Presbytery considers high hurdles for letting church leave PCUSA
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, October 18, 2006
A packet mailed by the Presbytery of Western North Carolina includes proposed guidelines for presbytery consideration of requests by congregations to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (USA) to another Reformed denomination.
The guidelines call for high hurdles: 75 percent of the presbytery’s commissioners would have to approve dismissal and only Reformed denominations approved by General Assembly Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick would be acceptable. The recommendations do not spell out who those denominations might be.
The proposal does not explain whether the 75-percent vote comes from the presbytery’s Committee on Ministry or the denomination. But the Book of Order requires a 75-percent vote only in a few cases:
- Waiving the educational requirements – such as Greek and Hebrew – normally required of a candidate to be eligible to be ordained as a minister of the Word and Sacrament;
- Amending confessional standards.
The Book of Order also requires a two-thirds vote to amend a confessional document and to allow a temporary minister to become the permanent minister or associate minister of a congregation. All other issues can be settled with a simple majority.
There are two brief references in the Book of Order to the presbytery’s authority to dismiss a congregation, but no details about how to do it. Section G-11.0103§i says presbyteries have the authority to “divide, dismiss, or dissolve churches in consultation with their members.” and Section G-15.0203§a, which primarily addresses union or federated churches, describes receiving a church from another denomination. Subsection b says, “Similar procedures shall be followed in dismissing a particular church from this denomination to another.” The procedures do not list a requirement for a supermajority vote.
Furthermore, the presbytery’s proposed guidelines, while saying that a congregation might keep its property if its request for dismissal is approved, leave unanswered what the congregation might have to pay to retain the property the church members already paid for.
The guidelines cite a number of Scriptures – John 17:21, I Corinthians 12:12-13, Ephesians 2:19-22; 4:4-6, 15-16 – as “imperatives to unity.” They cite no Scriptures that advise Christians to leave a gathering if it has compromised the gospel.
They call for presbytery involvement from the outset, requiring sessions to meet with the Committee on Ministry and an initial congregational meeting no earlier than February 2007, with presbytery representatives having the right to speak at the meeting. No congregational vote would be allowed at that first meeting.
The session would be permitted to call a second congregational meeting “no sooner than three months and no later than six months” after the first meeting. Again, presbytery representatives would be allowed to speak. Members of the congregation would vote by secret ballots offering two choices: “Request dismissal” or “Do NOT request dismissal.” At least 50 percent of the members would have to be present for a vote to take place.
The guidelines would allow any member to contest the meeting by sending “the details of the allegation to the Stated Clerk of Presbytery, who shall convene the Permanent Judicial Commission to render a decision.”
The mandate that the stated clerk “shall convene” the presbytery court to rule on the complaint could prolong the dismissal for months – or even years if the case goes to the General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission. Regardless of the margin of vote, the presbytery as a whole would consider the outcome at a later meeting and “hear from representatives from the congregation in favor of dismissal” and from “those wishing to remain in the PCUSA, reserving to presbytery the right to determine the ‘true church.'”
Presbytery representatives who attended the second congregational meeting would also be allowed to speak to presbytery and make recommendations. The presbytery would vote “yes” or “no” by secret ballot on the dismissal request. “If three-quarters of those commissioners present and voting vote in favor of dismissal, that shall be the action of presbytery.”
If the vote is yes, the presbytery would consider whether to dismiss the congregation with “all or some of its property.” A presbytery task force appointed by the chairs of the Coordinating Council, the Committee on Ministry and the general presbyter would make a recommendation about the property.
Again, the presbytery would vote by secret ballot on the property issue, and a three-fourths vote would be required for a congregation to retain some or all of its property.