Former PCUSA official punished
by secular, church courts
By Edward Terry, The Layman, March 9, 2010
Winfred Clark Chamberlain III, a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister who held some of the highest offices in the denomination, has been removed from ordained office by the Presbytery of New Covenant. Chamberlain appealed the presbytery’s disciplinary action to his former employer, the Synod of the Sun, but his appeal was dismissed on Jan. 15, 2010.
Winfred Clark Chamberlain III in his mug shot photo from his February 2010 arrest in House.
This Layman file photo shows
Chamberlain in the time in which
he was elected as Stated Clerk of the
Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1992. New Covenant revoked Chamberlain’s ordination on Nov. 18, 2009, after several years in which he was embroiled in legal troubles, placed on probation and incarcerated. In 2007, the same year he was appointed parliamentarian for the Presbytery of New Covenant, he was found guilty of unlawful, serious injury to a child with criminal negligence. His punishment was five years of probation, which included sex offender counseling and the requirement he have no contact with children. He was later jailed for violating that probation.
The 62-year-old Houston attorney was ordained in 1972, according to PCUSA records, and he was declared “honorably retired” in 2002. Prior to retirement, he pastored two churches in Louisiana and served various roles in the PCUSA bureaucracy, including the position of Stated Clerk for the Synod of the Sun, one of the denomination’s largest middle governing bodies, and membership on the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC), the denomination’s highest court.
In 1992, two Chamberlain related events shocked and confused the PCUSA public. At the 204th General Assembly, Chamberlain unexpectedly defeated incumbent James Andrews in the assembly’s election of Stated Clerk, the denomination’s highest elected office. But within 24 hours of his election, and before the service of installation was conducted, Chamberlain announced his resignation.
“For reasons which are weighty, personal to me, and, I think, redound to the honor of the church, I am unable to go forward and accept your election,” he said, according to the July/August 1992 edition of The Layman.
Chamberlain told The Associated Press that he had been accused of sexual harassment at a previous GA meeting, and “could not have functioned as head of the church under a cloud of suspicion by millions of people.”
Chamberlain’s concern for “the honor of the church,” however, did not extend to his acceptance of other denominational posts. He served as Stated Clerk of the Synod of the Sun from 1983 to 2002, according to GA minutes. And he served as a member of the GAPJC for a six-year term beginning in 1995, during which time he cast the only dissenting vote in a highly publicized case that prevented lesbian activist Jane Spahr from being installed as minister of the Downtown Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N.Y. Chamberlain ran again for stated clerk in 1996, finishing second in the voting to the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick.
Archived coverage
The Presbyterian Layman July/August 1992
The Presbyterian Layman September/October 1992
Crime and punishment
Chamberlain’s time in a state jail and on probation stem from an incident in Dallas on June 22, 2005 in which he was accused of offering to give a 14-year-old boy oral sex, according to court documents. Chamberlain was arrested and charged with soliciting a minor for sexual assault.
According to the arrest report, the boy alerted an officer working at the bookstore where the incident occurred and Chamberlain was questioned. The officer said that Chamberlain admitted to the allegation but claimed he did not know the victim was a minor. Chamberlain was then arrested and charged.
The Dallas County District Attorney dismissed that charge in June 2007, but re-indicted Chamberlain in the same 2005 incident. Chamberlain pleaded guilty to a lesser felony charge of injuring a child/criminal negligence and received five years of probation. Chamberlain reserved the right to appeal, which he did in September 2009, according to court documents.
Chamberlain’s probation was revoked in November 2008, according to court documents, because he failed to pay some fees related to his probation and was discharged from sex offender treatment in October 2008 without successfully completing it. In the court documents, Chamberlain claimed that his counselor was incompetent and the probation officer was hostile toward him.
In a letter to the court, Chamberlain talked about appealing his case to a higher court due to the “malice” shown by his probation officer and counselor. He also denied being “a pedophile” and asked the court not to send him back to jail.
“I have never had sexual relations with any child,” he said. “I have never had phantasies (sic) or thoughts of doing so. My sexuality is exclusively with other consenting adults. … My adult life has been lived for others. As a minister of Jesus Christ I have helped many (and had sex with none of them!). … For my crime I felt and feel deep remorse. That is why I voluntarily confessed. That is why we sought, together with the District Attorney, to avoid re-victimizing the person I inappropriately accosted. That is why, on the day of the trial, against the desires of my counsel, I gave the DA a letter of apology, to be given to my victim.”
His letter went on to explain that he feared being “brutalized and murdered” while in jail due to the fact that he is an attorney and accused of a sex-related crime with a child. His previous time in jail, after being brought in on probation violation charges, subjected him to several physical threats, he said.
“They fail to appreciate that my crime did not involve any child being molested,” Chamberlain said. “So I have been praying in prison – as did Peter, Paul, Joseph and Jeremiah – and God has allowed me to come home. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi – ‘My desire is to depart, and be with Christ, for that is far better.’”
In revoking his probation, the court sentenced Chamberlain to 180 days in prison, which he served from March 2009 to July 2009. But his troubles didn’t end there.
His most recent arrest was on Feb. 12, 2010 for a first-offense driving while intoxicated charge. According to a Texas Department of Public Safety crime records search, Chamberlain pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge.
Presbytery takes action
“Sadness and dismay” are the most common reactions from members of New Covenant Presbytery, where Chamberlain was active and well liked by his peers, General Presbyter Mike Cole said.
It wasn’t until the spring of 2009, Cole said, that the presbytery became aware of Chamberlain’s legal problems.
“That was the first time that anyone, myself included, was made aware of the secular court charges,” he said.
The presbytery initiated an investigation and went through the disciplinary procedure, which led to charges that Chamberlain had violated his ordination vows.
On Nov. 18, 2009, the presbytery PJC removed Chamberlain from all ordained and elected offices, but did not remove him from membership in the PCUSA. At its meeting Feb. 6, 2010, the
presbytery announced the dismissal of Chamberlain’s appeal to the Synod of the Sun’s PJC.
The presbytery’s action cites W-4.4003g in the Book of Order and Chamberlain pleading guilty to offenses in violation of his ordination vows. “Such offenses are contrary to the Scriptures and the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA),” the statement said.
It’s been two or three months, Cole said, since he has had contact with Chamberlain, who has been inactive in the presbytery for about a year.
“We certainly have concern for Clark as an individual,” he said.