Recently, Lake Street Church in Evanston welcomed a heretic as its new minister.
Rev. Steve Van Kuiken received national attention about 10 years ago when he was accused of heresy and defrocked for marrying same-sex couples at Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. Van Kuiken agreed to become the church's pastor in 1999 knowing full well that the congregation intended to push the boundaries of church doctrine by engaging in open disobedience. He was subsequently featured in the 2004 CNN documentary Fight Over Faith.
After spending a number of years at Rincon United Church of Christ in Tuscon, Ariz., Van Kuiken, a Michigan native, returns to the Midwest looking to bring the same progressive mentality and leadership to Lake Street Church.
Van Kuiken (who recently praised the passage of the marriage-equality law in the Illinois Senate) spoke with Windy City Times about his 27-year journey as minister, what he learned from the controversy in Cincinnati and his plans for Lake Street Church.
Windy City Times: What about this church and this opening appealed to you?
Steve Van Kuiken: The previous minster was very much into the same kind of thing I am—how other religious traditions can really inform Christianity—because I kind of consider myself to be a Buddhist Christian (how the Buddhist practice really helps me recover what I think is the best of the Christian tradition). I come from the perspective that these traditions are not in competition but really complement one another and this church is in that tradition, too. … [Lake Street Church] understands this whole inward journey thing, of mysticism and contemplation and meditation.
WCT: What did you learn from the controversy in Cincinnati and how did it impact and change you?
SVK: So often the real moments of spiritual growth are through pain and struggle, through suffering. … One thing I've really learned from my gay and lesbian friends is how corrosive the closet is, how psychologically damaging being forced to hide who you are can be, how pathological that is and how that kind of manifests itself within the gay and lesbian community where you've got this cannibalism going on in a lot of ways, this self-loathing and self-hatred comes out.
For me, it was a real lesson in the importance of authenticity, in the struggle to be authentic and that's for everybody. On so many different levels, institutional church has discouraged authenticity. They discourage people from being themselves, from being honest. And that's one thing I've learned that I'm not gonna do, so on a lot of different issues it's helped me "come out of the closet." This is who I am as a unique individual, as a person.
WCT: How did you first become passionate about LGBT rights and feel attached to the issue?
SVK: It started as a natural expression of fairness. If I had been living in the 1900s I would be working for women's equality and if I were in the '60s it would have been racial equality, so for me it was this natural impetus to treat people fairly and equally. It did become more personal because I made so many friends—my best friend in high school was gay. He had gone to Princeton and Columbia law school; he was just brilliant, but he had contracted AIDS. When I knew him in high school we never really talked about it, but during a lot of the work I was doing, being with a lot of gay and lesbian folks on a regular basis working and being together and having friendships, that changed the whole thing. It was more than an abstract cause—it was personal.
WCT: This could go for any issue including LGBT rights, but how do you mobilize a community such as Lake Street Church and take it from thinking and believing to a state of action and making a difference?
SVK: That's the key. In a lot of ways that's what a good minister does, is like a community organizer, gets people's bodies in action. There's a lot of suggesting, convincing, cajoling, but also by example. I'll just go out and say, "hey, anyone wanna join me? This is where I'll be, this is what I'm gonna be doing."
A lot of people will come along for something like that. It might be a small core, but the core gets bigger and bigger. Another thing to do is listen and find out where their passions are and let it almost bubble up from within the congregation. Part of it is not to impose my understanding or my agenda on the congregation, but really help them discover its own agenda, help them live into it, remind them. Someone asked what my hopes are for Lake Street Church and the short answer is help them become who they are, help them live into what their aspirations are.
WCT: Do you have anything in mind that you want to accomplish at Lake Street Church both inside the church or outside the community?
SVK: Part of what I do is try and figure out where the natural energy is and fan that a little bit, stuff that I'm interested in but that people in the congregation are interested too. I think the area of gun violence and gun control … we seem to have this fetish with guns in this country and this ridiculous understanding of a Second Amendment we've enshrined as some kind of holy text we can't change or reinterpret. I think that has to be addressed and living in a major city we're just so close to it, we see the violence every day.
WCT: How do you push a congregation that's already so open-minded and progressive?
SVK: I will find ways. I'm sure I will butt up against that; I always do. It's not much trouble for me. If I don't have that tension of being myself, saying what I need to say and feeling a little bit of a pushing away—if I don't feel that, then something's wrong. Too often religious leaders are all about wanting to be liked or being successful or popular and I have a different view. I don't know where those issues will be, but I'll find them.
