Presbytery ‘implores’ each church to confirm its property is held in trust for PCUSA
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, June 3, 2005
As court cases pop up all over the country over who owns a congregation’s property, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has begun sending teams to meet with synod and presbytery representatives to ensure that “church corporation articles … state clearly that the church property is held in trust” for the denomination.
One presbytery, the Presbytery of San Gabriel in California, has approved the establishment of a task force, “appointed by the moderator in consultation with the Presbytery Council, to review promptly the By-Laws and church corporation articles of every church in the presbytery,” according to an Administrative Commission’s recommendation approved March 8 by the presbytery.
Another recommendation approved by the presbytery “implores each pastor and session to be certain that each church corporation has a written provision that in any future dissolution of the congregation that the property reverts to the Presbytery of San Gabriel.”
The Administrative Commission’s recommendation states that, “On April 26, representatives of our Presbytery met with persons responsible for legal and property issues from the Synod [of Southern California and Hawaii] and from several other presbyteries to confer with Mark Tammen [the denomination’s director of constitutional services] of the Office of the General Assembly and with Eric Granger, General Counsel of the General Assembly Council.”
The meeting, according to the Administrative Commission’s recommendation, was a “consultation on church property” that involved the sharing of information “about recent court rulings in California and elsewhere.”
At least two property-dispute cases are under way in civil courts involving PCUSA congregations. Both congregations, which are evangelical and orthodox, voted to leave the PCUSA because of their disagreement with the actions and decisions of Presbyterian leaders.
In California, Serone Church, an independent Korean congregation in Artesia, is trying to stop the Presbytery of Hamni’s attempt to seize its property and assets. In North Carolina, Hephzibah Evangelical Church near Bessemer City has asked the North Carolina Court of Appeals to reverse a ruling by a state judge, who awarded the property to the presbytery.
Both congregations are challenging the PCUSA’s property trust clause, G-8.0201, in the Book of Order, which states: “All property held by or for a particular church, a presbytery, a synod, the General Assembly, or the Presbyterian Church (USA), whether legal title is lodged in a corporation, a trustee or trustees, or an unincorporated association, and whether the property is used in programs of a particular church or of a more inclusive governing body or retained for the production of income, is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (USA).”
Another case involved St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, a Fresno, Calif., congregation that left that 8.5-million denomination in 2000 to become an independent Methodist church.
Last December, the California Supreme Court let stand a lower court’s ruling that the congregation had the right to revoke the United Methodist property trust agreement and keep its property.
Last year, a Maryland state court ruled in favor of a dissident congregation that left the AME Zion Church. Similar challenges of church property laws are being pursued by congregations in the Episcopal Church (USA).
Although some state courts have upheld denominational property trust clauses, the recent rulings by appellate courts in Maryland and California concluded otherwise. Those appellate court rulings held that local congregations that had voted to leave their denominations could retain their property because they either never agreed to place the property in trust, or if the property were subject to trust, the trust was revocable. They said congregations that decided by majority vote to leave their denominations could rescind their submission to a trust clause adopted by the denomination.
The Presbytery of San Gabriel’s Administrative Commission’s recommendation, which refers to congregations seeking to leave their respective denominations as “splinter groups,” states that:
“Some judges have ruled in favor of splinter groups in congregations where the corporation papers of a congregation do not explicitly state that the church property reverts to the presbytery, or similar governing body in other denominations, in the dissolution of the congregation, or when a dissenting faction in a congregation has claimed a right to the property. Congregational By-laws should state clearly how Trustees are elected by the congregation, and that the church corporation articles must state clearly that the church property is held in trust.”
Since 1979, rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court increasingly have emphasized that church property rules must be resolved by a “neutral principles of law” analysis.
In Jones v. Wolf (1979), the court declared, “The primary advantages of the neutral-principles approach are that it is completely secular in operation, and yet flexible enough to accommodate all forms of religious organization and polity. The method relies exclusively on objective, well-established concepts of trust and property law familiar to lawyers and judges. It thereby promises to free civil courts completely from entanglement in questions of religious doctrine, polity, and practice.”
The court added, “As a means of adjudicating a church property dispute, a State is constitutionally entitled to adopt a ‘neutral principles of law’ analysis involving consideration of the deeds, state statutes governing the holding of church property, the local church’s charter, and the general church’s constitution.”
In states that adjudicate church property disputes according to neutral principles of law, the trust language in the PCUSA’s Book of Order may not carry much weight in civil courts. Of greater importance could be the language in the local church’s deeds, by-laws and articles of incorporation. Courts increasingly focus on language that states the property belongs to the local church or states that such property is not subject to an irrevocable trust in favor of the denomination. It is that language that denominational officials appear to be trying to influence in the Presbytery of San Gabriel by having pastors and sessions “be certain that each church corporation has a written provision that in any future dissolution of the congregation that the property reverts to the Presbytery.”