Bishop Asked to Quit for Defying Church

The Lutheran bishop of Southern California said Tuesday that he has been asked to resign by national denominational leaders after defying church law by joining in the ordination of a lesbian as a Lutheran minister.

Bishop Paul W. Egertson said the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America asked him to step down. There was no comment from the Chicago office of the national church’s presiding bishop, H. George Anderson, other than to confirm that the two bishops had spoken.

Egertson, 65, the father of a gay son, said he expects to decide before Monday whether to resign.

Last month, he became the first active bishop in the 5.1-million-member denomination--the nation’s largest Lutheran body--to participate in the ordination of a lesbian. The woman, Anita Hill, who is in a committed relationship with another woman, was made a minister during an ordination that took place at St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minn.

Egertson became bishop of the five-county Southern California (West) Synod in January 1995. The synod includes 140 churches, 275 ministers and 45,955 baptized members. It covers Los Angeles, Ventura, Kern, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Before the ordination, Anderson pleaded with Egertson to reconsider his decision, church officials said. But Egertson said that after following church procedures throughout his ministry, he was conscience-bound to actively engage in disobedience by joining in Hill’s ordination.

“I can no longer advocate this cause with credibility from a position of personal safety,” Egertson wrote Anderson at the time.

Some church leaders expressed concern about Egertson when he was elected bishop in 1995 because he said he had earlier joined in blessing same-sex unions. For that reason, Egertson said, he promised in writing to resign if he ever felt he must defy church law as a matter of conscience. Anderson now has asked him to make good on that promise, he said.

Egertson discussed the resignation request with members of his synod council Saturday. He said his council did not think he should be required to resign.

Because Egertson’s term as Southern California bishop expires Aug. 31, an election had already been scheduled during a two-day Synod Assembly May 31-June 1 at the Warner Center Marriott Hotel.

“I’ve got some decisions to make on that, pending some conversations,” Egertson said. “If I do resign, I’ll be involved in the synod in some way. What I do with this invitation [to resign] now and how I explain it, I don’t want to talk about yet.”

Just weeks before the controversial ordination, the denomination’s Church Council passed a seven-point resolution reminding synod bishops of the limits of their authority. Among the points stressed were that bishops were expected to discharge their duties “in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, and in harmony with the constitution.”

The resolution was prompted in large part by the then-planned St. Paul ordination. But Anderson, the presiding bishop, said at the time that the resolution was written with broader implications.

For example, the resolution also told bishops to respect the jurisdiction of other bishops. By going to St. Paul for the ordination without the invitation of the St. Paul bishop, Egertson could be found to have violated that standard as well.

At the same time, the Church Council reaffirmed a requirement that the church’s ministers with a homosexual orientation abstain from “homosexual sexual relationships.” The denomination said Hill “is a lesbian in a committed relationship with another woman.”

The St. Paul congregation where the ordination took place could face a range of penalties from censure to expulsion from the denomination.