![]() ![]() Jess Cook at McNeill’s ordination at First Presbyterian Church in Asheville, North Carolina, on Oct. But even as the mainline denominations have largely come to welcome LGBTQ individuals, transgender seminarians are still encountering hurdles to ordination and being called to a church, challenging liberal church attitudes about acceptance and often finding new paths for service. Hartke is one of a growing number of openly transgender students graduating from mainline and non-denominational Christian seminaries, many of which have made strides over the past decade toward welcoming them to explore their spirituality. Still, said Hartke, who today runs the Transmission Ministry Collective, a community that supports transgender and other nonbinary Christians, “I didn’t come out as trans until I was holding my diploma, because I didn’t know what would happen.” Hartke, who had come out as bisexual years before applying to seminary, had specifically picked the school, he said in a recent interview, so he would learn to navigate his identity and ministry while being exposed to “the Midwestern attitudes I lived with every day.” But as his awareness grew that he was transgender, so did his conviction that Luther was the right place for him. ![]() ![]() Paul, Minnesota, he knew it was the only Lutheran seminary that didn’t participate in his denomination’s LGBTQ+ welcoming program. (RNS) - When Austen Hartke arrived at Luther Seminary in St. ![]()
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