Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll meet the new Lutheran bishop of New York, the first woman and the first openly gay person to serve in that post. We’ll also get details on Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s meeting with President Trump today.
The Rev. Dr. Katrina Foster was talking about her new job, overseeing 160 Lutheran congregations in and around New York City. She is the first woman and the first openly gay person to serve as the bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran equivalent of a diocese in some denominations.
She played down the latter of the two firsts. “Me being a lesbian is just not that interesting,” she said. “Having flashing signs going ‘look at the lesbian’ is just not interesting.”
But being the first woman to serve as the Lutheran bishop in New York — and the first to be installed in a service with the Rev. Yehiel Curry, who as the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is the first Black person to lead the denomination? “Those two things right there are super historic,” she said. The installation service will take place tomorrow at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.
Foster, 57, became known as a pastor for reviving struggling parishes, in part through connecting with the community.
Now, as a bishop, she is connecting with the pastors in the synod, which includes the city and six counties to the north as well as Long Island — about 135 in all, she said.
“That’s a lot, right?” she said. “But the goal of that is to demonstrate we are not city- and office-centered. We are out in the community with our pastors, with all of our people to build, rebuild or strengthen relationships so that we have the entire synod — which is a Latin word that means ‘same path’ — all walking on this same path together.”
Like most other mainstream Protestant denominations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the country, has fewer members — and fewer churches — than it once did. Foster said that when she arrived in New York in the 1990s, there were 252 Lutheran churches, 92 more than there are now.
One of them was the first church to which she was posted, Fordham Evangelical Church in the Bronx, which grew from 20 to 120 members during her years there. (She said that she moved to another church in 2010 and did not have “a good grasp on what happened” at Fordham after that. A spokesman for the synod in 2023, when the church was closed, cited “administrative hurdles and insurance concerns.”)
While at Fordham, Foster faced the possibility of being defrocked by the denomination, which allowed openly gay pastors to serve but did not allow them to be in same-sex relationships. She was eventually allowed to remain in the church, and she and her partner are now legally married.
The Rev. Stephen P. Bouman, the bishop of the New York-area synod at the time, said that he would not have disciplined her. “She is someone whose faith is genuine, and she lives it in a very bold and inclusive way,” he said then. “She’s not afraid to tell people that she loves God and that God loves them.”
The Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, said that Foster’s actions in her ministry were “expressions of a response to grace that shows concern about the poor and the marginalized. She’s been very committed to the work of love and justice and inclusion.”
Foster said that she had long ended her sermons by saying, “Jesus loves you, and I do too.” But for a while at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, her last church before she was elected bishop, she stopped.
“Some of the younger people in the congregation noticed,” she recalled, “and they said, ‘Why did you stop?’ And I said, ‘I thought it was, you know, hokey, and people weren’t really into it.’ They were like, ‘No, please, we really want to hear that.’” The average age of the congregation had dropped from 75 to 35 during her tenure.
“Over time, people hearing that, they may actually come to believe it, because they hear everywhere else that you’re not enough, or if you don’t have this much money, you are insufficient, or if you don’t have this wonderful Instagram experience, that something is lacking in your life,” she said, adding that the line had relevance for Gen Z and “this epidemic of loneliness that they’re experiencing.”
“And so I will always end by saying, ‘Jesus loves you, and I do, too.’ That may be the only thing people hear. And that is enough.”
Weather
Today will be mostly cloudy, with a high near 54. Rain is likely overnight, with a low around 45.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Thursday (Thanksgiving).
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Mamdani and Trump are to meet today
President Trump and Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will meet today at the White House. My colleagues Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Jeffery C. Mays write that what happens — and how the two men’s relationship evolves in the coming months — could be hugely consequential for New York.
The dynamics are complicated. Mamdani has been known to disarm skeptics with his willingness to listen and engage. But if he turns on a little too much charm and earnestness, his backers may feel that he has betrayed his progressive roots.
Trump has spent months belittling Mamdani, falsely calling him a communist.
Mamdani sought to play down the potential for conflict and called the meeting “customary” at a news conference at City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan on Thursday. He said he wanted to discuss affordability, public safety and economic security. He said that New Yorkers who supported both him and Trump had done so for the same reasons.
At the White House, officials did not say whether journalists would be allowed into the Oval Office for any part of the time that Mamdani is there. And Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday “it speaks volumes” that a “communist” was going to the White House.
“It speaks to the fact that President Trump is willing to meet with anyone and talk to anyone and to try to do what’s right on behalf of the American people whether they live in blue states or red states or blue cities — in a city that’s becoming much more left than I think this president ever anticipated in his many years of living in New York,” she said.
METROPOLITAN diary
Pouring
Dear Diary:
I was in the city for a short visit and was walking near Midtown Manhattan when the skies suddenly opened up. Within seconds, I was drenched.
A middle-aged man standing a few feet from me popped open his umbrella and walked over.
“Come,” he said simply.
Grateful for the shelter, I fell into step beside him. We walked in silence for two blocks until he stopped in front of a souvenir stand.
Only then did I notice the rack of umbrellas. He gestured for me to go inside, then turned and disappeared into the rain.
“Thank you!” I called after him.
— Karima Sauma
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Lauren Hard and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post A Gay Woman Becomes New York’s Lutheran Bishop appeared first on New York Times.
