Did You Know . . . ?

Posted on by jimvondracek

by Pastor Nancy Goede

In 2000, Lutheran Campus Ministry at Augustana played a small role in advancing the acceptance of LGBTQ+ pastors in the ELCA.

That spring, I was serving Augustana as our campus pastor, and I was closely following a standoff at Berkeley between the bishop and University Lutheran Chapel, which had called Jeff Johnson as campus pastor. In January, 1990, Johnson was one of three openly lesbian and gay Lutherans to be ordained extra ordinem (contrary to official church policy) at St. Paulus Lutheran Church, San Francisco. He was called to serve First United Lutheran Church in San Francisco, which was promptly expelled from the ELCA.

In 1999, University Lutheran Chapel called Johnson as their pastor and to serve as the Lutheran campus pastor to the University of California-Berkeley. Rev. Robert W. Mattheis, bishop of the ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod, immediately censured the Chapel and cut off ELCA Campus Ministry recognition and funding for the site.

At that time, because I was close to ELCA headquarters, I was always called on to help plan the annual LCM summer pastors’ conference. In the summer of 2000, the conference was going to be held in Chicago, and the directors of ELCA Campus Ministry asked if Augustana could host the main worship service. I could choose whomever I wanted to ask as a preacher, they said, and that person’s expenses would be covered so that they could attend the entire conference if they wished.

I knew that Pastor Johnson had been told he was not welcome at the conference and would not be reimbursed for his expenses if he came. “In that case, I choose Jeff Johnson,” I told them. So, Pastor Johnson was able to attend his first Lutheran Campus Ministry conference and be welcomed by his colleagues like every other new campus pastor. His preaching was powerful; he was a great trailblazer because his pastoral gifts were so obvious and he moved through the firestorm that surrounded him with such grace.

So what happened next between University Lutheran Chapel and the ELCA? You can read all about it at https://www.elca.org/news-and-events/4035

In 2023, Jeff Johnson was elected as the first openly gay man to be bishop of the ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod.