Tecumseh
Michigan church to take complaint against Maumee Valley to PCUSA’s highest court
By Jason P. Reagan, The Layman, August 7, 2012
A Michigan church plans to take a dispute with its presbytery to the highest judicial body of the Presbyterian Church (USA) after a synod-level church court rejected a claim that the presbytery has violated its own dismissal policy.
First Presbyterian Church in Tecumseh, Mich. will appeal a recent decision by the Synod of the Covenant Permanent Judicial Commission (SPJC) to dismiss the 400-member church’s remedial complaints against Maumee Valley Presbytery.
The church claims that Maumee Valley ignored its 2007 dismissal policy when it approved an administrative commission (AC) to assume original jurisdiction over Tecumseh in 2012, even after the church followed the process of the policy in seeking to depart for another Reformed body.
Instead, the presbytery declared Tecumseh’s majority as “in schism” and named a minority faction who wished to remain in the PCUSA as the “true church,” awarding the property to the smaller group.
On July 17, the synod PJC dismissed Tecumseh’s claim in a 5-1 ruling, claiming that the church failed to “state a cause on which relief can be granted.”
Tecumseh attorney Bruce McIntosh said the church will appeal to the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC).
A long road
Tecumseh’s session began its journey of discernment in 2007 as the church “began to question the [theological] direction of the PCUSA,” according to the complaint.
Tecumseh began a process of dialogue between the session and congregation about the church’s mission and “its alignment with Biblical truths.”
In May 2010, Tecumseh’s session unanimously approved a measure that would call for a congregational vote about whether or not the church would seek dismissal to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC).
Maumee Valley’s “Process for Separation” states it seeks to “follow the example of Jesus in setting the interests of others above our own.” The document also states that, with respect to property, it will not “use the threat of its seizure as a coercive instrument of the presbytery.”
In following Maumee Valley’s dismissal policy, Tecumseh’s session clerk notified the presbytery’s stated clerk of its decision to call the vote. The presbytery formed a pastoral team to work with Tecumseh’s session.
Tecumseh’s complaint notes that the presbytery’s current dismissal policy makes it clear that the pastoral team represents Maumee Valley but is not an administrative commission.
A question of numbers
In October 2010, Tecumseh held a congregational meeting in which 181 members were present – 41 percent of the active membership. While Maumee Valley’s dismissal policy claims that a 50 percent quorum is a goal for the process, it also states clearly that “the quorum for congregational meetings is set by the Book of Order and by the bylaws of particular congregations.”
Tecumseh’s bylaws provide that 10 percent of active members make up a quorum and the Book of Order states that congregations will provide “by rule the quorum necessary to conduct business.”
After the congregation was again reminded of the purpose of the meeting, members voted 150-31 – or 81 percent—to seek dismissal to the EPC.
“The result was attested by the [presbytery’s] Pastoral Team,” Tecumseh noted in its complaint.
Under Maumee Valley’s dismissal policy, if more than 75 percent of active members in attendance at the congregational meeting vote for dismissal, the pastoral team is required to “support and recommend to the presbytery that Tecumseh be dismissed with its property.”
In a response to the complaint, Maumee Valley claims it did not have adequate evidence that the meeting was timely or properly called – “[the presbytery] does have evidence that not all members of First Presbyterian Church of Tecumseh received notification.” However, Tecumseh states that the vote was “widely announced to the congregation by various means, including by prominent display in each Sunday’s bulletin and in the monthly newsletter, as well as by letters to the congregation, starting as early as June 14 [2010].”
Tecumseh claims the Pastoral Team was invited to “attend [and speak during] congregational meetings at which dismissal was considered.” Maumee Valley claims the opposite, stating that “there was no pastoral team in effect at the time of the meeting.”
However, in its response document, the presbytery claims that neither the pastoral team nor the “subsequent administrative commission” had presence at any listening sessions or meetings, begging the question of how the administrative commission – formed in September – could exist as “subsequent” without first being a pastoral team.
Preemptive strike
Unbeknownst to many Tecumseh members, however, Maumee Valley didn’t wait for the vote but instead installed an administrative commission in September 2010 before the congregational vote.
In a response to the complaint, Maumee Valley claims that Tecumseh’s session terminated talks with the pastoral team in August 2010, prompting formation of the AC.
In December 2010, the AC’s chair posted an open letter on Tecumseh’s bulletin board reporting on the congregational vote but also announcing that the commission would investigate questions such as “Where are the other 260-plus members?” and “What does the vote mean if less than half the congregation was present?” Tecumseh’s session states that those very questions were answered fully by the presbytery’s own dismissal policy since at least 75 percent of active members voting chose dismissal.
Tecumseh claims the Maumee Valley AC waged a tactical battle to undermine the presbytery’s dismissal policy when it “actively solicited detractors and worked to create a faction … violating the peace, unity and purity of the church.” The presbytery denies all of Tecumseh’s allegations.
AC members met with four of the 31 Tecumseh members who had voted against dismissal and later brought that number up to 60.
The session states that the AC conducted “clandestine meetings outside of Tecumseh with members of the newly minted faction, and others recruited by them who are not members, are former members, or members on the church rolls who have not attended in as many as ten years.”
The original complaint notes that the leader of the minority faction – dubbed the Foundation Group by the AC – had as its leader a person who claimed in a campaign for the state legislature to be attending a Lutheran church rather than Tecumseh.
Tecumseh leaders say Maumee Valley’s interim executive presbyter also set up an escrow fund to accept donations for the faction and that the AC mailed another open letter to the members of the presbytery “without consultation – or even verification of facts” with Tecumseh leaders.
Battle lines drawn
Tecumseh’s session says that the presbytery ramped up its attack in February when it voted to expand the AC’s powers and establish original jurisdiction over the church.
In its motion, the AC claimed that Tecumseh had renounced jurisdiction by completing an application to the EPC.
“The claim, though patently false, was presented to p
resbytery without any of the procedural protections required by the Book of Discipline,” Tecumseh leaders say.
Church officials claim they knew nothing about the accusation until the presbytery’s agenda was released 24 hours before the meeting and that no opportunity was given for the session to offer a rebuttal.
“Had the AC inquired, it would have learned the session completed the application to comply with the AC’s request for assurance that, if Tecumseh was dismissed, it would be regarded as a full member of a Reformed body [in compliance with the presbytery’s own dismissal policy],” the church’s complaint points out.
During the presbytery’s May meeting, the AC claimed that Tecumseh acted “in schism” and the presbytery moved to approve such a motion 73-17. However, Tecumseh points out in its complaint that “’schism’ refers to break in communion resulting from disobedience from ecclesiastical authority.”
“It is axiomatic, then, that where a congregation follows the presbytery’s policy for separation — that is, obeys the ecclesiastical authority, it cannot be found to be ‘in schism’. One cannot disobey authority by following it.”
The session also points out that “affiliating with another Reformed denomination is to continue communion within the broader context of the church … [it] is not a break in communion that can be called a schism.”
The church attempted to work with the presbytery by offering a motion in May that would allow Tecumseh to depart from Maumee Valley with property in exchange for a $50,000 financial gift as well as five annual payments of $50,000. The church also offered to pay for rental of space for the minority faction. The motion was defeated 17-81.
According to the church’s complaint, the chair of the AC also made “unfounded and unproven accusations” against the Rev. Richard Mortimer, the church’s pastor, during that same meeting.
The AC supposedly made a motion to censure Mortimer for allegedly “persisting” in “disapproved work” without giving Mortimer any notice of such an accusation. The session called the motion a “wild allegation of a rogue AC.” The presbytery claims the votes were not censures but warnings.
The AC claimed Mortimer had “fostered a climate in which hate mail, threatening letters, or extortion is promoted and condoned.”
“No proof of any such threatening correspondence was offered, nor was Tecumseh’s pastor permitted to respond in any meaningful fashion,” Tecumseh’s complaint states. In its response, Maumee Valley claims such correspondence is documented but has yet to produce anything.
The presbytery approved all of the AC’s motions – an action the session says violates the Book of Order.
On May 18, the AC issued a letter to the Tecumseh congregation, announcing it would now be in charge.
The AC also issued notices to Tecumseh’s staff letting them know that they would all have to repost their positions and that their salaries were only assured until the end of that month.
According to documents filed by Tecumseh, the AC summoned Mortimer for a meeting on May 23. When Mortimer objected to the decrees of the AC, “he was informed they were not open to discussion – the AC was now in charge and it would do as it saw fit.”
The church further claims that, during Sunday worship services in May and June, Mortimer and Tecumseh were “banished” from the morning worship service and that offerings received were not deposited in Tecumseh’s accounts but were instead taken by the presbytery.
Although Tecumseh was able to get a stay against these actions earlier in 2012, on June 28, the synod PJC lifted the stay of enforcement against further actions by the AC and stated that the AC “shall not have any members who are present or former members of [Tecumseh].”
The PJC reaffirmed that the AC still had original jurisdiction over Tecumseh and that the existing session would be prohibited from meeting outside the presence of the AC.
Before the stay was granted, the minority Foundation group had held services in Tecumseh’s sanctuary. The legitimate majority group conducted services in Knox Hall on the church campus. After the stay, the majority group was able to meet in the sanctuary for three weeks.
Tecumseh had asked the SPJC to rescind the appointment of the AC as well as the apparent censure votes and to force the presbytery’s pastoral team to recommend Tecumseh’s dismissal in accordance with Maumee Valley’s dismissal policy. The SPJC did not go into any detail as to why it believes Tecumseh failed to state a cause upon which relief can be granted.
As of Aug. 7, Mortimer remains the pastor of Tecumseh, according to a phone call to the church office by The Layman. The church’s website states it is “temporarily unavailable or in the process of being constructed.”