The Church of the Nazarene is cracking down on three longtime leaders who seek to minister to LGBTQ people, charging them with disobeying the denomination’s 2019 ruling that same-sex individuals must remain celibate and that clergy cannot bless or perform same-sex marriages.
Some see the disciplinary actions against Selden “Dee” Kelley, Jim Scharn and District Superintendent Rick Power as a much-needed affirmation of the denomination’s Holiness movement origins.
Others say the actions represent a culture-war-fueled rejection of the movement’s compassion for any in need of God’s grace.
The denomination’s communications department did not respond to BNG’s phone messages for comment on the recent actions.
The Church of God, Anderson, Indiana, also is wrestling with LGBTQ issues and has launched an investigation of 17 leaders who signed a statement supporting LGTBQ inclusion.
Selden “Dee” Kelley speaks at Point Loma Nazarene University in 2019. (YouTube/PLNU Chapel)
Among the Nazarenes, Dee Kelley, who has served as pastor of San Diego First Church of the Nazarene for 17 years, was found guilty of teaching that contradicts church doctrine by writing an essay, “A Hope for Change,” in theologian Thomas Jay Oord’s book: Why the Church of the Nazarene Should be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming.
Oord was charged last summer with teaching doctrines contrary to the church and with conduct unbecoming of a minister. He awaits his trial.
Kelley’s hopeful essay tried to thread the same needle Pope Francis navigated in the Vatican’s 2023 guidance that permits priests to bless same-sex couples but prohibits them from blessing same-sex unions.
“I am currently prohibited from joining two people in same-sex matrimony,” Kelley wrote. “I can’t imagine withholding blessing, encouragement, counsel or love.”
Kelley says he never taught or preached on gay issues in his church and never officiated a same-sex wedding. He claims his punishment for writing the essay is the first time in the denomination’s 115-year history that “a case of ‘false doctrine’ has been carried through the entire judiciary process.” He also claims the denomination made more than a dozen violations of its own Manual during his legal ordeal.
“The Manual doesn’t require that every thought I hold be in compliance with the doctrines of the Church of the Nazarene,” he counters.
When Kelley bade farewell to his congregation, members gave him two standing ovations. (His farewell brought a final rebuke from his now retired district superintendent, who falsely accused Kelley of preaching at the service.)
Jim Scharn
Jim Scharn, a Nazarene pastor for decades, served La Verne Community Church for a quarter century. He was asked to kick out two church members who served on its praise team for allegedly being involved in a same-sex relationship he was unaware of.
He refused, surrendered his credentials and, like Kelley, founded a new non-Nazarene congregation that soon welcomed most of his former church’s members.
Rick Power, a Nazarene pastor and leader for 46 years, resigned in April from his job as superintendent of the church’s Hawaii-Pacific District after being asked to do so. His crime was failing to discipline his daughter Rachel, a part-time district employee, who had officiated at a same-sex wedding five years earlier.
Rick Power
Power’s resignation isn’t enough for some critics, who filed accusations against him. A committee has been formed to investigate the accusations.
“Some people will not be satisfied until I have lost my ministerial credentials,” he says. “There is a small but vocal movement to purge the church of people like me. Conversation is being stifled and the middle ground has become a very lonely place.”
Power’s views on LGBTQ issues haven’t aligned with his denomination, but like Kelley, he says he never has taught or promoted doctrines or practices contrary to Nazarene teaching. Two years ago, he wrote a private paper expressing his views on same-sex marriage and gave it to officials overseeing him.
Power believes this is the first time in Nazarene history a district superintendent has faced formal accusations of promoting doctrine contrary to church teaching.
“It’s a watershed moment,” he says. “The church is going through a time of soul-searching regarding its posture toward the LGBTQ community. What does it mean to be a welcoming but not a fully affirming church?”
“The denomination I’ve been part of my entire life is changing right before my eyes,” he explains, saying LGBTQ issues have been weaponized and serve a new litmus test for who’s in and who’s out.
“This is tragic,” he says. A lot of ministers and laypersons don’t feel safe even to talk about these topics for fear that ‘watchdogs’ will report on them being soft.”
He worries the denomination is losing touch with its original impulse, which was “to identify with people on the margins and to serve the poorest of the poor. “
“Our LGBTQ neighbors have been misunderstood, mistreated and often scapegoated by the church,” he says. “Nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of Jesus, the Nazarene.”
The process of disciplining Kelley took more than a year as his case and appeals wound their way through the judicial system of the denomination, which has 2.7 million members worldwide and is growing internationally, but has seen membership declines in the U.S. and Canada from 650,000 in 2014 to 600,000 in 2023.
Kelley’s judicial process followed this timeline:
- On March, 16, 2023, Kelley notified his district superintendent that his three-page essay, “A Hope for Change,” would appear in Oord’s book.
- On March 18 and March 22, the superintendent asked Kelley to surrender his ministerial credentials. Kelley declined, claiming he had done nothing wrong.
- Oord’s LGBTQ book containing Kelley’s essay was published April 23.
- On April 26, a formal disciplinary complaint was filed against Kelley by the senior pastors of two nearby churches: Becky Pape of Escondido First Church of the Nazarene and JJ Murillo of Arlington Avenue Church of the Nazarene in Riverside.
- A committee was formed to investigate the accusation against Kelley, with formal charges presented to church leadership June 10.
- An Aug. 11 hearing held by the church’s Regional Board of Discipline found Kelley guilty.
- On Sept. 10, Kelley appealed to the Regional Board of Appeals, which denied his appeal on Nov. 23.
- Kelley then appealed to the Global Board of Appeals, which denied his appeal on April 16. He no longer can serve in any church position, including boards, teaching, preaching or leading a small group.
Longtime Nazarene pastor and leader Ron Benefiel said these are challenging times for the denomination, which “is trying to explore new ground in some ways because we have a judicial procedure in place that has never been tested.”
He sees the current turmoil as the latest example of historic and “dynamic tensions” between believers who prioritize truth (which can lead to fundamentalism and judgmentalism) and those who prioritize love (which can lead to tolerance, an “anything goes” attitude, and the loss of theological distinctives, such as sanctification).
Benefiel isn’t sure how the LGBTQ controversy, which has been fueled by social media, will play out, but one possibility is that conservative Nazarene leaders will take the path trod by Southern Baptists: orchestrating a conservative resurgence.
The Church of the Nazarene is an outgrowth of the 19th-century Wesleyan-Holiness movement within Methodism.