In this video, Lloyd Lunceford answers the questions: Do civil courts have the right to hear a church property dispute? Isn’t that a religious matter that they should stay out of?
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Lloyd Lunceford Video #5: Do civil courts have the right to hear a church property dispute from Presbyterian Lay Committee on Vimeo.
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Very interesting, Attorney Lunceford. I am lost a little around 03:00 when Jones V. Wolfe and the subsequent 1959 Supreme Court ruling is discussed. I would have thought trustees, beneficiaries, and interested parties in and out of court over terms might have been commonplace. So, I have a bit of looking to do.
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Unjust enrichment seems a likely position to me. I mean, suddenly, just because it can, PCUSA grants itself title to thousands of church houses, endowments, seminaries? And you are saying that each challenge goes to the State or Local court, to ascertain compliance with rules.
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Rivera and North both agree that a plot is underfoot. Rivera, of course, points the finger at Jesuits. The breaking of the Protestant power structure as reason, the history of the Order, cause people to listen to him. North, on the other hand, credits a political movement, The Progressives, and suggests power play. As he puts it, Progressives coveted the ecclesiastical robes, the tenured faculty positions, the prestige, but had to funds to secure them, so they cooked up a 150 year scheme.
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My information is that Luther had no initial desire to break with the church. He simply disagreed. The church went on, business as usual, after kicking out Luther. Unlike today, the church in Luther’s time did not suddenly or even gradually change the scriptures. The way it was done in the PCUSA and its seminaries does, indeed, support both notions of a planned conspiracy. Looking at events on the fateful High Holy Days, the year we still remember, we can’t help but see similarities of church hierarchy off the rails.