Sunday, February 22, 2004
Minneapolis church intends to ordain gay pastor
In a move certain to create ripples in the religious community, Bethany Lutheran Church in Minneapolis has voted overwhelmingly to call and ordain as pastor a gay man who is living in a committed relationship. Bethany is a congregation of the ELCA and plans to ordain Jay Wiesner, who has been serving for nearly two years as the congregation's "pastoral minister" for outreach.
"We decided a long time ago that the doors of this church would be open to all people," said Rozanne Severance, a Bethany member for 20+ years. "We didn't add any qualifiers, and we didn't accept any notion that if you were a certain kind of person then there were certain things you couldn't do. All people can participate fully in all aspects of Bethany to worship God. Now we're just trying to live up to what that really means." Bethany's pastor, Steven Benson, added, "the congregation approached this carefully and prayerfully and decided that we had a moral responsibility to call Jay as a full pastor."
The ordination date has been set for July of this year. The action would be contrary to ELCA protocols, because the ELCA accepts homosexual men or women as pastors only if they promise to remain celibate. It would be the first such Lutheran ordination in the Upper Midwest since 2001 when a Saint Paul congregation ordained a lesbian woman as pastor.
Severance said that the congregation sees the ordination as a vital witness to its ministry of full inclusion for all people. "Because of having to use a wheelchair due to my spinal injury I spent many years not being able to get into a church. Bethany was one of the first churches to open its doors so I could get in. I know what it's like to be kept on the outside, and nobody should have to feel that. Now we're making it clear that this church is really for everybody."
CONTACT: David Allgeyer, Tel: 612-371-3216 (office)
CONTACT: Rev. Steven Benson (see above)
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