Torrance Pastor Elected Bishop of Lutheran Church’s Southland Synod

The Rev. Dean Wesley Nelson of Torrance has been elected the new bishop of the five-county Southern California (West) Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Nelson, 57, succeeds Bishop Paul W. Egertson, who bowed to national denominational leaders and resigned his post after defying church rules by participating in the ordination of a noncelibate lesbian as a Lutheran minister in St. Paul, Minn., in April. Egertson’s resignation is effective July 31, a month before his term would have expired. Nelson will take office Aug. 1.

Nelson, pastor at First Lutheran Church in Torrance, was elected on the fifth ballot at the synod’s annual assembly June 1 at the Warner Center Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills.

A native of Chicago, Nelson was ordained in 1970 and earned a bachelor’s degree from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., in 1966, and a master of divinity from Luther Seminary in St. Paul. He also attended Harvard Divinity School.

There are 45,955 baptized members in the church’s Southern California (West) Synod, which includes the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, Kern, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.