MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Leaders of the Evangelical Covenant Church voted to defrock a Minneapolis pastor and expel his church for permitting gay marriage.
The Rev. Dan Collison had his credentials removed by a 77% vote at the Evangelical Covenant Church’s annual meeting in Omaha, Neb., on Friday night.
Leaders also voted to expel Collison’s First Covenant Church, a founding member of the 134-year-old denomination.
Collison, who became a pastor at First Covenant in downtown Minneapolis in 2009, told the Star Tribune he was “not surprised” but “saddened” after he was voted out.
“I feel grounded in the path we have chosen. I feel grateful for the pastors and churches who stood up for us. I feel compassion to those caught in the middle,” Collison said.
The ECC says First Covenant is free to keep operating as a church and can keep its church building. First Covenant says Collison will continue serving as lead pastor.
A First Covenant staff member officiated at an off-site wedding of two women from the church worship band in 2014. It also put out a “love all” statement that said it welcomes members of the LGBTQ community to participate in the church, including serving in leadership roles. It also says it offers pastoral care, including weddings, “to all in our congregation without regard for ability, race, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation.”
ECC leaders also voted last Friday night to remove another pastor, Rev. Steve Armfield, a retired Michigan minister who officiated his son’s same-sex wedding in Minneapolis. Armfield also was accused of violating the denomination’s same-sex marriage ban.
Leaders had recommended that Collison, Armfield and First Covenant be forced out because they violated Evangelical Covenant Church policies on human sexuality, specifically “celibacy in singleness and faithfulness in heterosexual marriage.”
“The ECC is mindful of the complexity, the sensitivity and the pain that matters of human sexuality can bring,” said Michelle Sanchez, an ECC executive minister. “We talk about the desire for both freedom and responsibility as a denomination. Those two things were coming into tension in this case.”
First Covenant Church was founded by Swedish immigrants in 1874. For decades it was one of ECC’s largest churches nationally, until membership declines began in the 1970s. Today, the denomination has about 875 churches with 280,000 members nationally. It is headquartered in Chicago.