Presbytery gives congregation right to vote for renunciation
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, November 21, 2003
The Presbytery of St. Andrews has decided to allow a Charleston, Miss., congregation the right to vote on whether to renounce the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and buy its property for $75,000.
The presbytery voted 61-4 on Nov. 20 in favor of an administrative commission’s proposal that First Presbyterian Church in Charleston, Miss., be dissolved if two-thirds of the congregation vote for renunciation.
If the congregation, which has been unanimous in favor of leaving the PCUSA, votes for renunciation and its members form a nonprofit corporation, the administrative commission will be authorized to sell the church property to the corporation for $75,000. That, in turn, would allow the nonprofit corporation the right to use the property for whatever legal purposes it desires.
The presbytery’s vote followed nearly two years of negotiations between the administrative commission and the elders of the 102-member Confessing Church congregation. The Charleston congregation originally sought to be dismissed – rather than be required to renounce the PCUSA – to another Reformed denomination.
But the administrative commission’s report to the presbytery said there was no sufficient reason to dismiss the congregation. The commission said the complaints by the congregation over actions and decisions of the PCUSA’s national leaders – including approval of partial-birth abortion and unwillingless to enforce ordination standards – did not warrant dismissal.
One member of the presbytery said the debate over the administrative commission’s report was civil, without acrimony on either side. There was a motion not to require the congregation to repurchase its property, but that was defeated by a voice vote.
One observer told The Layman Online that one of the underlying currents in the issue was a painful history in Mississippi of losing long-time mainline Presbyterian congregations to the Presbyterian Church in America. Otey Sherman, a prominent Charleston banker and an elder at the Charleston church, said the congregation will consider aligning with other Reformed denominations, including the PCA.
The PCA was established in 1972 with 400 congregations that broke away from the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). Today, the PCA has more than 1400 congregations, including 125 in Mississippi, roughly the same as the number of PCUSA congregations in the state. The PCUS was the Southern mainline branch of Presbyterianism before it reunited in 1983 with the Northern branch to form the PCUSA.
Unlike the PCUSA, which has lost more than 42 percent of its members since 1967, the PCA is a growing, conservative denomination. It does not permit women to serve as elders or ministers and it strictly adheres to the Westminster Confession and its catechisms, the principal constitutional standard for Presbyterians of all stripes until the 1960s.
Observers at the presbytery meeting noted that there were no signs of bitterness over the issue. The Charleston congregation had registered no complaints against the presbytery – other than to express dismay that the presbytery had been unable to help it find an evangelical pastor. The Charleston congregation has not had a full-time minister during the two years of negotiations with the administrative commission.
The administrative commission first proposed that the purchase price for the property be set at $250,000 – roughly double its value, according to Sherman. He said that price was beyond the reach of the congregation. Furthermore, he said, the congregation will probably have to borrow money to pay the presbytery so that it will still have funds on hand to call a minister.
First Presbyterian Church in Charleston is the fourth Confessing Church congregation to leave the PCUSA in the last two years.
In July 2002, the Presbytery of Hudson River, which includes more than a dozen congregations whose leaders say they are in open defiance of the PCUSA Constitution, dismissed Circleville Presbyterian Church to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
The presbytery required Circleville to pay $112,500 to keep its property. Circleville’s leaders said the presbytery’s refusal to discipline officers who ordained practicing homosexuals and conducted same-gender “marriages” had impacted their growth and financial support from members who no longer wanted to be identified with the PCUSA.
Also in 2002, the pastor and members of Norcrest Presbyterian Church in Findlay, Ohio, bolted from the PCUSA – or got bolted out. While the congregation was mapping plans for leaving the denomination, presbytery officials took over the church’s property, changed the locks and dismissed the pastor. The members of the congregation that left Norcrest have organized Findlay Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Like the Charleston congregation, Norcrest’s leaders and members were distressed over the direction of the PCUSA.
Similar complaints led to the exodus of the 120-year-old Rivermont Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, Va. In that case, the Presbytery of the Peaks in Virginia, in July 2003, required an exit toll of $1.1 million – roughly 30 percent of the value of the property.
The presbytery, which dismissed the Rivermont Church to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, did allow time payments: an initial amount of $700,000 with the $432,650 to be paid over the next five years.