ATLANTA – A gay Atlanta pastor and his partner who have been at the center of a battle over the treatment of gay clergy by the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination are being reinstated to the denomination’s clergy roster, church officials announced Tuesday.
The Rev. Bradley Schmeling and his partner, the Rev. Darin Easler, have been approved for reinstatement, the Chicago-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in America said in a news release. The approval came roughly eight months after the denomination voted to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, and just weeks after the ELCA’s church council officially revised the church’s policy on gay ministers.
Schmeling, who serves as pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta, was removed from the church’s clergy roster in 2007 for being in a same-sex relationship with Easler. A disciplinary committee ruled that Schmeling was violating an ELCA policy regarding the sexual conduct of pastors.
“I’m grateful that this journey has come full circle and that the church has changed its policy,” Schmeling said Tuesday.
“I think the church saw the gifts and the abilities of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and saw that the spirit was calling them into ministry and wanted to create a way for people to serve,” he said.
The reinstatement will become effective “once the paperwork has been filed,” which should happen in the coming days or weeks, he said.
At their biennial national convention in August, ELCA leaders called for revisions to ministry policy documents, making it possible for “eligible Lutherans in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships” to serve as clergy, the church said in the statement. The ELCA Church Council adopted those revisions April 10.
The candidacy committee of the ELCA Southeastern Synod in Atlanta met two weeks later and approved Schmeling’s request for reinstatement.
Even though Schmeling had been removed from the ELCA clergy roster, he remained pastor at St. John’s, putting the church in violation of ELCA guidelines, said the Rev. H. Julian Gordy, bishop of the ELCA Southeastern Synod.
“There are people in our church that believe that pastors in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships should not serve as pastors in this church,” Gordy said in the church statement. “But the assembly said that while we were not in agreement on this, congregations could call persons in such relationship to serve as pastors, and St. John has chosen to do this.” He added that Schmeling’s reinstatement “will be very good news” for the members of his Atlanta church.
“This congregation has always been clear in its affirmation and support of our relationship,” Schmeling said. “When I told them that I had met my partner for life, they threw us a party. When they heard that we were both reinstated to the clergy roster, there was a spontaneous standing ovation in church on Sunday.”
Despite the opposition from some to the change in church policy, “I believe that we will learn to live in this new reality,” Gordy said.
Easler left United Redeemer Lutheran Church in Zumbrota, Minn., in 2003 to serve as a chaplain. He and Schmeling met at a church conference in Minnesota in 2004, and he moved to Atlanta to be with Schmeling the following year.
Easler was removed from the clergy roster in 2006 after having been without a parish for three years, the church said in a statement. He transferred to the United Church of Christ, which is a full communion partner of the ELCA, and worked in hospice care as a bereavement coordinator.
He recently applied to the candidacy committee of the ELCA’s Southeastern Minnesota Synod in Rochester and was approved April 30. He plans to continue his hospice work under the auspices of the ELCA.
“I just feel so grateful to be able to come back to my church home and church family, and I’m grateful to be able to share with the church both my love and my gifts for ministry but also the love for my partner,” Easler said.
Schmeling said the reinstatement is good news for others as well.
“I’m happy for the many people who always hoped to be ordained as pastors now have an open pathway before them,” he said.
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America: http://www.elca.org
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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posted May 4, 2010 at 7:22 pm
How on earth would a bisexual or transgenders person have gifts to offer to the teachings of Christ, or the bible. Bisexually is contrary to all of the teachings and transgendering is cutting up the body to fulfill a fantasy that can never be real. and a insult to God’s design for humans.
posted May 4, 2010 at 7:38 pm
How on earth would a divorced person have gifts to offer to the teachings of Christ, or the bible. Divorce is contrary to all of the teachings of Jesus.
How on earth would a shellfish eating person have gifts to offer to the teachings of Christ, or the bible. Eating shellfish is contrary to “God’s” commandments.
How on earth would a computer-using person have gifts to offer to the teachings of Christ, or the bible. Computers are never mentioned in the Bible.
How on earth would a Chinese person have gifts to offer to the teachings of Christ, or the bible. None of Jesus’s apostles was Chinese.
Why stop with homosexuals, cknuck? There’s so much more you can mine from the Bible if you are inclined. Oh, wait, could it be you are especially bigoted against homosexuals?
posted May 4, 2010 at 7:40 pm
ck
You have just shown how closed and little your god is. I believe that God revealed in Jesus is far greater than any human restictions or exclusions. We are to love as we have been loved – no furhter qualifications or requirements. Jesus gives us peace, not as the world tries to, but as God does. Your approach has no peace, only pieces. I am sad for you ck, there is so much more to the world than guarding sexuality. God is much greater than what is located near the pelvis.
By the way – did you hear that one more Public prophet against homosexuality has been caught in a compromising situation. It seems the more people protest the more likely they are to be working out their own situation.
posted May 4, 2010 at 11:18 pm
The issue, as always, is whether one has any sense of God other than what is written in the sacred scriptures of a faith. To those whose faith depends on what the Bible says, homosexuality is wrong. To those whose faith is based on a more direct and real-time experience of God’s presence in their lives, the notions of the ancient writers of those scriptures do not dictate attitudes or beliefs.
posted May 5, 2010 at 9:04 am
How on earth would a man who is having intercourse with his menstrating wife have gifts to offer to the teachings of Christ, or the bible.
posted May 5, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Everyone here tries to act like there is no teaching in the bible against homosexuality or especially bisexually or mutilating a body to look like a female. It certainly may be permissible for the world but not for followers of Christ. To tell someone God honors such things is deception. To indicate that my God is small because He is orderly and does not accept sin in a out and out lie. I don’t know how some false gospel peddlers can lie to people and say God will accept all manner of behavior. But as I hope you know it is God who judges not me but I will never stop telling the truth. You all know the truth regardless how you shade it deep inside you know it, every time you see a man dressed like a woman or a woman dressed like a man you know the truth.
posted May 5, 2010 at 2:24 pm
We all know our truth of what we feel and believe Ck. Your truth is different than ours, and we’ll just let the Holy Spirit speak to you. Let the Spirit speak to us. You do not have to remind us you understand the words of the Bible as literal. When I see anything that is different I research it, if it’s a cross-dresser or anything. I don’t go to the Bible I go to science for a better understanding. Please don’t feel you have to lecture me on what I said. Thank you.
posted May 5, 2010 at 3:01 pm
All I can say, as most of the above (nnmns, H22, jestrfyl, H4C)have pretty much said what I was thinking…..YEA! Right was done by reinstating the 2 ministers.
posted May 5, 2010 at 3:04 pm
cknuck, you’re version of God seems to be that he/she is pretty narrow minded. ’tis sad, actually when I have always heard (and was taught for awhile) that “God is Love”.
posted May 5, 2010 at 3:17 pm
God’s truth and revelation is to be found in every discipline, mathmatics, the physical sciences, the humanities, sociology, anthropology, etc. God speaks through all these.
posted May 5, 2010 at 5:28 pm
God is love but that doesn’t make homosexuality right, that’s the teachings you want to proselytize but it has no foundation its all vanity of man, nothing to do with God at all.
posted May 5, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Hey cknuck…at least you admit that “God is love”. The disagreement comes about just who that god loves as one must qualify (kind of like the Olympics) for that love, apparently. One really bad thing is to be…….homosexual. Bad, bad. Oh well. Guess some folks must look for another god to bow down to!
posted May 7, 2010 at 11:07 am
” it is God who judges not me “
Well, at least you got HALF of that correct. From your myriad postings here on B’net,ck, we see exactly how much judging you do. The job is taken by One far more qualified than you.
Oh, and if you don’t judge, why do you keep postng judgmental things? Is a puzzlement.
posted May 7, 2010 at 7:39 pm
I report facts YN
posted May 7, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Facts? Everyone has their own version of “facts”.
posted May 8, 2010 at 10:20 pm
pagan that’s the difference in talking about a person or a behavior. I report facts about the act of practicing homosexuality those facts don’t change. I don’t blame you for caring about the person I do as well but the facts about homosexuality still does not change neither does the mysteries.