in any of the denomination’s 10,500 Lutheran churches.

In September, three more gay pastors will be admitted and in October, one gay pastor in Chicago and two in St. Paul-Minneapolis will be welcomed. All in all, a total of 46 openly gay pastors are slated to be welcomed to the clergy roster.

The ceremony, which was held at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco, is the first of many more that have been scheduled since the ELCA decided last year to accept non-celibate gay ministers who are in committed relationships.

In the past, gay men and women could become Lutheran pastors only if they took a vow of celibacy.

According to The New York Times Rev. Johnson said, “Today the church is speaking with a clear voice. All people are welcome here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God.”

Johnson said the ECLA’s former policy “ruined lives, destroyed faiths.”

Rev. Rohrer said she viewed the ceremony not as her first day as a pastor but a day when “the church gets to receive me as a pastor.” She is a missionary for the homeless and serves in four churches, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

The ECLA, which has 4.6 million members, is the largest Protestant church in the U.S. to admit non-celibate gay clergy. The decision has led 185 of its 10,396 congregations to separate from the denomination.

The United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church permit gay clergy, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) may soon follow suit as its general assembly voted to allow non-celibate gay clergy to serve, however this needs ratification by a majority of the PCUSA’s 173 regional presbyteries.

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