After antagonists crush his career, pastor’s friends on brink of ending it
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, October 13, 2005
The Rev. Ernest R.D. Smart, an evangelical whose ministry in Baltimore was crushed by the Presbytery of Baltimore, is about to be stripped of his ordination by his friends in the Presbytery of Donegal.
In Donegal, the members of the Committee on Ministry say they will administer the final blow on Oct. 17 – deciding “with deep sadness” that Smart has “renounced the jurisdiction” of the Presbyterian Church (USA), according to the committee’s chairman, the Rev. Ed Martin.
Smart says Donegal is caving in to pressure from Baltimore – and indeed there has been intense pressure – but Martin says Smart and Donegal are both obligated to obey the Constitution of the PCUSA.
Therein lies the irony. The Presbytery of Baltimore has, as a former minister in the presbytery says, played “fast and loose” with the Book of Order.
The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission ruled that the Presbytery of Baltimore violated the constitution when it denied Smart fundamental fairness and due process and forced him to resign in 2000 from the pulpit of Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. In addition, Baltimore has removed other evangelicals from Baltimore pulpits and has openly defied the constitution by accepting the ordination of a practicing homosexual as an at-large member of the presbytery.
On the other hand, Donegal has been a stickler on the constitution, and it is the constitution that permits it no choice. A single paragraph in the Book of Order declares what Donegal faces because Smart is serving an independent congregation in Baltimore without permission from either presbytery:
- The presbytery may grant a minister permission to engage in work which is outside its geographic bounds or which is not under its jurisdiction, but no presbytery shall permit a minister to engage in work which is within the geographic bounds of another presbytery and which is properly within the responsibility of another presbytery without consent of that presbytery. Such permission and consent shall be reviewed and renewed annually. G-11.0104(a)
Another section of the Book of Order describes the consequences for a minister who persists in ministering “outside the geographic bounds” without permission:
- When a church officer, after consultation and notice, persists in a work disapproved by the governing body having jurisdiction, the governing body may presume that the officer has renounced the jurisdiction of this church. G-6.0502.
Smart, 67, is honorably retired as a member of the Presbytery of Donegal, where he moved his membership after a long battle with the Presbytery of Baltimore.
It’s a five-year story about how Smart, a native of Scotland, fell into that trap and how the two presbyteries, one openly opposed to his ministry and the other supportive, both agree that he has to vacate his ordination.
It begins in the early 1990s, when Smart came from Scotland to be the minister of Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. In 1996, the congregation decided that it wanted two views from the pulpit, voted to call a woman to serve with Smart and designated both of them as co-pastors.
Smart and his co-pastor were far apart theologically and in other ways. Eventually, their differences became so serious that the congregation called for a vote. Smart was affirmed by more than 75 percent of the congregation and the woman resigned.
Then, the Presbytery of Baltimore stepped in with an administrative commission. The commission, Smart said, made threats and forced him to resign in 2000 without hearing his side of the story. But he had second thoughts about his resignation under duress and filed a remedial complaint against the presbytery. His complaint was rejected by presbytery and synod courts, and the case went to the General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission, the highest court in the denomination.
In December 2001, in Smart v. Presbytery of Baltimore, the Permanent Judicial Commission ruled that Baltimore denied Smart due process and fundamental fairness because the administrative commission would not allow him to present his case. The commission sent the case back to the synod for a new trial.
Now, Smart calls the PJC decision a Pyrrhic victory. He says it cost him $31,000 and left him without a church to serve and with no hopes of getting a call in Baltimore. When he sought the presbytery’s help, he was reminded that he could not accept a call as long as any action pended against him.
Realizing that Baltimore could prolong its preparation for another trial, Smart decided to withdraw his complaint so that he could return to the Presbyterian ministry – somewhere. In a document titled “Termination of Action,” he asked the synod to end the action and complained that “no pastoral care has been extended by the Baltimore Presbytery to Rev. Smart or his wife on the pretext that the pending case precludes Baltimore Presbytery from providing any pastoral care to them. Rev. Smart has also been effectively precluded by Baltimore Presbytery from obtaining other pastoral appointment, even on a temporary basis …”
It concluded, “The adamant opposition of Baltimore Presbytery and its intended course of action regarding the case and Rev. Smart will inevitably have the effect of further and indefinitely prolonging the harm, loss and anguish to which Rev. Smart, his wife and members and former members of Second Presbyterian Church have been subjected.”
The Synod of the Mid-Atlantic accepted his Termination of Action, but he was still left in the lurch. After his remedial complaint against the Presbytery of Baltimore ended, Smart’s membership was transferred to the Presbytery of Donegal in Pennsylvania, where he served as interim minister for two stints. For a while, he served, as the result of an ecumenical agreement, as the interim pastor of a Lutheran congregation near Baltimore. Later he served as interim minister of a PCUSA congregation in Unionville, Pa.
The Donegal connection is a side issue. The stated clerk in Donegal is Dr. William J. Netting, who was stated clerk in Baltimore until he was fired by Baltimore’s former executive, Herb Valentine. While he was at Second Presbyterian, Smart helped arrange for Netting to work there until he could receive another call.
Understandably, Netting and Smart are good friends. Yet it was Netting who wrote Smart the letter informing him that Donegal was about to declare that he had renounced the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Smart, by all reports, served well in the Donegal Presbytery, including nearly a year at Unionville Presbyterian Church. “They just loved him,” Martin said. “He’s a wonderful person.”
But the commute from Baltimore to Unionville, where Smart would stay in an apartment for four days a week, was grinding, and he did not want to leave his home to settle permanently in Pennsylvania. He also had some community involvement in Baltimore that he wanted to continue, including serving as chaplain to the St. Andrews Society.
And that’s what caused his latest problem. The St. Andrews Society is essentially a social club of Scottish descendants. But many of the members wanted more. They asked Smart to preach and teach to them on Sunday mornings. They incorporated as a nonprofit, St. Andrew’s Christian Community, but did not describe themselves as a church. Smart agreed and stopped asking for assignments in Donegal. About 150 people, including many who were previously unchurched, attend the Sunday meetings.
Martin says he wasn’t even aware that Smart had started a ministry in Baltimore. But Charles Forbes, the stated clerk of the Presbytery of Baltimore, found out about it. And he made Donegal aware.
In a letter to Netting dated July 14, 2004, Forbes made two complaints about Smart’s ministry at St. Andrew’s: “First, in [sic] is located less than three miles from Second Presbyterian Church – the former church of Rev. Smart. Second, a significant number of the attendees at St. Andrew’s Christian Community are current or former members of Second Presbyterian Church.”
Smart has an argument against both of those points. He says he knows of only five former members of Second Presbyterian who have been meeting with St. Andrew’s and that he is not proselytizing for more. In addition, he says, the presbytery approved the call of the woman who had served as his co-pastor to a congregation that is also about three miles from Second Presbyterian, he said. According to denominational statistics, Second Presbyterian, through Dec. 31, 2004, lost more than 40 percent of its members since Smart was ousted: declining from 917 to 537.
Forbes said the “establishment of such a ministry in this location is a violation [of] Presbyterian guidelines and custom” and that Smart had “never communicated any form of request for permission from this Presbytery to undertake this ministry.” Furthermore, if Smart had asked the presbytery for permission, Forbes declared, he “would not receive such permission …”
Leaders in Donegal began checking out the situation – but slowly, considering their friendship with Smart. But Forbes wrote a second letter dated Feb. 7, 2005, noting that the Baltimore Committee on Ministry had adopted a resolution that essentially restated Forbes’ earlier reasons for opposing Smart’s ministry. The resolution asked Donegal to order Smart to “cease and desist.”
The Donegal Committee on Ministry continued its investigation, and so did Smart. Both contacted the Office of the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly. In response to the request from Smart, Mark Tammen of that office wrote, “I believe Donegal has a duty to instruct you not to carry on any ministry inside the bounds of Baltimore. If you violate that directive, I suspect you may very well be at risk of Donegal determining that you have renounced the jurisdiction of the PCUSA. I hope, after a long and productive ministry, you will not cause that to happen. The choice is in your hands.”
In a letter dated May 10, 2005, Netting explained to Smart what was meant by renunciation.
“[T]he Stated Clerk of General Assembly has assured us that this is not a judicial process as defined in the Book of Order portion entitled ‘The Rules of Discipline.’ Instead, it is a form of self-renunciation. G-6.0502 states that ‘when a church officer, after consultation and notice, persists in a work disapproved by the governing body having jurisdiction, the governing body may presume that the officer has renounced the jurisdiction of the church.'”
The Donegal Committee on Ministry set Oct. 17 as the date by which Smart must “cease and desist.” He has decided not to do so. The committees on ministry of both presbyteries invited Smart to meet with them. Smart said he did meet with the Donegal committee twice, but declined to meet with the Baltimore committee, once, he says, because he was serving as an election judge.
“He is very upset,” Martin said. “I am very upset. It is hard to listen to Ernest without feeling compassion.”
But Martin said Donegal did suggest to Smart a way out of the problem – by reinstating his ministry connection with the Church of Scotland so that he could continue at St. Andrew’s without having to come under the authority of the Presbytery of Baltimore.
Smart chose not to take that approach. He said the Church of Scotland does not look approvingly upon its ministers who accept calls from Presbyterian congregations in the United States and other countries.
Martin believes Smart is the victim of the Presbytery of Baltimore and his own stubbornness. “He is having a hard time forgiving them,” he added.
There are others who realize what Smart has been through, including Ronald W. Scates, pastor of Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, one of the largest congregations in the denomination.
Scates issued a statement on Smart’s behalf on Sept. 7, 2001: “For 11 years, I was a member of Baltimore Presbytery as Senior Pastor of Central Presbyterian Church. In more than one instance, I witnessed how the presbytery played fast and loose with the Book of Order and the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church, USA. In particular, I watched a Presbytery go after Ernest Smart, make a mockery of justice, and make fools of themselves in doing so. The way Rev. Smart was treated was both a travesty and a tragedy.”
As matters stand, the Donegal Committee on Ministry is standing pat on its declaration that Smart has renounced the jurisdiction of the PCUSA if he doesn’t cease and desist as minister of St. Andrew’s on Oct. 17. The Committee on Ministry will meet the next week and give its report to the full presbytery in November.
The end? Maybe not.
Martin said he would not be surprised if there’s a hue and cry from the members and elders at the presbytery meeting. Maybe someone will suggest that Donegal ignore Baltimore’s demand, he speculated, and maybe the presbytery will keep Smart on its roll, in spite of the PCUSA Constitution.
In spite of his belief that Smart is a fine and faithful minister, Martin says the church’s constitution should not be defied – even if others do it.
But there is an iffy word about self-renunciation in the constitution that some of Smart’s supporters might latch onto. The constitution does not say the presbytery “shall” or “must” presume that he has renounced the jurisdiction of the PCUSA; it says the presbytery “may” make that presumption.
As for Smart, he’s still trying to have it both ways: credentials as a Presbyterian minister and service as the pastor of an independent congregation.
“I’m a Presbyterian,” he asserted. “I’ve always been a Presbyterian.”