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Last weekend, the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America disciplined Norman J. Kansfield, the former president of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, for officiating at his daughter's same-sex wedding. According to a statement by the RCA, pastors and elders brought charges against Kansfield saying "his action was contrary to RCA beliefs, contradicted his ordination vows, and violated his promises made when installed into the office of professor of theology."

The New York Times says, "The delegates also voted to suspend Dr. Kansfield, 65, from the ministry until he changes his views to fall in line with church doctrine, and to strip him of his standing as a professor of theology in the church.

"By a roughly three-to-one majority, the jurors in the rare ecclesiastical trial … voted that by officiating at the wedding, Dr. Kansfield had violated his vows as a minister and ignored the teachings of his church," writes The Times.

Kansfield was ousted from his position at the seminary in early February after word spread that he had officiated at his daughter's wedding at Jonathan Edwards's former church in Northampton, weeks after Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage. The board of trustees then decided not to renew his contract. At the time, board member and spokesman Larry Williams told The New Jersey Star-Ledger, "We decided that the president had put the seminary in an awkward position by performing that ceremony without giving us the benefit of offering sufficient counsel," he said. "It could have hurt the school if it divided people in our student body, if it divided our faculty, if it divided other people who support us."

Despite its decisive action last weekend, the RCA is not likely finished dealing with the issue of homosexuality. The group Friends of Norm is fighting for Kansfield's reinstatement, and his daughter, Ann Kansfield, was recently called to pastor Greenpoint Reformed Church, an RCA member. She graduated from New Brunswick last May and is reportedly seeking ordination.

Also, David Myers, professor of sociology at RCA related Hope College in Holland, Michigan, recently published What God Has Joined Together? A Christian Case for Gay Marriage. Myers says the book does not represent the position of Hope, and though he said he was told to prepare for some hate mail, Myers will be staying at Hope. The college is in an agree-to-disagree relationship with Myers, says The Grand Rapids Press.

Sleuths of the obvious
"Evangelicals can be maddeningly difficult to categorize," says The Philadelphia Inquirer. For example, National Association of Evangelicals president Ted Haggard has a bumper sticker that says, "Vote for Pedro." Who knew Haggard was a fan of the movie Napoleon Dynamite? Even more shocking: Who knew evangelicals comprise "an amalgam of unpredictable, sometimes contradictory, strains of Christianity across a broad spectrum of the nation"?

Evangelists, er, evangelicals are not uniformly political conservatives who believe in an exclusively literal interpretation of the Bible and read Left Behind to discover how the world will end? "They are Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and other mainline Protestants, as well as Southern Baptists and members of nondenominational mega-churches. Without a uniform theology, they vary widely in interpretations of the Bible and its application to their lives and nation."

But just when you thought the mainstream media was starting to get it, the same Inquirer writer says Haggard "parts ways from [evangelicals] with his concern about global climate change and other environmental issues, support for the Supreme Court decision protecting gays' sexual privacy, and support for social justice." Right, Haggard is way out on his own on social justice.

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June (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49