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Note #7098 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Mount Auburn ministers charged
20-March-2002
02111

Mount Auburn ministers charged

Cincinnati More Light pastors charged with "willful" disobedience

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - A Virginia lawyer has filed disciplinary cases against two ministers in the Presbytery of Cincinnati for allegedly defying the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The ministers - the Rev. Harold G. Porter and the Rev. Stephen Van Kuiken - are part of Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, whose session has said it will ordain and marry gays and lesbians in open defiance of the Book of Order.

	Mount Auburn Presbyterian is a longtime "More Light" church, committed to full participation of gay and lesbian members.

 	The charges were filed by Paul R. Jensen, a Reston, VA, resident who is a member of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, of Newport Beach, CA. Last year Jensen filed charges against an openly gay minister in the Presbytery of Baltimore.

	Van Kuiken, Mount Auburn's pastor for two-and-a-half years, is accused of "willful and deliberate" violations of his ordination vows, including the ordination and installation of "unrepentant" gay deacons and elders, and the performance or authorization of same-sex union ceremonies.

He is also charged with renouncing the jurisdiction of the PC(USA) by refusing to comply with its constitution and with renouncing the authority of the General Assembly's Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC), which has ruled, in a case in the Presbytery of Northern New England, that a congregation must comply with a constitutional provision that bars gays and lesbians from ordination to church office.

	The provision of the Book of Order, G-6.0106.b, says that gay and lesbian candidates for church office must be sexually chaste, as is also required of unmarried heterosexuals.

	Porter, Mount Auburn's pastor emeritus, is charged with a "willful and deliberate" violation of his ordination - the performance of a same-sex union within the presbytery, thus renouncing the jurisdiction of the PC(USA).

	Jensen also has asked the Synod of the Covenant to "take emergency action" to stop the Mount Auburn church from defying the denomination's constitution, as it openly did in two resolutions passed by its session last month. 
"Either elders and ministers must obey church polity, or church polity is meaningless," Jensen said in a letter to the synod.

	The first of Mount Auburn's resolutions, dated Feb. 27, states that the session cannot comply with G-0106.b, because it is discriminatory and is "not Christ-like, not Scriptural, not Reformed and not Presbyterian." It says Mount Auburn "has ordained and will continue to ordain" self-acknowledged gays and lesbians, and will "promote their full participation in all aspects of church life."

	In a statement on "inclusive marriage," dated Feb. 28, the session says it will conduct Christian services of marriage for both heterosexual and homosexual couples. The resolution points out that marriage provides "intimate friendship, encouragement, counsel and support," and may or may not include children.
Section W-4.9001 of the Book of Order defines marriage as "between a man and a woman." The Permanent Judicial Commission has ruled that same-sex union ceremonies are permissible as long as they are "not considered to be the same as a marriage ceremony."

	The session filed the resolutions with the Office of the General Assembly, the judicial arm of the PC(USA).

	Jensen argues that the resolutions are "unequivocal and straightforward renunciations of our church polity," and that the church should be divided, dismissed or dissolved, as provided in the Book of Order.

	In his letter to the Cincinnati Presbytery's Committee on Ministry, Jensen said: "One must accord to the Mount Auburn leadership the courage of its convictions: They have intentionally left no room for doubt as to their position. They explicitly renounce the jurisdiction of the constitution of the PC(USA) and of  the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission. As such, theirs is a church in schism."

	Van Kuiken said he has not received a copy of the complaint, and is "troubled" that it has appeared on the Internet, most notably on PresbyWeb and on the site of The Presbyterian Layman.

	He said the actions of the Mount Auburn session are "nothing new" and were not taken in response to the current political climate within the PC(USA). "We're just being who we are," he told the Presbyterian News Service.
Jensen said he provided copies of his complaint to the press.

	A commission investigated Mount Auburn's "gay-affirming" policy in the early 1990s, concluding that its actions were "irregular" and urging the presbytery to take up the matter again when the denomination's standards have been clarified, according to the Rev. Sam Roberson, the presbytery executive.

	Although G-0106.b has been added to the constitution since then, Roberson said, whether the denomination's standards are clear is "a matter of perspective."

	"Clearly what we have here is a situation where a Presbyterian congregation's conscience is in conflict with the Presbyterian constitution, and that produces a conundrum, he said.
Roberson pointed out that Presbyterians are not entirely agreed on many issues, including gambling, capital punishment and abortion - yet manage to stay together.

	Roberson said he hopes that judicial action can be avoided, and that the presbytery can help the denomination move in "more positive directions." He admitted that Mount Auburn's "out-front" stance "raises the stakes" for those who disagree with the church's positions.

	Jensen said he filed the cases because of the unconstitutional behavior of the defendants, and is acting solely as an individual.

	Although the Presbyterian Coalition's board of directors said in an open letter in March that at least a dozen churches have made "public statements that they refuse to abide by G-60106," Jensen told the Presbyterian News Service that he acted on the cases he knows about.
"Let me know the others and I'll file those, too," he said.

	The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the denomination's stated clerk, sent a letter to the Mount Auburn session on March 13, asserting that the session overstepped its authority on two matters.

	Kirkpatrick said that session does not have the constitutional authority to "disregard any mandatory provisions of the of the Book of Order."

The session may surely work toward a change in our polity," he wrote, "but it is not free to ignore standards set out in our Book of Order."
	
He said the session has no authority to instruct the nominating committee to ignore G-6016.b, and has no right to "impose criteria" for ordination not enumerated in the Book of Order.
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