Congregation must pay $1.3 million to leave PCUSA
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, July 7, 2003
The Presbytery of the Peaks in Virginia is charging a Virginia congregation $1.3 million to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) to affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
The presbytery voted unanimously on July 1 to dismiss the 120-year-old Rivermont Presbyterian Church, one of the strongest evangelical of the 145 congregations in the presbytery.
But the presbytery ordered the Lynchburg congregation to pay an exit toll of 30 percent of the $3.775,498 value of its property. The congregation must pay an initial amount of $700,000 with the balance of $432,650 to be paid over the next five years.
Based on Rivermont’s current level of support for the work of the presbytery — $16,000 in 2002 — the cost of separation is equal to more than 81 years of paying the same annual amount.
Rivermont’s leaders agreed to pay their way out of the denomination, but the 30 percent figure was proposed by the presbytery’s administrative commission and was “never negotiable,” according to David Etheridge, the associate pastor of Rivermont.
Presbyterian law says that a congregation’s property is held in trust for the denomination. But there is nothing in church law that requires a presbytery to demand compensation from a congregation that votes to change its affiliation. On June 22, 95 percent of the members of Rivermont voted to leave the PCUSA and affiliate with the EPC. The congregation was told that the cost of dismissal would be 30 percent before it voted to leave the PCUSA.
According to the Lynchburg News and Advance, Etheridge said the price was high but not unreasonable. The newspaper quoted a member, George Caylor, as saying that he was outraged by the price the congregation had to pay to leave. “I think it was obscene,” Caylor said. “I think it was vengeance.”
Rivermont’s transition to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church will become effective on July 26. The 911-member congregation is one of a small number of PCUSA congregations that have completed steps or are taking them to affiliate with more evangelical denominations.
In July 2002, Circleville Presbyterian Church in the Presbytery of Hudson River paid its way out of the PCUSA, also to affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. In that case, the presbytery ordered Circleville to pay $112,500 — 10 percent of the value of its property.
In January 2002, the Presbytery of Maumee Valley in Ohio fired the pastor and confiscated the property of Norcrest Presbyterian Church after the congregation sought to negotiate a separation from the PCUSA to affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Rivermont, Circleville and Norcrest were all congregations whose sessions had allied with the Confessing Church Movement within the PCUSA.
At Rivermont, the current pastor, John Mabry, will leave with the congregation to affiliate with the EPC. Etheridge says he will remain in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Etheridge, who received a settlement as part of the congregation’s dismissal, says he needs some time to care for an ailing mother. He says he is committed to continue to preach the gospel within the PCUSA.