Transgender Evangelical Lutheran Pastor

Nicole Garcia

“Before coming out as transgender, Nicole Garcia prayed daily that God would ‘fix’ her. When her prayers weren’t answered and the feeling in her gut didn’t go away, she gave up on religion. Now, nearly four decades later, Garcia stands behind the pulpit at Westview Lutheran Church in Boulder, Colorado, and delivers weekly sermons to a congregation of more than 100 faithful as their ordained pastor. ‘Nobody can question my faith, my devotion to Christ, my devotion to the church. That’s why I’m the pastor here,’ Garcia, who turned 60 Thursday, told NBC News. ‘Being trans is secondary.’ Garcia, who delivered her first sermon at Westview earlier this month, is the first known transgender Latina to serve as a pastor within the 4 million-strong Evangelical Lutheran Church in America--an unanticipated position for someone who grew up in the Roman Catholic Church and left religion entirely for nearly 20 years.”

“Transgender Latin makes history,” NBC News, Dec. 13, 2019

COMMENT BY BRO. CLOUD: Missing in Garcia’s testimony is biblical salvation. As a Roman Catholic, Garcia was baptized, sacramentalized, and prayed, but he didn’t come on God’s terms in repentance and saving faith. When he became a Lutheran, it was the same thing: sacramentalism. All his life, by his own testimony, Garcia has believed a gospel of works, and it is a false gospel with no life-changing power. Religion cannot “fix” man’s sin problem. The old Adamic nature is full of sin, every type of sin. The Lord Jesus said, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21-22). Only biblical salvation can “fix” man by regeneration and sanctification. Paul describes how that some of the citizens of wicked Corinth were “fixed.” “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such WERE some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

(Friday Church News Notes, January 31, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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