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| Guy Erwin holds an endowed chair in Confessional Lutheran theology at California Lutheran University. Harvard BA. Yale PhD in church history. |
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's downward spiral of apostasy took a huge leap when the Southwest California Synod ELCA elected the first ever homosexual bishop of the denomination. “The Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin has been elected as bishop of the Southwest California Synod ELCA” announced a facebook post by the synod. (See synod facebook page here)
Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin's faculty profile at California Lutheran University where he teaches says this, "Dr. Erwin is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; he and his partner Rob Flynn are members of St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, CA...” (see here) Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin was ordained as a pastor in the ELCA two years ago. A press release by Lutherans Concerned/North America at the time stated “R. Guy Erwin, a teaching theologian at California Lutheran University (CLU), was ordained in the Samuelson Chapel of that institution at 10:00 a.m. on May 11, 2011. He is both gay and in a committed same-gender relationship. His ordination, the fulfillment of a lifetime desire, is made possible by the change in policy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that followed the decision of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly to allow ministers in committed, same-gender relationships to serve in the church.” (see here) This is a game changer friends. The approval of homosexuality has always been open defiance of God by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America but now this action announces it to the world and defines what the denomination is about and what they believe. |
Huffington Post
Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin was elected Bishop of the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA) on May 31st, 3013 during the synod's assembly in Woodland Hills, California. He is the first openly gay clergy person elected to serve as one of the 65 synodical bishops in the denomination
"The election of Pastor Erwin to the office of bishop occurred because he was the best candidate, not because he was a partnered gay man," said Emily Eastwood executive director of ReconcilingWork in a press release.
Rev. Erwin commented on his election to GLAAD: "I know that many will see my election as a significant milestone for both LGBT people and Native Americans, and I pray that I can be a positive representation for both communities," said Erwin about his election. "There was a time when I believed that I would not be able to serve as a pastor in the ELCA. Our church has now recognized the God-given gifts and abilities that LGBT people can bring to the denomination."
Rev. Dr. Erwin holds the Chair of Lutheran Confessional Theology professor at California Lutheran University and directs the Segerhammar Center for Faith and Culture. A native of Oklahoma, he is an active member of the Osage Nation of Native Americans.
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Faculty Profile
R. Guy Erwin, Ph.D.
Gerhard & Olga J. Belgum Professor of Lutheran Confessional Theology; Professor of Religion and History; Director of the Segerhammar Center for Faith and Culture
Email: erwin@callutheran.edu
Phone: (805) 493-3239 Office: HUM 217 |
Profile
Dr. Guy Erwin, who joined the CLU faculty in the summer of 2000, is the first full-time holder of CLU's first endowed chair, the Gerhard and Olga J. Belgum Chair of Lutheran Confessional Theology. He also serves as Director of the Segerhammar Center for Faith and Culture. In the 2004-05 and 2005-06 academic years he served as CLU faculty chair. As holder of the Belgum Chair, he serves as a member of the CLU Office of University Ministries, coordinating the work of the Chair, the Segerhammar Center, Campus Ministry, and Church Relations.
In addition to a survey course in the history of Christianity, Prof. Erwin teaches seminar courses on topics in medieval, Reformation, and early modern history and theology, including very popular seminars on the life and thought of Martin Luther and St. Augustine's City of God. Almost all of his courses are cross-listed in both Religion and History, and he occasionally teaches courses in the History department on modern German history and Scandinavian history. He also offers instruction on liturgy and worship in cooperation with the Music Department and occasionally teaches ecclesiastical Latin as a tutorial.
Erwin is a native of Oklahoma and an active member of the Osage Tribe of Indians. He is a member of a number of scholarly societies, a loyal alumni volunteer of his various alma maters, and enjoys book collecting, the study of genealogy, opera, letterpress printing, and his Jardine's parrot. Dr. Erwin is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; he and his partner Rob Flynn are members of St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, CA, and are very active in Lutheran circles locally, nationally, and internationally.
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| Wednesday, 11 May 2011 13:33 |
Press Release
LUTHERANS CONCERNED/NORTH AMERICA April 11, 2011 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Guy Erwin, Partnered Teaching Theologian, Ordained at California Lutheran University  R. Guy Erwin, a teaching theologian at California Lutheran University(CLU), was ordained in the Samuelson Chapel of that institution at 10:00 a.m. on May 11, 2011. He is both gay and in a committed same-gender relationship. His ordination, the fulfillment of a lifetime desire, is made possible by the change in policy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that followed the decision of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly to allow ministers in committed, same-gender relationships to serve in the church.Guy Erwin said, "This is a day of great joy for me - a day that has been 25 years in the making. My path to ordination was laid down by the heroes of the struggle for full inclusion, whose call to ordained ministry was so strong and clear that it pulled them into extraordinary action. I rejoice to be able now to join them, and to link together my vocation as a teaching theologian with the ministry of Word and Sacrament in the ELCA. I hope to find new ways to serve the church I love." Guy Erwin's journey to ordination has been a long one: influenced by the study of Luther and the Reformation while in college, guided by his college chaplain and his New Testament professor, Guy soon found his way to Harvard's Lutheran campus ministry and there formed a lifelong attachment to the Lutheran church. During graduate study in Reformation history at Yale, he explored a call to ordained ministry in the Lutheran Church in America, but interrupted that process to spend some years in study and research at the universities of Tübingen and Leipzig in Germany. Returning to America, he found his church in the process of merger into today's ELCA; that completed, his re-entry into the candidacy process was postponed yet again, as the ELCA soon afterwards enacted a barrier to the ordination of noncelibate gay and lesbian candidates. Guy was unwilling to enter a process he would be unable to complete in honesty and faithfulness both to his church and the realities of his life. Then at Yale in 1994 he met Rob Flynn, who became his life partner; that seemed to him to close the issue. Guy Erwin is a Professor of Religion and History, holder of the Gerhard & Olga J. Belgum Chair in Lutheran Confessional Theology at CLU, which includes promoting the connection between the University and the Church. He is the Director of the Segerhammar Center for Faith and Culture, exploring the contours of belief and vocation across ecumenical and interfaith lines. He is the ELCA's sole representative to the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, working internationally and ecumenically, and has given long service to the church on boards and panels. He is ordained directly to a specialized ministry as a teaching theologian. Such direct ordination to calls for teaching requires an exemption from the rule requiring three-year's experience in parish ministry, an exemption granted unanimously in his case by the Conference of Bishops of the ELCA. The Rev. Dean W. Nelson, Bishop of Southwest California Synod, presided and ordained Guy Erwin. Preaching at Guy Erwin's ordination on May 11th was the Rev. Murray Finck, Bishop of the Pacifica Synod of the ELCA. Bishop Nelson said, "We are humbled and thankful to God for the privilege of receiving Dr. R. Guy Erwin onto the roster of ordained pastors of the Southwest California Synod. We have been blessed by Guy's ministry for over a decade, for in addition to teaching at California Lutheran University, Guy has been the Bible study leader and/or presenter at our Bishop's Colloquy for rostered leaders, at our Synod Assembly, and at our Synod's Equipping Leaders for Mission School. During that same period, he has also been a preacher and teacher at several of our Synod's congregations. "I am thankful for the 2009 Churchwide Assembly and all those who helped this church make the decisions that allow us to come to this day with confidence and joy. I am also grateful to the Conference of Bishops for allowing our Synod Council to call Guy not only to the teaching position he has occupied at CLU, but also to the Synod as Supply Pastor so that the congregations of our Synod can be blessed by his ministry of Word and Sacrament. But I am especially thankful for Guy's continuing patience and commitment to the Lord of this church without which this day simply would not have happened. This is truly a day of celebration and thanksgiving, not only for our Synod, but for the whole Church." Bishop Finck said, "Along with the whole church, the people of the Pacifica Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) celebrate with Dr. R. Guy Erwin at the time of his ordination into the Holy Ministry of Word and Sacrament. Dr. Erwin has come to the Pacifica Synod on occasion as a theologian and teacher. He has always been a blessing for those who sat at his feet to be in conversation, to learn, to enter into theological dialogue and deliberation. He is an amazing gift to the whole church, and especially to the ELCA, to California Lutheran University, and to the congregations, leaders, and synods of the West. We give thanks that the church of which we are part has made it possible for Dr. Erwin now to be ordained. We appreciate his faithful vocational calling to serve the church as a teacher and preacher, and now as a pastor and minister of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. His wisdom and courage, guided by a deep faith in Christ, is a needed witness to us all as the church continues to be reshaped by the boundless grace, compassionate love, and the missional call of God." Lutherans Concerned/North America (LC/NA) is pleased and uplifted by this further example of the ELCA living out its history-making decision to take a significant step towards full inclusion of LGBT people in the life of the church. Emily Eastwood, LC/NA Executive Director, said, "It is highly unusual for the Conference of Bishops to grant an exemption to the requirement of ordination to parish ministry. Only a short time ago it would have been astounding for such a waiver to be granted to a partnered, out and serving gay person, no matter, how distinguished. Guy's ordination is long overdue. His ordination to specialized ministry without further requirement rights a 25-year wrong for the sake of the Gospel. Guy's service to the church has been exemplary. His ordination is a witness to the church's growing acceptance beyond the bounds of its own traditions. As with the extraordinary ordinations of years past, when the hands of bishops and clergy were laid upon Guy and the congregation assembled greets this new pastor of the church with hearty applause and likely more than a few tears of joy, our dream of a church where all may serve as guest and host at God's table of blessing and power, will come one step closer to reality. Thanks be to God who will, no doubt, be smiling along with us." For the twenty years prior to the 2009 decision, the ELCA required celibacy as a condition of ministerial service by LGBT people. That prohibition against ministers living in committed, same-gender, lifelong relationships was removed by the 2009 decision. |
ELCA NEWS SERVICE
June 1, 2013
June 1, 2013
R. Guy Erwin elected bishop of ELCA Southwest California Synod
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. R. Guy Erwin was elected May 31 to a six-year term as bishop of the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) at the synod’s assembly May 30-June 1 in Woodland Hills, Calif.
Erwin was elected on the sixth ballot receiving 210 votes of 381 cast. The Rev. Scott Maxwell-Doherty, campus pastor at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, Calif., received 190 votes.
The bishop-elect is interim pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Canoga Park, Calif., and the Gerhard and Olga Belgum Professor of Lutheran confessional theology at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The university is one of the ELCA’s 26 colleges and universities. He serves as the ELCA representative to the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches since 2004.
Erwin said he brings a “deep faith in Christ’s presence in his church lived out in 20 years of parish experience blended with university and seminary-level teaching. In the years I’ve waited for the day I could be ordained, I lived out both vocations at the same time. They have been mutually enriching, and I am a stronger scholar (and a better pastor) for having done both,” according to his biographical information.
Ordained in May 2011, Erwin is the ELCA’s first synod bishop who is gay and in a partnered relationship. He is part Osage Indian and is active in the Osage Indian Nation.
From 2010 to 2012, Erwin served as interim pastor for two ELCA congregations in California. Prior to that, he served as minister for worship and education at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, Calif., principal instructor for the Lutheran Studies Program and lecturer in church history and historical theology at Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Conn., from 1993 to 1999. He served as parish associate at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in New Haven from 1986 to 2000. Erwin also served on a variety of boards and committees for ELCA-related institutions and agencies.
Erwin earned a doctorate degree, two master degrees and Bachelor of Arts degree at Yale University. He engaged in seminary studies at the University of Tübingen in Germany and at University of Leipzig in Germany.
The ELCA Southwest California Synod is made up more than 120 congregations in five counties. Information about the synod is available at http://socalsynod.org.
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ALPB Online Forum, quoting the Lutheran Forum
I, on the other hand, wonder how many bishops don't have an M.Div.
From Forum Letter August 2011:
The July issue of The Lutheran has a big and colorful spread about the ordinations of two gay men to the ELCA ministry—two men, Dan Lehman editorializes, “qualified in every way to be ordained in the ELCA,” and whose “tale needs to be told because it is now a fact of life within the ELCA.” One of the two is R. Guy Erwin, who is a professor at California Lutheran University. In the little biographical sketch of Dr. Erwin, it tells about his education at Harvard (undergraduate) and Yale (two masters degrees and a doctorate), but notes that the ELCA’s expulsion in 1990 of San Francisco congregations which conducted unauthorized ordinations of gay and lesbian persons “dissuaded Erwin from going to seminary.” Taken at face value, that seems to say that the good professor doesn’t have an M.Div. (apparently his two masters degrees from Yale are an M.A. and a M.Phil., both academic degrees). In order for him to be ordained, the Conference of Bishops had to approve an “exception” to the requirement that a newly ordained person serve three years in a parish. That’s done occasionally in special cases; a former intern of mine had been a prison guard for many years and was given an exception allowing him to go directly into prison chaplaincy. I didn’t know, however, that a college professor could be given a waiver of virtually every normal requirement for ordination (M.Div., C.P.E., internship). And one has to wonder just why it would be important to do so in this case, and by what authority. By all accounts, Erwin is a distinguished and capable teacher, and a “teaching theologian” in the ELCA—but then Lutheranism has a pretty healthy tradition of lay theologians (think “Melanchthon”). Such an action by the Conference of Bishops denigrates both the ministry of the laity and our requirements for ministry all in one fell swoop. But then that’s now a fact of life in
the ELCA.
And I wonder how many bishops have been elected only two years after ordination.
Erwin was elected on the sixth ballot receiving 210 votes of 381 cast. The Rev. Scott Maxwell-Doherty, campus pastor at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, Calif., received 190 votes.
The bishop-elect is interim pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Canoga Park, Calif., and the Gerhard and Olga Belgum Professor of Lutheran confessional theology at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The university is one of the ELCA’s 26 colleges and universities. He serves as the ELCA representative to the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches since 2004.
Erwin said he brings a “deep faith in Christ’s presence in his church lived out in 20 years of parish experience blended with university and seminary-level teaching. In the years I’ve waited for the day I could be ordained, I lived out both vocations at the same time. They have been mutually enriching, and I am a stronger scholar (and a better pastor) for having done both,” according to his biographical information.
Ordained in May 2011, Erwin is the ELCA’s first synod bishop who is gay and in a partnered relationship. He is part Osage Indian and is active in the Osage Indian Nation.
From 2010 to 2012, Erwin served as interim pastor for two ELCA congregations in California. Prior to that, he served as minister for worship and education at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, Calif., principal instructor for the Lutheran Studies Program and lecturer in church history and historical theology at Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Conn., from 1993 to 1999. He served as parish associate at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in New Haven from 1986 to 2000. Erwin also served on a variety of boards and committees for ELCA-related institutions and agencies.
Erwin earned a doctorate degree, two master degrees and Bachelor of Arts degree at Yale University. He engaged in seminary studies at the University of Tübingen in Germany and at University of Leipzig in Germany.
The ELCA Southwest California Synod is made up more than 120 congregations in five counties. Information about the synod is available at http://socalsynod.org.
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ALPB Online Forum, quoting the Lutheran Forum
I, on the other hand, wonder how many bishops don't have an M.Div.
From Forum Letter August 2011:
The July issue of The Lutheran has a big and colorful spread about the ordinations of two gay men to the ELCA ministry—two men, Dan Lehman editorializes, “qualified in every way to be ordained in the ELCA,” and whose “tale needs to be told because it is now a fact of life within the ELCA.” One of the two is R. Guy Erwin, who is a professor at California Lutheran University. In the little biographical sketch of Dr. Erwin, it tells about his education at Harvard (undergraduate) and Yale (two masters degrees and a doctorate), but notes that the ELCA’s expulsion in 1990 of San Francisco congregations which conducted unauthorized ordinations of gay and lesbian persons “dissuaded Erwin from going to seminary.” Taken at face value, that seems to say that the good professor doesn’t have an M.Div. (apparently his two masters degrees from Yale are an M.A. and a M.Phil., both academic degrees). In order for him to be ordained, the Conference of Bishops had to approve an “exception” to the requirement that a newly ordained person serve three years in a parish. That’s done occasionally in special cases; a former intern of mine had been a prison guard for many years and was given an exception allowing him to go directly into prison chaplaincy. I didn’t know, however, that a college professor could be given a waiver of virtually every normal requirement for ordination (M.Div., C.P.E., internship). And one has to wonder just why it would be important to do so in this case, and by what authority. By all accounts, Erwin is a distinguished and capable teacher, and a “teaching theologian” in the ELCA—but then Lutheranism has a pretty healthy tradition of lay theologians (think “Melanchthon”). Such an action by the Conference of Bishops denigrates both the ministry of the laity and our requirements for ministry all in one fell swoop. But then that’s now a fact of life in
the ELCA.
And I wonder how many bishops have been elected only two years after ordination.
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