Rhee says he’ll provide pastoral help for minority in church split
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 28, 2005
Syngman Rhee, moderator of the 212th General Assembly (2002) of the Presbyterian Church (USA), said today that he has agreed to provide pastoral leadership for a minority group of Korean Presbyterians who disaffiliated from First Presbyterian Church in Torrance, Calif.
Rhee said he will spend about 10 days working with the group and may consider a longer stint as its interim minister.
The majority of the members of the Torrance congregation voted to leave the PCUSA and affiliate with the Korean Presbyterian Church in America, a small, but growing, denomination.
On Sunday, the Rev. Song Kyu Pak, the minister of the majority congregation, will be installed by the KPCA as the senior minister of the church.
Before the split at Torrance, which occurred after the congregation voted to leave the PCUSA and claim their property, the church was the largest Korean congregation in the denomination with more than 2,700 members.
According to Rhee, an estimated 600 Koreans decided to remain faithful to the PCUSA. They have been meeting in a school while, with the help of the denomination, synod and presbytery, they contest the majority’s right to retain the property. That case is being reviewed by a California Superior Court judge, but a trial is not expected before next year.
The court has already ordered that the majority welcome members of the minority to its worship services and make the property available to the minority for its own services. But that has not happened since a service on June 6 when the minority, along with General Assembly Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase, disrupted the majority’s service and attempted to take it over.
“I’ll do pastoral work for the remaining [PCUSA loyal] church members,” Rhee said, adding that he will later consider whether to extend his ministry in California. Rhee lives in Richmond, Va. “Will I get deeply involved in the property dispute?” he asked. “I doubt it. That’s a legal matter.” Bu
t he made clear that his loyalty is to the minority group and that he believes the majority made a “very sad” decision to leave the denomination.
This is not the first time that Rhee’s name has cropped up in the Torrance dispute. In a declaration filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, the minority said Rhee had been retained as interim minister of the congregation.
Rhee later said that was not true and that he had merely spoken with the minority group during one outdoor service.
The majority’s affiliation with the KPCA denomination adds another dimension to the ongoing dispute. The PCUSA and the KPCA have a Joint Committee on Presbyterian Cooperation that has been meeting for years and considering the possibility of union. The bitter property dispute in Torrance highlights the differences between Korean Presbyterians.
While the KPCA is considered more Biblical and evangelical, it does hold membership in the National Council of Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
The PCUSA and KPCA have common roots that are the legacy of their mission history dating back to 1884. But many Korean Presbyterian immigrants to the United States in the early 1970s did not want to become members of the mainline Presbyterian denomination.