New Bishop Has Given Gay Couples Blessings

A minister who will be installed Sunday as bishop of 150 Los Angeles-area Lutheran congregations says he has conducted three wedding-like ceremonies for gay couples at a North Hollywood church--contrary to the denomination’s stated opposition to such ceremonies.

The Rev. Paul Egertson, 59, said in an interview this week that the rites “were done with dignity and reverence, not as publicity stunts to change people’s minds.”

Nevertheless, Egertson acknowledged that the practice violates the official position taken in a heated and continuing debate by his denomination, the Chicago-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Egertson added that he knows of 10 other Lutheran pastors in Southern California and four bishops who perform such blessings, in quiet defiance of church policies.

The church’s bishops adopted a statement in 1993 saying there is no basis in Scripture or church tradition “for the blessing of a homosexual relationship,” ruling out their approval for “an official ceremony.” Yet, the bishops also praised the desire of pastors and congregations serving gays and lesbians--as Egertson’s North Hollywood parish does--”to explore the best ways to provide pastoral care.”

Asked how he would handle the issue after he is installed as bishop Sunday afternoon at a Granada Hills church, Egertson said, “I tend to decide things on case-by-case basis. If the occasion arises, I’ll have to make a decision on it.”

When he was elected to a six-year term as bishop at a church assembly in November, Egertson’s advocacy of opening clergy ranks to gay and lesbian seminarians was well-known. So was his part-time role since 1992 as pastor of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, which has welcomed gay and lesbian members since 1985.

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But it was not widely known that St. Matthew’s had voted in 1990 to permit what it called “holy union services” for gay and lesbian couples. Nor had Egertson’s participation been generally known, although he argued for same-gender blessings at a regional Lutheran assembly last spring.

That Egertson had conducted gay couple unions was news to the Rev. Walter Mees Jr. of Pacific Palisades, who has actively opposed relaxation of traditional Lutheran strictures against ordaining gays and lesbians or blessing their unions. “I hadn’t heard that he had performed any (same-gender rites),” Mees said.

“I disagree with him on this whole business, but I try to stay friendly and courteous,” said Mees, co-pastor of Palisades Lutheran Church. Mees said that he and like-minded colleagues “are waiting to see what is going to happen.

“He’s demonstrated that he is not going to be a one-issue bishop,” said Mees, who said he was impressed by Egertson’s sermon at the annual all-Lutheran celebration of Martin Luther King’s birthday this month.

Egertson said as much during an interview at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, where he taught from 1979 to 1992.

Egertson has spoken publicly in the past about his oldest son, who graduated from Pacific Lutheran Seminary in Berkeley in the late 1980s but was barred from ordination because he is gay. But Egertson said that no one will listen to him if he drums away on that one issue.

Any preacher or bishop “has to decide whether he wants to be effective or be heroic,” Egertson said. “Most people change their minds on the gay issues, not on logic but from personal experience and acquaintance with gay people.”

At his installation, Egertson will wear a specially designed upside-down cross that he requested as a symbol of his new responsibilities as bishop for some 200 pastors and other clergy at churches and other ministry posts in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Kern counties.

The cross’ design was inspired by the legend that the Apostle Peter, when crucified, requested that he be placed upside-down, so as not to invite comparisons with Jesus. One end of the cross is turned like a shepherd’s crook, suggestive of the Gospel of John’s admonition to Peter to tend to the flock of believers.

“I want to lift up the pastoral nature of the bishop’s office,” he said. Saying he hopes to delegate administrative duties that he called “counting nickels and noses,” Egertson wants mostly to preach and teach as well as counsel pastors and their families.

Egertson will be installed as bishop at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Granada Hills in a 4 p.m. ceremony under the direction of ELCA Presiding Bishop Herbert Chilstrom of Chicago.

Egertson said that church, pastored by the Rev. Kapp Johnson, was picked for practical reasons (convenience to freeways, its parking capacity and seating for 800) and a symbolic one:

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The church sustained $430,000 worth of damage from the Northridge earthquake, but with the help of $160,000 in donations from Lutheran sources the congregation returned to a repaired and renovated sanctuary on Nov. 20.

The event will start one hour after the start of Super Bowl opening ceremonies, but Egertson said that was the only date both Bishop Chilstrom and eminent Lutheran theologian Krister Stendahl, who will preach, could participate.

But the church also has a new, 13-by-10 foot television screen above the choir loft. “We have told people that after the installation ceremony and reception, they can come back into the sanctuary and watch the end of the football game,” said Johnson.