Presbytery says its policy didn’t usurp session’s power
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, February 25, 2004
The gist of the argument against the complaint that challenged its policy to issue limited services to congregations that do not pay their full per-capita apportionments is that the Presbytery of Heartland has the constitutional right to do just that.
It is not punishment, the presbytery argues, to refrain from approving a church’s building project – as is necessary for a permanent loan – when the session of that church chooses not to pay its full tab.
“The congregation remains free to pay or pledge whatever it wishes,” the presbytery says. “This presbytery policy does not assume or anticipate that any congregation will change its decision with regard to the distribution of its benevolences.”
The presbytery challenged the complainant’s interpretation of the 1992 case titled Session, Central Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Long Island. In that case, the highest court in the denomination concluded that a “church may neither be compelled to pay nor punished for failure to pay any amounts pursuant to a [per capita] plan.”
But, the presbytery argues that the 1992 General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission “did not hold that a presbytery may not establish requirements for payment; only that compulsion and punishment may not be used. If this seems like a fine distinction, it should be seen to echo the very next sentence of that 1992 decision: ‘As Presbyterians we have a unique relationship which obligates us morally to share in the mission enterprise of the church.'”
Denying that its policy was punitive, the presbytery says, “No congregation has a right to receive mission support. Many congregations do not receive mission support, for a variety of reasons, including the missing of application deadlines, unavailability of funds, or inconsistency of proposals with presbytery’s current mission priorities.”
The presbytery contends that it is entitled to use the same criteria for determining expenditures as sessions use. “Just as Complainant argues that a governing body, such as the Session, may decline to pay per capita as a matter of ‘conscience,’ the presbytery is entitled to the same defense for a policy expressing its ‘conscience’ with regard to the distribution of funds.”
Denying that its policy is “coercive,” the presbytery argues, “There is no expectation of payment of per capita, and nothing to which the congregation is entitled is taken away.”
Further, the presbytery says its policy does not limit a Session’s rights – and that those rights do not include presbytery loan approval.
Because the PCUSA Constitution says all church property is held in trust for the denomination, local congregations must secure presbytery approval for financing building projects – one of the key issue in the Kansas case.
But, the presbytery says, “It is not punishment to give someone something to which they are not entitled. The presbytery is free to award grants and loan guarantees as it sees fit; it is not ‘punishment’ when it exercises discretion, even according to criteria with which a church may not be pleased.'”
It quoted a lengthy section from the 2003 decision in John Minihan and J. Randall Richards v. The Presbytery of Scioto Valley, in which the denomination’s highest court affirmed the voluntary nature of per capita.
Part of that section cites a “high moral obligation based on the grace and call of God to participate fully in the covenant community” and adds, ” … we are called to turn from the sin of individualism run rampant and embrace the covenantal community in which our Lord Jesus has called us to live as those who love as we have been loved (John 13:34). Therefore, withholding per capita as a means of protest or dissent evidences a serious breach of the trust and love with which our Lord Jesus intends the covenant community to function together.”
The response includes Book of Order citations about church property, including the section saying that all property is held in trust for the denomination and the section about disposing or encumbering local church property: “A particular church shall not sell, mortgage, or otherwise encumber any of its real property and it shall not acquire real property subject to an encumbrance or condition without the written permission of the presbytery transmitted through the session of that particular church.”