Laura Bethany Buchleiter, a transgender who identifies as female, has been ordained into pastoral ministry by a church in Indiana that has connections to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Buchleiter was ordained at the University Baptist Church of Bloomington in a ceremony that took place on May 23, Christian Post reports.
According to some sources, Buchleiter is the first transgender person to be ordained in a Baptist church; however, according to Buchleiter on Facebook: "I'm not the first transgender person to be ordained in a Baptist church, I may be just the second - and the first in a CBF church. I'm very grateful for those who have gone before me and am also very aware that we are all still pioneers in this space."
University Baptist Pastor Annette Hill Briggs, who spoke to the Herald-Times in Bloomington said that they're "not ordaining Laura Beth because she is transgender."
"Our church self-identifies as a church that listens to the call of the people irrespective of gender or sexual orientation. It's not relevant to us," she said.
Briggs confirmed to CP that Buchleiter was ordained after completing a two-year supervised ministry internship and earning a master of divinity degree.
She said that Buchleiter has been a member of University Baptist Church for a total of four years and was ordained after gaining "sufficient time and experience to ascertain, experience."
Buchleiter's "obvious call of God to pastoral ministry" and a "giftedness for the work," according to Briggs, are both affirmed by the church.
Because it was unanimously accepted by the church, Briggs stated that the ordination was a "popular decision."
"Ninety-nine percent of the response we have received locally and online has been joyfully supportive while a handful of strangers have been positively vitriolic toward me, our church, and Reverend Buchleiter," she claimed.
CP noted that nobody has reportedly quit the church in protest as of the end of June.
"None have accepted my invitation to talk together about our differences, that we might witness to our Oneness in Christ, and kindly talk about our differences. Only one person who disagrees with us has reached out in a Christ-like manner," she added.
Under the Baptist tradition, individuals are ordained by local congregations rather than by denominational organizations.
A spokesman for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) has said that the organization would not comment on ordinations since it's strictly a local church's business, reports Black Christian News.
Briggs, now associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, also informed to CP that the denomination has no formal position on LGBT matters and thus no institutional resistance is expected to take place.
Briggs' church reportedly withdrew from the Southern Baptist Convention in 1999 when it appointed her as pastor despite the SBC's opposition to female ordination. She was the first female to pastor the Bloomington church.
The day before the ordination, Buchleiter graduated from Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, reports Church Leaders.
Similarly, last month, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, appointed its first transgender bishop in America. In terms of membership, the ECLA is one of the largest churches in the United States, with more than 3.3 million members and 8,900 congregations spread throughout the nation.
Transgender ministers?
While University Baptist advocates for inclusion as much as other progressive churches do, not all churches and church leaders support the LGBT lifestyle, much less the ordination of a transgender into pastoral ministry.
Texas Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress, for example, said Christianity and transgender ideology do not go together, the Christian Post noted.
"It's not that confusing," Jeffress said in 2016. "In Matthew 19:4, God's Words are applicable. The Bible says, 'God made them from the beginning male and female,' not male, female and question mark. God has determined how many sexes there are - there are two, not three."
And while there are some Christians who think that being attracted to the same sex is part of who they are as a person, Ken Williams, co-founder of Equipped to Love, an organization that aims to "show the truth of Biblically-defined sexuality to the LGBTQ community," says that "God's best plan for us is not to pursue homosexuality."
Williams, a former gay man who received Christian counseling and support from his loving pastor and parents, realized that it is possible for a person's sexual desires to be changed. He recounted in his book how he "followed Jesus away from gay," and added that Christ offers "real inner healing and intimate relationship."
