(By Sarah M. Wojcik, The Morning Call). Arguments in court Friday [2/17/17] painted a picture of tension and emotion at the sprawling campus of the First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem.
Northampton County President Judge Stephen Baratta said he’s not looking forward to handing down a decision in what’s shaping up to be a complicated church property dispute dividing the congregation.
With lawyers appearing before him for the first time since legal filings last summer over ownership of the 31.5-acre property, Baratta didn’t seem convinced that the case could end without going to trial.
“I really would hate to render a decision at some point that’s going to hurt members of the community in matters of faith,” Baratta said. “If you’re getting close to a resolution I will do whatever I can to work with you, to push you over that line. But please, consider, 10 years from now when you look back on this, it may not be as difficult an issue as it is today.”
The massive Bethlehem church at 2344 Center St., with roughly 2,600 members, is in the midst of upheaval.
The majority of members who cast ballots June 26 voted to switch affiliations, leaving the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) in favor of the more conservative Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians denomination. The majority of the membership, leaders say, left the national branch because its theological views no longer aligned with their own as the Presbyterian Church (USA) took increasingly progressive stances on same-sex marriage and gay ministers.
But the Lehigh Presbytery, the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s regional authority, disputed the split and claims ownership of the church property. The denomination’s Book of Order, revised and adopted in the mid-1980s, included a clause that indicates church property is “held in trust” for the denomination. The Lehigh Presbytery said that means the membership cannot unilaterally break away and take all the assets with it.
But Forrest Norman, attorney for the First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem, argued the deed for the property names only the church and there’s no indication that in adopting the new Book of Order rules in the 1980s, the membership also took on the trust clause.
“It is strictly held by the local church for the local church as any corporate entity would do,” Norman said of the property.
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All other factors being equal. Lets take the interpersonal and financial dynamics playing out at FPB and apply the same conditions to say a 100 or 50 member church. Same histories, styles of pastoral leadership, same types of people and key players-only much smaller on a scale of magnitude. Do you think for one second we would be reading about it in the papers? Of course not, this church matter would have been settled long ago by either a negotiation process, a nominal amount of money changing hands, a closing ceremony with Presbytery and all go their ways. Why not here?
Three responses are obvious, money, power and control. Who wants it and what price are they willing to pay for it. For all the bile and hate generated by both sides at the end the Presbytery of Lehigh will be left holding the bag on this one, right or wrong, good or bad. They could have settled this matter some time ago if they employed different tactics, but they saw the implications for loss of both money and power and took to the mattresses, to use a phrase.
The abiding lesson here for Lehigh and the PCUSA, regardless of whether they win or loss this round in court or not. If you think after 60 years of institutional decline and depopulation that you can either litigate or sue, or extort your way to health and healing, prosperity or wholeness you are wrong. And not only would you be worthy of utter contempt and rebuke. But you richly deserve your institutional decline into collapse and any contraction, painful as it will be, that comes your way, win or lose this particular case. We are a free people, you cannot ask them to leave the keys at the door while at the same time place your hands into their pockets or wallets, as a condition of their exit, blessing them and wishing them well on the way out the door. That dog just will not hunt.