ELCA presiding bishop requests resignation of first transgender bishop

Bishop Megan Rohrer’s removal of a Latino pastor on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been criticized by the Asociación de Ministerios Latinos de la ELCA as showing a ‘lack of empathy and understanding toward their Latinx siblings.’

An undated selfie of the Rev. Megan Rohrer, who was elected bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Sierra Pacific Synod on May 8, 2021, becoming the first transgender person to serve as bishop in any of the major Christian denominations in the United States. Photo courtesy of Meghan Rohrer

(RNS) — The presiding bishop of the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States has asked its first transgender bishop to resign amid criticism over their removal of the pastor of a Hispanic congregation on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in December.


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In a report to the church published Friday (May 27), Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, announced she had requested Bishop Megan Rohrer’s resignation from the denomination’s Sierra Pacific Synod.


Eaton’s request comes after the Sierra Pacific Synod removed the Rev. Nelson Rabell-González from his position as mission director at Misión Latina Luterana in Stockton, California, on Dec. 12. The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe — when many Mexican Americans celebrate their religious and cultural identities — commemorates the day in 1531 when many Christians, particularly Catholics, believe the Virgin Mary appeared in Mexico to an Indigenous man named Juan Diego.

In a previous statement on the Sierra Pacific Synod’s blog, the synod council said it had unanimously decided to vacate Rabell-González’s call after “continual communications of verbal harassment and retaliatory actions from more than a dozen victims from 2019 to the present.” Rabell-González denied those accusations to Religion News Service.

But Rohrer’s actions were criticized by the Asociación de Ministerios Latinos de la ELCA as showing a “lack of empathy and understanding toward their Latinx siblings” and led Eaton to appoint a listening team to review what had happened.

The presiding bishop said Friday she does not plan to pursue disciplinary charges against Rohrer — a decision the Asociación de Ministerios Latinos de la ELCA and several partner organizations also criticized.

“I do not believe that the circumstances of these unfortunate events and Bishop Rohrer’s involvement in them rise to the level of formal discipline against Bishop Rohrer,” Eaton said.

Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton explains procedures for the ELCA Churchwide Assembly on Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, in Milwaukee. Video screenshot

Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton explains procedures for the ELCA Churchwide Assembly on Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, in Milwaukee. Video screen grab


“However, I believe that Bishop Rohrer has lost the trust and confidence of many constituents, both within and without the Sierra Pacific Synod.”

“Unwise decisions” are not automatic grounds for discipline in the denomination, according to the presiding bishop’s statement. But, she said, she has asked Rohrer to respond after attending the Sierra Pacific’s synod assembly next week, listening to their constituents and prayerfully considering her request to resign.

In a statement published Saturday, the Asociación de Ministerios Latinos de la ELCA, the European Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice and Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries called Eaton’s decision not to pursue disciplinary charges against Rohrer a “culturally insensitive dereliction of duty.”

The three-person listening team also released a statement over the weekend saying Eaton’s decisions “totally disregard the heart and intent of our report.”

“We do not want it to be supposed that our work is aligned with or supports the proposed actions,” it said.

The listening team criticized Eaton for never once mentioning racism in her report. It urged the presiding bishop to make its findings public, saying it concluded “racist words and actions caused trauma and great pain to many people of color” in the Sierra Pacific Synod.


“To characterize racist actions as simply ‘insensitive’ or ‘misguided’ is to validate the charge against the ELCA that we are blind to the pain we cause our siblings of color. When we do not name and confess the sin of racism in our institutions, we are doomed to continue in its power,” according to the listening team’s statement.

Rohrer directed RNS to a spokesperson for the Sierra Pacific Synod for comment late Friday afternoon. The spokesperson did not immediately respond.

During the 2021 synod assembly, where he was nominated for bishop, Rabell-González acknowledged allegations against him, saying he was accused of “verbally mistreating a pastoral intern and members of the church staff” in a previous position at a different church. The pastor, who is Afro-Caribbean, said he had been asked to resign from that church and sign a nondisclosure agreement, which he declined, after members complained about his support for Black Lives Matter and immigrant rights.

He welcomed an investigation into the allegations, he told the synod assembly.

“I am not perfect. I’m just a sinner in need of God’s grace. But these allegations are a character assassination brought up exactly one day before this assembly,” he said.

Bishop Megan Rohrer speaks to the press before their installation ceremony at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on Sept. 11, 2021. Rohrer is the first openly transgender person elected as bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. (AP Photo/John Hefti)

Bishop Megan Rohrer speaks to the press before their installation ceremony at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on Sept. 11, 2021. Rohrer is the first openly transgender person elected as bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. (AP Photo/John Hefti)

In the end, Rohrer was elected bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod. The synod council created an advisory council to look into the allegations against Rabell-González and identified “compassionate steps” for him to take, which became part of the terms and requirements of his call, according to the council’s statement on the Sierra Pacific Synod blog.


Rabell-González informed Rohrer on Dec. 9 he would not fulfill those terms and requirements, according to the council, which took action Dec. 11 at its regular meeting.

The pastor was told the next morning, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that his call had been vacated, it said. His congregation at Misión Latina Luterana was informed afterward and offered care by synod staff.

The synod council statement said the timing of its decision was necessary because synod staff continued to receive “communications of concern” regarding the pastor.

“The Synod Council believed then and now that it would be irresponsible to postpone our decision until a later meeting for the severity of the situation required immediate action to safeguard the Latinx community,” it said.

The council has publicly apologized for disrupting Misión Latina Luterana’s celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

So has Rohrer.

“I understand that trust can be lost with one action and must be rebuilt with hundreds of trustworthy actions,” Rohrer wrote in late December.


“I am grateful to all who have educated me about the needs of the Latino/x/é community and remain committed to doing the work needed to repair relationships. The Sierra Pacific Synod and I seek to be ever-reforming in our anti-racism and anti-bias work.”

In addition to criticism from Asociación de Ministerios Latinos de la ELCA and African Descent Lutheran Association, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries suspended Rohrer’s membership in late December after they dismissed Rabell-González. In a written statement at the time, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, which organizes queer ministry leaders in the ELCA, accused Rohrer of “an existing pattern of behavior” that doesn’t align with its vision, mission and values — “specifically as it pertains to being an anti-racist organization.”

Rohrer’s election in May 2021 made them the first openly transgender bishop in the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States — or any major denomination in the country. Rohrer also has celebrated being a neurodivergent bishop, part of their identity they said gets less attention.

On Friday, Rohrer responded to several posts on Twitter expressing support for the bishop.

“As requested, I’m listening deeply and prayerfully discerning,” they said in one tweet.

In another, they wrote, “There has been so much more kindness and compassion expressed to me than anger, frustration and hurt. This fully human human appreciates all the prayers.”


RELATED: First ELCA transgender bishop, Megan Rohrer, hopes to ‘translate good news’ for the curious


This story has been updated.

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