Heartland Presbytery files brief in per-capita case
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 20, 2004
Heartland Presbytery in Kansas and Missouri has filed a 17-page brief that asks the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission to let the presbytery deprive congregations of loan guarantees and mission funds if they fail to remit their full per-capita requests and fail to make and meet a presbytery mission pledge.
The brief, dated August 18, asks the denomination’s highest court to vacate the ruling of the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Mid-America. The complainants in the case have not yet filed their brief.
Heartland Presbytery policy
Adopted June 17, 2003
“The Presbytery Council moves that no congregation be considered eligible to request assistance from the presbytery in the form of mission support, shared grants or loan guarantees unless that congregation has demonstrated its full participation in the fiscal and ecclesiastical life of the presbytery including the payment of per capita, the making and meeting of a mission pledge, being current on Board of Pension dues, the filling (sic) of annual statistical reports and the annual reporting of pastor’s terms of call.” On April 3, the synod court said Heartland’s policy of making mission support, shared grants or loan guarantees for local congregations contingent on per-capita and mission payments was unconstitutional. It did not vacate requirements about Board of Pension dues, annual statistical reports and reporting the terms of a pastor’s call because those are constitutional requirements.
The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission has ruled twice – Minihan vs. Presbytery of Scioto Valley and Session of Central Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Long Island (page 18) – that local congregations cannot be forced to remit per-capita requests or be punished for failure to do so.
The case against Heartland Presbytery was brought by three pastors and the session of First Presbyterian Church in Paola, Kans. The name of the case has been abbreviated to A. Kirk Johnson, et al v. Heartland Presbytery. Johnston is the pastor of the Paola congregation. His wife, Laurie Johnston, also a party to the case, is pastor of Hillsdale Presbyterian Church in Hillsdale, Kan. Both are growing evangelical congregations. Also signing the complaint was Tom Sparks, who later accepted a call to a congregation in Florida.
The complaint came after the presbytery’s initial denial of a loan guarantee to the Hillsdale congregation because it was not remitting per-capita requests to support the General Assembly budget.
In its appeal, Heartland makes some of the same arguments it made in the synod case. It contends that the policy it adopted in June 2003 is not punitive. Furthermore, Heartland says “every PJC must uphold acts by governing bodies that defend and preserve our common purposes, rather than our individual interests.”
The brief lays out the presbytery’s principal arguments, including:
- The synod court’s decision “undermines and interferes with the right of presbytery to determine its budget and policies with regard to its own budget, grant application procedures, and criteria for budget administration …”
- Loan guarantees “are legitimately considered presbytery mission decisions.”
- “It is neither punishment nor coercion to establish criteria that exclude certain congregations from particular mission support.”
- “The criteria present in the Heartland policy are legitimate. Participation in the fiscal life of the larger church is relevant in the awarding of grants, loans and loan guarantees.”
- The synod court’s “decision improperly abridges the historic principles of church government and the right of a higher governing body to govern the lower…”
- “The decision provides an overly broad interpretation of earlier General Assembly PJC decision, and diminishes and disregards portions of their findings, reducing them to the idea that sessions possess an absolute right to designate and determine distribution of offerings and benevolences.”
In its previous rulings, the denomination’s highest court has allowed presbyteries to take only one action against congregations that choose not to remit per-capita requests sought by the General Assembly, synods and presbyteries. The exception was in the Central Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Long Island case. Then, the court said the presbytery had the right to publish a list of congregations that paid their full per-capita and those that didn’t.