Unraveling Rohrer’s Big Lie: New Report About Rev. Nelson Rabell

A new report reveals that the story about “dozens” of accusers against Rev. Nelson Rabell Gonzalez is a fabrication. It’s all part of Rohrer’s Big Lie.

It started with one.

First, it was an allegation at the 2021 Sierra Pacific Synod Assembly by the former pastoral intern at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Lodi, Calif. Rev. Frances Le Bas accused Rev. Nelson Rabell Gonzalez of harassment. When Rev. Nelson asked for the synod to enter him into a disciplinary process so that he could show evidence to clear his name, they refused.

Then when Megan Rohrer became bishop of the synod, they (Rohrer uses they/them pronouns) began saying there were “multiple victims,” even though no charges were ever filed nor any investigation undertaken. This rumor spread like wildfire without any facts or substantiation.

On Dec. 12, the Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Rohrer removed Rev. Nelson from his congregation as pastor of Misión Latina Luterana and took over the worship service with their staff. They told the congregation to wait until the service concluded to find out why their pastor was no longer with them. Instead, the congregation walked out and continued their service in a parking lot, taking the statue of the Virgin with them on their pilgrimage. Less than two months later, Rohrer and the Synod Council dropped Rev. Nelson from the roster of ordained ministry in the ELCA on Feb. 7^th, 2022.

By February of 2022, the number was up to “more than a dozen victims.”

According to a Feb. 17th statement by the Sierra Pacific Synod Council, “The synodical inquiry process regarding concerns about Nelson Rabell-Gonzalez lasted more than two years with Synod staff receiving continual communications of verbal harassment and retaliatory actions from more than a dozen victims from 2019 to the present.”

More than a dozen? That’s interesting. Because if this is the case, then the Synod was actually complicit in allowing a harasser to continue in his actions, something I explained in this post: Sierra Pacific Synod Attacks Rev. Nelson – and Indicts Itself. But the fact is, they did not act. Instead, they gave Rev. Nelson the position of mission developer for a new Latiné congregation in March 2021. This tells us that either Rohrer and the Council were lying or that the Synod is liable for aiding and abetting an abuser. You can’t have it both ways.

Now it’s “dozens”?

Nevertheless, in the months leading up to the 2022 Synod Assembly, Rohrer and their supporters kept edging the number of accusers higher and higher until, by the time of the Assembly, people were throwing around the term “dozens of victims.”

Despite the fact that no evidence has ever been presented, and that Rohrer is no longer bishop (and under investigation by the ELCA), the rumors about Rev. Nelson persist to this day.

How did we go from one accuser to dozens of accusers?

It turns out that this was all part of Rohrer’s Big Lie.

How do we know Rohrer was lying? Because on July 21, 2022, a Report to the Latino Ministries Association Community was released by Sierra Pacific Synod Interim Bishop Rev. Claire Burkat, the Latino Ministries Association, Iglesia Luterana Santa María, and Rev. Nelson himself that begins to unravel Rohrer’s twisted knot of lies.

Rev. Nelson Rabell-Gonzalez with members of the ELCA Latiné delegation, the Sierra Pacific Interim Bishop Claire Burkat, and two of the congregation’s Diaconal candidates Lissa Barragan and Reyna Martinez after the worship service on July 17, 2022, at Iglesia Luterana Santa María Peregrina.

The statement included this revelation about the names on the list of accusers:

According to information provided by staff of the Sierra Pacific Synod to members of Iglesia Luterana Santa María Peregrina, names of said members [of the congregation] were included in the list of accusers in the internal investigation of Pastor Rabell-Gonzalez’s case. As mentioned by Bishop Burkat, people from the community were not included in the investigation.

Furthermore, according to a Sierra Pacific staff source, there seems to be a list of accusers that includes individuals from the community, who are asking to be removed from said list immediately, as they did not bring allegations against the Pastor and want to know who — and under what process or procedure — included their names as accusers.

In other words, it turns out that some of the people who are named on Rohrer’s list had no idea they were included among the “dozens” of accusers.

They didn’t know they were on the list, nor did they ask to be on the list. They never filed a complaint about Rev. Nelson, and their names were included without their knowledge or consent. Apparently, Rohrer just combed through the synod Rolodex and the membership rolls of Rev. Nelson’s church and started adding names to the pile. This was Rohrer’s Big Lie.

Let’s be clear. At no point has anyone shared a list of names with Rev. Nelson.

The person who learned that her name was falsely included on that list is Señora Bertha Castro, a parishioner in Rev. Nelson’s church. Sra. Castro agreed to talk with me about what she has seen and experienced throughout this entire ordeal and has given me permission to share her story publicly.

Full disclosure: I am an ordained minister in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), and Rev. Nelson Rabell-González is my friend and colleague. I am writing this piece to help tell his story, so that the truth can be told and justice will be realized.

Señora Bertha Castro’s story

Sra. Castro has known Rev. Nelson since 2018 when Rev. Mark Price, senior pastor of St. Paul Lutheran in Lodi, Calif., asked her to help with a new Hispanic ministry that Rev. Nelson was starting in his position as Associate Pastor. She had served as a community liaison for the local school and is a trusted leader with connections to many families. So the pastors asked her to let people know about the new Spanish-language service. Eventually, she joined the church and the congregation elected her to the church council and to represent the interests of the Latiné congregation.

“At first, we all felt very good about the ELCA. There was a large group of people worshiping at the church in the Spanish-speaking service. People were welcoming and accepting of us,” she recalled.

But when Rev. Nelson began advocating for immigrant and migrant rights, the backlash from some white members of the church soon followed.

Sra. Castro said it all came to a head in February 2021 when the leaders called Council members into a meeting about Rev. Nelson. “They told us people were leaving the church and taking their money because they were angry about what Rev. Nelson was doing. So they were going to ask him to resign. I was shocked, and then I started crying. They wouldn’t even let us vote. They told us the Executive Committee had already made the decision.”

Rev. Mark Price and the church’s leadership tried to get Rev. Nelson to sign a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for a small severance package, but he refused. Instead, he took a position as a synod Mission Developer in nearby Stockton to begin a new congregation, Misión Latina Luterana. Upon his departure, St. Paul called the former intern, Rev. Frances Le Bas, to fill his position. But Bertha and her family left St. Paul’s and began attending the services led by Rev. Nelson instead. The rest of the Spanish-speaking congregation followed.

Their thriving congregation was reaching out to the Hispanic community through Covid relief programs, community organizing, and cultural heritage events. Even though they felt betrayed by St. Paul in Lodi, they had hope that they could continue their congregation and grow their ministry.

But then they learned that their pastor had been accused of harassment just before the Synod Assembly. This was both confusing and disconcerting to the congregation.

“We knew these accusations could not be true. We know Pastor Nelson. And we know why certain people are angry at him and hate him. But no one listens to us,” she said.

Sra. Castro said she saw that hatred on full display at the 2022 Synod Assembly. “I watched the Synod Assembly online. I saw what Bishop Rohrer and Rev. Frances said about Rev. Nelson. It is incredible how much they hate him.”

**Finding out she was on the list**

But it was in a conversation with a member of the synod staff after the assembly that Sra. Castro realized that Rohrer’s Big Lie involved her. This staff member revealed that Sra. Bertha’s name was on Rohrer’s list of accusers against Rev. Nelson.

“At first, I wanted to laugh. I thought she was kidding. But then she told me that she herself was on the list as well. She told Rohrer, ‘Take my name off that list.’ She had never asked to be on the list and did not make any accusations or have any complaints about Rev. Nelson.”

This synod staff member also told Sra. Castro that there are others’ names on that list who never filed a complaint, never asked to be on the list, and had no idea they were included among the “dozens” of accusers.

Let’s pause here and point out something important.

What we are learning is that at least some members of the Synod staff knew about Rohrer’s Big Lie. . . but never told the truth and never publicly defended Rev. Nelson. Instead, they allowed an innocent man to be publicly excoriated again and again, while saying and doing nothing to stop it.

In fact, certain staff members and synod council members have perpetuated false notions about Rev. Nelson and the congregation which have not yet been retracted. Some people may argue that they were in fear of Rohrer’s retaliation if they spoke up. But Rohrer left office as of June 7. So for more than six weeks, they have allowed Rohrer’s Big Lie to stand. There is no excuse for that.

For over a year now, many people have believed Rohrer’s Big Lie that Rev. Nelson is a serial abuser. In Facebook comments, Twitter feeds, and in both public and private conversations, these false accusations are repeated so often, they are erroneously believed to be the truth. Also, the accusations were repeated by many people at the 2022 Synod Assembly who slandered Rev. Nelson and assassinated his character repeatedly. And not once did anyone from the ELCA Churchwide Office who was present at that assembly – including Bishop Eaton herself – stand up to stop these slanderous verbal assaults.

**In fact, Rohrer insisted that their actions against Rev. Nelson were done under the advisement of Bishop Eaton.**

If this is the case, then Rohrer is not the only one who needs to be investigated. As I have noted in previous articles, Rev. Nelson informed Bishop Eaton about the situation he was facing back in November 2021. That she refused to help is bad enough. But if she, in fact, advised and directed Rohrer, then the Conference of Bishops needs to open an investigation into Bishop Elizabeth Eaton’s role in the Sierra Pacific Synod’s handling of Rev. Nelson and Misión Latina Luterana.

Listen to the community

Sra. Bertha and the rest of the congregation have never wavered in supporting their pastor. And despite the controversy, their congregation continues to grow. What would explain this? Either this is a group of gullible people held in thrall by an abusive pastor. OR this is a group of astute, intelligent people from diverse Latiné backgrounds who have known the truth all along, but have been silenced, ignored, and disrespected by the Sierra Pacific Synod and the ELCA.

“The ELCA kicked us out twice,” said Sra. Castro. “First, from St. Paul. Then from Misión Latina Luterana. They did not care about us. After they fired Rev. Nelson, they never asked how we were doing. They never provided us with another pastor. We were not important to them,” she laments. “Bishop Eaton did not even visit us when she came for the Synod Assembly. She came for the abuser, but not for us, the ones who were abused.”

The first steps toward truth-telling and accountability

Bishop Claire Burkat is trying to change that. According to the statement, in her first congregational visit as interim Bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod, she went to the people of Iglesia Luterana Santa María Peregrina on Sunday, July 17, as a sign of her care for the “heartbreak and the pain and distress” they have experienced. She has promised an investigation of the circumstances regarding the removal of Rev. Nelson from the roster. This is what he has asked for from the very beginning. It’s time to unravel Rohrer’s Big Lie.

And when that investigation happens, I am quite sure that the Rohrer’s Big Lie will crumble to dust, revealing others’ lies as well. I have seen the evidence and am confident that the truth will set all of us – Rev. Nelson, his family, his congregation, the ELCA, and even his detractors – free.

A new Reformation for the ELCA

And the truth is that the ELCA is in desperate need of a new Reformation, a reformation of its systemic racism, its unjust treatment of clergy and congregations in historically marginalized communities, and its Corporate Captivity. Next month when the Churchwide Assembly meets in Columbus, Ohio, there will be many memorials and motions presented to begin to address these myriad injustices.

Now is the time to right the wrongs.

Why the ELCA Needs to Investigate the Case of Rev. Nelson Rabell-González

6 Reasons Why Rev. Nelson Rabell-González was Denied Due Process

For a complete compilation of all documents, blogs, commentaries, and posts from all parties about the situation in the Sierra Pacific Synod, visit this website created by Shruti Kulkarni: https://whathappenedinthesps.weebly.com/. This website has compiled all items relating to the controversy for accountability, clarification, and ease of access.