Tribute at the Memorial Service of
Clarence J. Kinzler
“The boy is more important than the rule.”
The prophetic witness of Clarence “Clari” Kinzler (1935-2023)
By Rev. Michael J. Christensen, Ph.D.
Nampa College Church of the Nazarne, Nampa, Idaho
November 3, 2023
I visited my mentor and friend a week before he died on October 15, 2023. Knowing his heart was weak, I asked him about his health. He didn’t want to talk about his health. He wanted to talk about his church. His heart was burdened about the future of the Church of the Nazarene, and he wanted to do something. Call the General Superintendents? Write a bunch of letters? Tell his story of the challenges back when he was a District Superintendent? He wanted to strategize with me as we used to do, for such a time as this…
His sweet wife Sue poured us a glass of cold water…and wanted to take our picture.
Beyond strategizing with my friend and former District Superintendent, I had the chance to tell Clari what he had meant to me over the years. I thanked him for his years of pastoral mentoring, for co-officiating Rebecca and my wedding, for loaning us his get-away-cabin in McCall for week of heavy discernment and decision-making, for being at my father’s bedside a day or two before he passed.
Clari told me revealing stories, some of which I had not heard before. Like the time in seminary when he felt like quitting. Clari’s father had died when the boy was only five. Growing up in Nampa, Clari became an athlete and felt a call to the ministry. He went to seminary in KC to learn how to preach and pastor a local church. He was better at basketball than most of the preacher boys but not as good at preaching as others. He was tall and handsome, but he didn’t fit the ministerial norm. Discouraged, he needed some fatherly advice. Maybe he wasn’t called to be a pastor?
The President of NTS at the time was the same Dr. L.T. Corlett (1952-1966)—formerly president of NNU—who Clari knew and respected growing up. When he heard that Clari was considering dropping out, Dr. Corlett came to visit him: “Son, take courage. You have gifts and graces. You are called and chosen… I don’t want you to drop out; I want you to be who you are in Christ.”
Dr. Corlett told Clari about an earlier time when a Nazarene college kid got in trouble for breaking a campus rule. Instead of expelling him, the College President offered grace: “The boy is more important than the rule.” Clari thought that was a pretty good precept--The boy is more important than the rule—and it stuck with him throughout his life and ministry, he said. That’s why he was so concerned (“angry” in fact, he told me) about what was happening in the Church.
Greatly encouraged, Clari persevered, graduated, became the founding pastor of the Shawnee (KS) Mission Church of the Nazarene. He preached grace and gratitude as pastor of Arlington Avenue Church of the Nazarene in Riverside, CA, and then as Senior Pastor of Nampa (ID) College Church. In 1984 he became District Superintendent of the Northern California District where he served for 17 years. He served on the Board of Regents at NNU while pastoring College Church and on the Board of Trustees for PLNU while serving in Northern California. In 1992, Point Loma Nazarene University conferred on him the honorary degree, Doctor of Divinity.
In retirement, Clari served various interim roles including Senior Pastor of San Diego First Church of the Nazarene, President of the Nazarene Strengths Institute, District Superintendent of the Northwest Oklahoma District, and pastor of the McCall (ID) Church of the Nazarene. In 2009, Clari was honored as the first recipient of NNU’s Wesley Order of Servant Leader’s award.
Golden Gate Community and the Oak Street House
As the founding Pastor/Director of Golden Gate Community (an Urban Mission of the Church of the Nazarene) in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of SF, Clari Kinzler was my District Superintendent. I was "one of his boys”, as he used to call us, “one of his guys/girls in the inner city.”
Young and brash at 30, I remember trying to ‘splain to my new DS (straight outta Nampa) that there was a difference between a local church and a mission center. Quoting Robert Schuller: “A mission center for JC puts the needs of the unsaved a notch or two above the needs of the saved.”
“That’s why Golden Gate Community only has 30 church members,” I tried to explain, “but we have over 1,000 registered community members on our responsibility list—poor, homeless, addicted, mentally ill, door people, van people, street people—all who visit our Oak Street House for coffee and bagels, hospitality and social services every week or month.”
Clari challenged me: “So, Michael, can you do both? Grow the church and direct the mission? That would be a Win/Win.” (Clari liked to use sports metaphors when strategizing about the church in the city). “Both may not be possible,” I said, “but we’ll try.”
To draw a distinction: A local Nazarene church is required to uphold certain standards of belief and practices for its members. A mission center can accept and include folks who don’t look like, talk like, dress like, think like, or act like most church people. A local church is expected to meet the needs of its members. A mission center is supposed to put the needs of the unsaved a notch or two above the needs of the saved. However, both a local church and a mission station for Jesus Christ can love, accept, forgive, bless, and include people just as they are—each of us uniquely on a spiritual journey, in the process of becoming all that God’s wants us to be.
Clari appreciated the distinction between a local church and an urban mission. He looked at the cigarette butts on the front porch of the Oak Street House and the empty bottles on the street. And he said: “When I come back, I want to see this place packed with all kinds of people … and if I don’t see cigarette butts and bottles outside the church doors… then I’ll know that you’re not doing your job.”
That’s all I needed to hear to trust my District Superintendent. He was not going to make us require more to join our church than Jesus required to join his. The gospel of love, acceptance, and forgiveness—with a commitment to become all that God wants us to be—would be enough. And meeting people’s basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter—in Jesus’s name—could be our priority. Clari had a broad view of the Church’s mission in the world, and an expansive vision for cross-cultural ministry in the cities. “Thrust to Cities” directed by Rev. Mike Davis, was one of his legacies as District Superintendent of Nor Cal District Church of the Nazarene.
AIDS in the City
When HIV/AIDS plagued the city of SF in the 1980s, Clari was with us on the front lines of the crisis. Though controversial, he supported Golden Gate Community’s ministry to people with AIDS, as well as our ministry in the gay community in SF.
I intentionally preached a gospel of radical grace and inclusive love for all God’s children. Some local pastors and denominational leaders objected to my “soft and liberal” theology and practice and called for church discipline. The General Superintendent in jurisdiction required me to change my view of homosexuality to conform to the statement in the Nazarene Manual. But Clari protected me, interpreted me to others, loved, affirmed, and even joined me at times in calling for changes in church polity.
Rather than bringing me up on charges, asking me to file my credentials, or withdraw church support, my District Superintendent was a pastors’ pastor. Even when I knew I had to leave the church of my birth, and join the Methodists, he kept me “dually aligned” for as long as he could…and blessed me on my way. Clari followed the example of John Wesley who said to those with whom he disagreed: “If your heart is right, as my heart is right, then give me your hand.”
Strategically, Clari preferred working behind the scenes, indirectly dealing with a problem. He tended to talk around the edges of a conflict or controversial issue rather than shining a direct spotlight on it. He wanted to avoid an end-run and get a win/win if at all possible.
I remember once--after I had preached and written something too controversial for the church—he wanted me to tone it down. He took me to lunch and wrote down a win/win strategy on a table napkin. He drew four boxes in a quadrant and suggested:
- Box #1 is stuff you can preach, teach, publish for all to hear, come what may.
- Box #2 is hard stuff to share with just the people who have your best interests in mind—your friends and family and close community.
- Box #3 is your private beliefs and doubts best kept to yourself. And…
- Box 4 is stuff you might want to re-think and re-consider. Before speaking or writing something, ask what box of the quadrant it belongs in.
He used other sports metaphors on me to change my course of action or to tone down the rhetoric. “Let the game come to you,” he often said. “Don’t go out of your way to stir things up… or call too much attention to yourself. If you let the game come to you, then you can act and say what you gotta say. At the right time and in the right way.”
The Game Came to Clari
The time came for Clari to say the right thing at the right time and in the right way--clearly and directly to his church. Over time he had earned the respect of General Superintendents and church theologians. In 1992, they invited him to give a keynote address to the Eighth Theology Conference for the USA/Canada Church of the Nazarene in Kansas City. The game had come to him.
His paper on “Articulating and Living Christian Holiness in a Pluralistic World” asked hard questions: Who is my enemy? Who is my neighbor? Who is the one I so often exclude? The Mormon family in Nampa? The gay son in San Francisco? Those living and dying with AIDS? He applied the Nazarene doctrine of Holiness to how we actually treat people who are outsiders, who have different beliefs and practices and identities than what we consider acceptable.
For example, in his paper Clari shared the moment when his attitude toward homosexuals in the church began to change. It was at an AIDS Healing and Communion Service at a gay church in SF on Thanksgiving Sunday. Led by two seminarians--Jim Mutulski, pastor of Metropolitan Community Church (the gay church in town) and my wife Rebecca Laird (seeking ordination in the Church of the Nazarene). Together, they stood at the front of the sanctuary to welcome--whosoever will-- come to the altar for communion and healing. And Clari and Sue were there!
Here's how Clari described it 30+ years ago in his 1992 address to the leaders and theologians of the Church of the Nazarene:
“Crazy wild kids! [Michael and Rebecca Laird Christensen]. They invited me to go along with them [to the gay church]. Sure, sure: we’ll all lose our credentials together! I didn’t answer them for several weeks. But, more or less kicking and screaming, I decided to join them. My wife, Sue, felt that she would like to go also.
“We entered the church early and sat near the front. The sanctuary that seated several hundred became packed with people from the gay and lesbian community. The song service was led by a tremendous musician who had the congregation singing with great exuberance. They told me 60% of the congregation had AIDS. I looked around. Here were same sex married couples who had been together for many years. There were the young 18–24-year-olds who were in the gay or lesbian lifestyle… I asked the Lord why I was there. The still small voice of Jesus answered: ‘If I were in bodily form in San Francisco tonight, I would be exactly where you are.’
“And then something dramatic, unexpected, and life-changing occurred at the gay church:
“They introduced the Golden Gate team, and then asked the District Superintendent of the Northern California Church of the Nazarene to please stand. When Sue and I stood, the crowd went crazy. They clapped and clapped until they clapped me to tears. They knew where the Church of the Nazarene stood on their practice of homosexuality, but that someone would value them as human beings and step across the dividing walls, was hope to them… My heart was broken as I saw young men, mere boys, jamming the middle isle, waiting for someone to pray for them a prayer for healing.” [And as I remember, some of them fell into the arms of Sue and Rebecca who stood there with communion elements to welcomed them home.]
Please, dear holiness church that I love: let’s not let our negative sectors define our mission and set our perimeters…”
And Clari concluded his talk by saying that some of the people the church excludes are not just our neighbors but our own sons and daughters.
My Last Visit with Clari at Grace Assisted Care
Clari reminded me of this transformative event in his life when I visited him at Grace Assisted Care just a week before he died. Clearly, the opportunity to address the theologians and leaders of his church and tell this story was one of the highlights of his life and ministry.
“After I read my paper and delivered my soul,” he told me, “there was a long, long silence. Nobody said a word. I wondered if I had crossed a line. Then, finally, from the back of the room, Nazarene Seminary Professor Kenneth Grider gave a shout: ‘Yeah! THAT’S MY BOY!’ And then the room warmed up, and they applauded what I had to say.”
Whether Dr. Grider was thinking of his own son, who was gay; or thought that Clari was like a son to him, who can say? But Clari’s message were as clear as day: Love the excluded other as if they were your own son or daughter.
In standing up and showing courage, supporting ministries of compassion, advocating for people with AIDS, withholding moral judgement in favor of acceptance, and speaking the truth in love… even if your voice shakes… you’re doing the right thing. By doing the good and right thing in a difficult and ambiguous situation, Clarence Kinzler, I predict, will have a powerful prophetic influence on the Church of the Nazarene even after his death.
He's my elder by 20 years and he mentored me like a son or daughter. But what I want to say today about Clari is what Dr. Grider said of him back in the day: “Yeah! That’s my boy!” He’s my man. Beloved mentor and friend.
And I’m also grateful that Clari’s mentor back in the day, Dr. D. L. Corlett--didn’t expel that boy who broke a campus rule. But instead, channeled grace: “The boy is more important than the rule.” May the Church of the Nazarene live up to the values of its prophetic leaders.
Clarence Kinzler chose to be buried in the same grave plot as his father in Nampa. May you rest in peace, beloved Clari. And with your beloved father, rise in glory!
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