A church court reinstated a minister ousted from the Presbyterian Church (USA) for violating an order to stop marrying same-sex couples.
The Rev. Stephen Van Kuiken, a minister for 19 years, was ousted in June as a Presbyterian minister and pastor of the Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church for defying the order from a court of the Cincinnati presbytery, a cluster of Presbyterian churches in the Cincinnati region.
On Tuesday the permanent judicial commission of the synod that oversees Presbyterian churches in Ohio and Michigan notified Van Kuiken that it was reinstating his membership and ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The judicial commission said in a Feb. 6 decision released Tuesday that the voting body of the Presbytery of Cincinnati could not remove Van Kuiken from the church and ministry while he was appealing the order by the lower church court to stop marrying gay couples.
"I am very happy and I feel vindicated," Van Kuiken said Tuesday. "My career and reputation in the Presbyterian church has been irreparably damaged, but presbyteries will now have to think again before they try to bully individual ministers like this."
Officials with the Cincinnati presbytery did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
Van Kuiken, a married heterosexual originally from Grand Rapids, Mich., joined Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church from the Church of the Apostles in suburban Minneapolis. The church court in Cincinnati ordered April 21 that Van Kuiken stop performing same-sex marriages at Mount Auburn.
The judicial commission based in Maumee has not yet ruled on Van Kuiken's appeal of that order. He has said that he was following the teachings of Jesus by marrying gay couples.
"Now that I have been reinstated, I can continue to challenge the legitimacy of a church policy that forces gay and non-gay persons into secrecy, silence and fear," said Van Kuiken, who signed a termination agreement in return for severance pay from Mount Auburn and will not be returning there.
The highest Presbyterian court ruled in 2000 that ministers may bless same-sex unions but cannot marry the couples. The church follows the biblical interpretation generally held by major Christian denominations that marriage can be a covenant only between a man and a woman.
The synod's judicial commission also said in its ruling Saturday that the presbytery was wrong to find that Van Kuiken had renounced church jurisdiction because it had not first decided that his conduct was not approved by the church constitution. The court also said Van Kuiken was not adequately informed of the possible consequences of his actions.
George Baird, clerk of the synod based in Maumee, said Tuesday that the Cincinnati Presbytery could appeal the latest ruling with the Presbyterian general assembly's permanent judicial commission — the highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Baird also said the latest ruling does not prevent the Cincinnati presbytery from taking some future action to remove Van Kuiken from the church.