Colorado pastor Asher O’Callaghan, the first out trans person has been ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
‘Callaghan, 28, who has been named pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Idaho Springs, Colo., said that he was “thrilled to be getting ordained to be a pastor and leader within the church I love.”
“The Church is changing,” O’Callaghan added. “There’s no need to choose between living life as your fullest self and belonging to a community of faith. For transgender people, this means that there are congregations who will affirm, respect, and celebrate our faith and our gender identities.”
O’Callaghan’s new congregation, Zion Lutheran, is representative of some of the “revitalization” the ELCA has been going through, and has been an intentionally LGBT-friendly “Reconciling in Christ” congregation for several years, notes Extraodinary Lutheran Ministries.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church, like many other denominations, has faced shrinking membership rolls for over a decade, and has tried more recently to cast a wider net to draw in younger congregants, single people, and families. In 2009, the ELCA voted to allow ordination of pastors in same-sex relationships, and in 2013 the church named its first openly gay bishop, Guy Erwin.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 2Timothy 4:3-4
The church made a decision because of dwindling numbers to allow ordination of gay pastors! They failed to teach the sound doctrines of Christ and instead decided to start preaching the ‘kind of gospel’ people want to hear.
Romans:12:1: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Romans:12:2: And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
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