Minister Defrocked for Officiating Same-Sex Wedding
Conservative, but not conventional. He understood that he might be penalized for following his conscience.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Norman Kansfield (NK) was born in East Chicago, Indiana. His father was a truck driver, and his mother was a secretary at the local office of the Reformed Church in South Holland, Illinois, where the family moved after Norm was born.
CHILDHOOD
South Holland, Illinois, NK’s hometown, consisted largely of descendants of Dutch immigrants who still spoke the language and farmed onion seedlings. Social distinctions did not rest on who ‘kept the Sabbath’ – pretty much everybody did that – so much as who peeled their potatoes on Saturdays, in order to more fully avoid labor on Sundays.
NK/s family would not even mow their lawn on Sundays.
EDUCATION
As a young man, NK earned five academic degrees, studying two subjects, library science and religion, mainly the Old Testament. Among his educational accomplishments was earning a doctorate of theology, which qualified NK to serve as a Pastor within his religious denomination.
FOLLOWING A RELIGIOUS LEADERSHIP CAREER PATH
Following graduation from divinity school, NK served as a pastor and librarian at different institutions in the Midwest and the Northeast. He extolled the past of the Reformed church – believing that, centuries ago, theology had been a matter of everyday conversation for the common man – yet his model minister of recent times was a progressive figure: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
NK’s traditionalism and egalitarianism found dual expression in the unusual syntax he used to describe the mission of the church: to present “a new vision of what society was intended to be.”
Eventually, NK was appointed a professor of theology, the denomination’s most esteemed rank, and president of the school that trains its ministers, the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey, which is the oldest seminary in the U.S. On special occasions, he gave sermons in Dutch.
ACCEPTING A PROFESSIONAL RISK AND ITS POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES
When NK’s daughter was considering ‘coming out of the closet’ (stating publicly that she was gay), she was nervous about telling her father, by then the nationally known pastor and conservative church leader. But when she told him, he responded with warm acceptance and years later, insisted that he officiate at her same-sex wedding, which was held in Massachusetts several weeks after that state legalized same-sex marriage.
“Clad in his church vestments, he read with emotion from the Book of Isaiah about a God who extends his kingdom of love beyond Israel to cover foreigners and eunuchs,” reported a local newspaper covering the wedding.
There had been no other known instance of a Reformed minister officiating at a same-sex wedding. Earlier the same year, the General Synod, the church’s annual meeting of leaders, had voted to affirm the definition of marriage “as the union of one man and one woman.”
CHALLENGE – PUSHED OFF YOUR CAREER PATH
NK told a news reporter covering the wedding that he realized his choice to officiate at his daughter’s same-sex wedding might provoke a ‘dust-up.” It led to much more: his termination as seminary president, the first trial of a Reformed minister in 100 years, his defrocking and the start of an existential debate among church members, which helped to produce a major schism nearly two decades later within the church.
At his church trial for heresy, NK testified that “I support marriage – marriage in its broadest possible context so that it can do the most good for our whole society.” He added that ministers were not asked “to pledge ourselves to the unity, purity and peace of the church, but to the things that make for unity, purity and peace.”
The Synod found otherwise, pronouncing NK guilty of failing to keep his ordination vows, to heed the admonitions of the General Synod and to keep the faith of the denomination. The penalties included being defrocked (losing authority to serve as a pastor within that religious organization).
Although ejected from his church’s leadership role, their penalties had no effect upon the education degrees earned by NK, who thus retained the title of Dr. Kansfield.
POST DISMISSAL PATH
After he was defrocked, NK was hired by Drew University – neither associated with nor controlled by – his former religious organization, the Reformed Church of America. He also served as a ‘theologian in residence’ at Zion United Church of Christ in Stroudsberg, Pa, where he and his wife moved after being forced to leave their free-rent home in Illinois, previously provided by the Reformed Church.
NK and his wife continued to reside in their Pennsylvania home even after the governing body of the Reformed Church voted to restore him to the office of pastor six years after he had been defrocked.
CAREER SATISFACTION
“People presume I have been on a crusade,” said NK to a news reporter. “In point of fact, I’m a conservative theologian. I would not do anything that goes against the church.”
Seventeen years after being defrocked, continuing theological debates among Reformed Church members and leaders about gay rights led more than 40 Reformed Church congregations to split from the main organization, which ultimately went in a less restrictive direction, according to the religion-reporting group, Christianity Today.
There were non-theological issues at the wedding of NK’s daughter – the servers hired to present drinks to guests upon arrival at the wedding reception and later to pass around slices of cake, failed to show up. NK was too happy to care. He felt proud to get through the entire wedding service without tearing up.
When two women approached NK after the wedding and reception had concluded, they said it was the first church service they had felt genuinely part of in years. They were a lesbian couple. At that point, NK could contain himself no longer. He wept.
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This career story was based on an obituary written by Alex Traub, published by The New York Times on May 3, 2024 plus internet research.
