Presbytery, Hephzibah
fight comes to an end
By John H. Adams, The Layman, October 27, 2008
In the end, the congregation of Hephzibah Presbyterian Church near Bessemer City, N.C., outflanked the Presbytery of Western North Carolina in a bitter, seven-year fight over the church’s property – thanks to a helping hand from The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.
From left: Janet Clemmer, Jerry Martin, Renee Whisenant, Gene Clemmer and Louise Wright before congregation lost church property in civil case.
The presbytery made money off the deal, principally by seizing the church manse, getting $12,225.54 in rental income and finally selling it for $82,000. In addition, the ARP sent the presbytery $20,000 as the first of five annual payments by the congregation to buy the property back from the presbytery.
In October, the presbytery’s Hephzibah Administrative Commission filed its final narrative and the financial data. It began its work in 2001 in a meeting with the Hephzibah session that set the stage for a lengthy spell of frustration and anger. Hephzibah elders complained, according to the presbytery’s report, about the presbytery’s inability to get them a pastor and their “perception of General Assembly statements on two issues – abortion and the ordination of homosexuals.”
Later that month, the presbytery discovered that Hephzibah’s leaders had transferred the church’s property to a new corporation, Hephzibah Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a maneuver that has been used by other congregations in an attempt to reduce the chance that the presbytery could seize the church’s property.
It did not work. The presbytery ultimately won a civil court ruling that awarded the presbytery the property. That ruling was later upheld by the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
Then the presbytery became bullish. It declared the nearly 40 members who wanted to leave the PCUSA “schismatics” and recognized a handful as the “true church.” The presbytery began to fill the pulpit for the “true church,” but hardly anyone attended. Members of the dissenting group said there were days when only one or two people attended. Nonetheless, the presbytery spent $25,001.89 to send preachers to Hephzibah – often paying its own staff members extra for the assignments.
The report to the presbytery generally commended the presbytery and the administrative commission – with one exception, “which in retrospect was perhaps imprudent.” That was a “decision to change the locks on the church doors.”
The splinter group was allowed to continue meeting in the church, but with limits. An old, rural church, with a large graveyard, Hephzibah was the family church for several generations of the members who yearned to be in a covenant relationship with congregations that were evangelical. The hoped-for affiliation with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church never materialized.
But the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP), a 250-church denomination that began in rural Southern areas but has spread through the United States and into Canada, bailed Hephzibah out when all looked lost.
“I guess it was God’s will to work it out that way,” said Renee Whisenant, who served as an elder while Hephzibah was a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The ARP does not allow women to serve as elders, but Whisenant said she didn’t mind at all.
She says a core group of more than 30 people has remained committed to worshiping at Hephzibah. Two events – a service of praise to recognize the congregation’s entry into the ARP and a homecoming – have drawn more than 100 people, she said.
She said the congregation has been delighted with the ministers assigned by the ARP to serve the congregation, including the current pastor, Drew Goodman, a last-year student at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte.