By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

Lakeview’s Resurrection Lutheran Church, citing a tradition that goes back to Martin Luther, ordained the Rev. Jen Rude to the ministry Nov. 7 despite her refusal to take a denomination-mandated vow of celibacy imposed on gay and lesbian ministers.

“We have come together, Jen, to set you free among us as a messenger of this alternative reality of hope,” the Rev. Jeffrey Johnson said in his sermon. “There are so many people thirsting to hear the truth. There are so many eager to be set free. …This right of ordination does not bind you to the church. It binds the church to you.”

Johnson came to know Rude when she attended the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., where Johnson teaches and serves as pastor at University Lutheran Chapel. Johnson has been a leader in the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries movement, which ordains and credentials openly GLBT ministers. Those ministers are not rostered by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but congregations who have called ELM ministers have faced few disciplinary procedures from the ELCA.

Rude is the first openly lesbian or gay minister ordained since the ELCA’s biennial assembly, meeting in Chicago in August, declined to change official church policy banning non-celibate gays and lesbians from the ministry but passed a resolution urging bishops to “refrain or show restraint” in disciplining GLBT ministers and congregations that call them.

The Rev. Wayne Miller, bishop of ELCA’s Chicago Synod, met with members of Resurrection prior to their vote to ordain Rude but said Nov. 7 that he doesn’t plan to discipline Rude or Resurrection. In a public letter he sent to Rude, Miller welcomed her to the church’s ministry.

“Ministry to a community takes different forms and is expressed in different ways that are right for a time and place that needs to hear of God’s love continually made known in Jesus Christ,” Miller wrote. “May your ministry be blessed with love, may your witness to the community be bold and may the Lord grant you strength and peace in the days ahead.”

Rude’s father and grandfather, who are also Lutheran ministers, were part of the crowd that packed Resurrection’s sanctuary for Rude’s ordination. The following day, Nov. 18, during the church’s morning worship service, Rude was installed as associate pastor at Resurrection.

Resurrection is pastored by the Rev. Brian Hiortdahl.