R. Guy & Keith Fry ...
Ordination stories move church forward By Sandra Guy
R
. Guy Erwin’s ordination on May 11 proved quintes- sentially Lutheran: Two ELCA bishops and a former bishop played key roles; the service doubled as a “teaching” moment for California Lutheran University students, and the 75-member university choir led the 450-strong congregation in singing the final hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”
The symbolism rang poignantly true since Erwin, 53, serves as the Gerhard and Olga J. Belgum Chair in Lutheran Confessional Theology at CLU in Thousand Oaks; taught Lutheran studies and church history at Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Conn., for several years; and studied in Germany for his doctoral thesis on Martin Luther’s era.
Also new to the ELCA roster is Keith Fry, a second- career pastor serving a growing congregation in Elgin, a traditionally politically conservative northwest suburb of Chicago. Christ the Lord Lutheran isn’t in the Reconciling in Christ program, which recognizes congregations that welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) believers, and hadn’t discussed the issue of gay pastors before calling him. A year-and-a-half after calling Fry, 52, the congregation is thriving, and just called a deaconess to serve as its direc- tor of ministries.
Both men exemplify how openly gay leaders are finding their full expression as rostered ELCA pastors. Erwin and Fry are among 47 gay pastors ordained, received, reinstated, consecrated, returned to active status, or approved for ordination, reception or reinstatement since the 2009 Churchwide Assembly vote accepting partnered gay and lesbian rostered leaders, according to an unofficial tally by Lutherans Concerned/North America. Of the total, 20 moved from the roster of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministers, which now offers a professional sup- port network called Proclaim for LGBTQ (the “Q” was added for “queer” because some young people use that term for themselves) rostered leaders.
Erwin, who provided a crucial last-minute vote at the Guy is an ELCA member and reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times. 32 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
R. Guy Erwin stands before the faith com- munity at California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, at his service of ordina- tion. Behind him are Pacifica Synod Bishop Murray D. Finck (left); James Boline, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran, Los Angeles; South- west California Synod Bishop Dean W. Nel- son; Mary D. Glasspool, suffragan bishop in the Episcopal Church’s Dio- cese of Los Angeles; and Howard Wennes, former bishop of the Grand Canyon Synod now serving at CLU.
assembly to adopt the gay-friendly policy, believes the ELCA is “becoming more itself” and “more authentic.” “We’ve understood grace too narrowly in the past,” he said. “Everything that moves us away from a legalistic interpretation of God’s expectations toward one that is grace-filled moves us toward being the church that Christ intended.”
One could hardly imagine a more credentialed Lutheran than Erwin. A native Oklahoman and member of the Osage tribe of Native Americans, he found himself drawn to the German language and the history of Christianity while liv- ing with his parents in Germany from age 8 to 12. “I knew even then that I wanted to be connected in some way to that long, old story of Christianity,” he said. “The extent to which people had believed and sacrificed so much for the sake of the faith was really compelling for me.” Erwin was drawn to Luther and the Reformation after he took a class on German history at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. He was baptized during his senior year there in 1979 at University Lutheran Church and went on to study church history and earn his doctorate at Yale. He returned from his doctoral work in Germany in 1985, just in time for the creation of the ELCA. In 1990, the ELCA suspended, and in 1996 expelled, two San Francisco congregations that had ordained gay and lesbian pastors—
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