WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Susan Johnson, elected June 22 as the first female national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, says she’s “really disappointed” her denomination defeated a motion to bless same-sex relationships.
On June 23, 52.5 percent of delegates to the biennial national gathering of the 175,000-member church voted against allowing local congregations to offer the rites of blessing to same-sex couples.
The motion was similar to one that delegates narrowly defeated two years ago. It would have encouraged Canadian regions, called synods, to figure out how “to best minister to people who live in committed same-sex relationships, including the possibility of blessing same-sex unions.”
Johnson, whose Eastern Synod diocese initially proposed the same-sex motion, said she became a defender of the aspirations of gay and lesbian Christians after learning the intimate stories of their hopes and struggles.
“I got to know people as they are. And that that’s the way God made them. And that they’re doing their best to live out their discipleship,” she said.
If Canadian Lutherans had voted in favor of same-sex blessings, Johnson acknowledged it would have caused “tension” within the global Lutheran church, which has roughly 66 million members.
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