Jay Bergen

Jay Bergen was born in 1991 in Ontario, Canada, but grew up on the plains of Kansas. Their father, a Mennonite pastor and Bible scholar, quizzed them on the Bible at the dinner table, while their mother, a child psychiatrist, took them to protests against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. 

As a young adult, Jay lived in several intentional and monastic communities and became a leader and board member of the 600-member student housing and dining cooperative at Oberlin College. Also, while at Oberlin, they were first introduced to community organizing through the grassroots movement to stop the harmful practice of fracking natural gas in northeast Ohio. Alongside the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, the anti-fracking movement would give Jay their first taste of the sacred power of nonviolent direct-action campaigns to transform communities and win real change.

In 2014, Jay trained with Community Peacemaker Teams, an organization started by U.S. Christians which provides protective accompaniment and human rights documentation at the invitation of local organizers around the world. Jay served with the team in Iraqi Kurdistan, and in Al Khalil in Palestine’s West Bank.  

After they were deported by the Israeli government, Jay moved to Philadelphia, where they started as the Associate Pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church, the oldest Mennonite Church in North America, and one with a proud history of queer inclusion and celebration. While in that role, they helped launch a queer-inclusive youth group and a sexuality education program. Additionally, they helped launch a chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a group which organizes white people to oppose racism. Later, they transitioned out of SURJ and on to the Board of the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT), a faith-rooted climate justice direct action organization.

In 2021, after a period of prayer and discernment, Jay came out as non-binary. For Jay, the process was about recognizing that this current gender container most accurately held their sense of self and presentation, though all language ultimately fails in encapsulating the whole of any person. Jay was blessed to have the support of their family, congregation, and partner, and became the first out non-binary pastor of a Mennonite church. They have served as Co-Pastor and continue to serve as Pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church, and are a volunteer with the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), a statewide grassroots base-building campaign to end life-without-parole sentences in Pennsylvania, led by people in prison and their loved ones. In 2024, they were part of the team that launched Christians for a Free Palestine. They also provide trainings on different elements of direct-action campaigning and community safety to groups around the Philadelphia area. 

(This biographical statement was provided by Jay Bergen.)

Biography Date: May 2024

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