Resigning Hollywood member says administrative commission, presbytery violated Book of Order
Posted on The Layman Online:, December 27, 2005
Jon Thomasson, a deeply involved member, has resigned from Hollywood Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles in the wake of the dismissal of Hollywood senior minister and top associate. The following is Thomasson’s letter to the session.
December 22, 2005
To The Session of Hollywood Presbyterian Church:
Hollywood Presbyterian Church has been my church home almost all of my life. I joined the church twenty years ago while I was in college. And, before then, whenever my parents would bring our family to church it was usually to Hollywood Presbyterian.
My Christian walk has been formed by God’s work in my life through this church. Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie baptized me when I joined the church. Pastor Scott Erdman married me to my lovely wife, Bella, more than eighteen years ago. Dr. Ogilvie and Pastor Tod Bolsinger baptized my two children. In college, through summer deputation, I participated in a short-term mission trip to Istanbul where I witnessed actual miracles of healing and saw Muslims come to faith in Jesus Christ – an experience that fundamentally changed my life.
I was part of the leadership of the Renewed Class (over 100 members in the late ’80s) under Pastor Erdman. I was a founding member of Partners Fellowship under Pastor Mark Roberts and served on its leadership. For the summer deputation short-term missions program, I served as a mentor to a young man going to serve the Lord cross-culturally. Bella and I have participated in and led home Bible study groups comprised of church members throughout our time at HPC. I was a Guardian Angel for new members. I served as a small group facilitator for the New Members Class. During the Alpha Program, my wife and I led a follow-up group called “Beta” to help solidify new Christians’ faith. I led the games activities for Vacation Bible School for several years. Bella and I taught three-year-old Sunday school for a year and served as substitute teachers other years. I was a camp counselor for two years at Indian Village. I was a member of the ad hoc advisory committee that helped select Deni Hardgrave as the new Children’s Ministry Director.
I served on the Associate Pastor Nominating Committee that called Dr. David Manock to HPC. More recently, I participated on last year’s Officer Nominating Committee. My wife and I served on the Couple’s Garden Committee and then chaired it for several successful years. We also developed and ran the successful “Partners Lunch After Church” monthly potluck that sought to build community and integrate “fringe” people into the fellowship of the church. We began and led a middle school discipleship and service group called “Young Servants.” And in recent months I worked with many on session and in the congregation to help protect HPC from the unfriendly takeover engineered by the apostate Presbytery of the Pacific.
I do not list all the above to boast about my accomplishments, far from it, but to thank the Lord Jesus and this church for blessing me and discipling me in so many ways and through so many people over the past twenty years. Every opportunity for service has revealed my own weakness and sin and so caused me to call on the Lord as I follow Him. He has broken me and grown me through this church. Hollywood Presbyterian Church is where I have raised my children, developed almost all my friendships, and poured my heart and life into the growth of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus amidst a world that is perishing.
There have been occasions over the past two decades where I have considered leaving HPC for various reasons. But God has always asked me this question: Is the leadership godly and faithful to Scripture and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? The affirmative to that has kept me strong in this local body of Christ.
But now, the answer to that question has changed. The leadership of Hollywood Presbyterian Church is the Administrative Commission and the Presbytery of the Pacific, two apostate groups. Two godly pastors have been forcibly removed. Many faithful members of the session and staff have resigned or been terminated.
Should some of you on session challenge my assertion that the Administrative Commission and the Presbytery of the Pacific are heretical, let me remind you of some facts:
- Elder Tony de la Rosa is an open homosexual who constantly and aggressively works nationwide to establish gay ordination and gay marriages as accepted practice throughout the PCUSA. His very ordination is a violation of the “fidelity and chastity” requirement in the Book of Order, G-6.0106b. He is clerk of session at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, a “More Light” church that seeks to affirm homosexual behavior as approved by God.
- Reverend Catherine Hughes is a parish associate at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, a heretical “More Light” congregation. Her choice to associate with that congregation is telling.
- Elder Earl Ellis told me in a conversation on HPC grounds that he does not believe truth can be known in any circumstance, he does not believe God is personal but is instead a force, he does not believe the Virgin Birth ever occurred. I did not ask him any more questions.
- Rev. Chuck Robertson, on May 10, 2005, led the Presbytery of the Pacific in a prayer to Allah, thanking him for his prophet Mohammed. He has traveled to Jerusalem with Muslims and Jews to worship in their synagogues and mosques. Rev. Robertson does not believe that Muslims and Jews need Jesus for salvation.
More could be told about other members of the AC, but these are the most egregious. Let me warn the session that these people are enemies of the Gospel, no matter how much “christianese” they spout.
As for the Presbytery of the Pacific, there are few churches remaining that remain faithful to the gospel. We have seen that those who are no longer energized by the good news are now energized by lust for power, and so the leadership of the presbytery is largely heretical and immoral.
- Executive Presbyter Linda Culbertson long has actively sought the approval of homosexual behavior, gay ordination and gay marriage within the Presbytery of the Pacific and the PCUSA.
- The Presbytery recently celebrated the retirement of Rev. Susan Craig from United University Church. Rev. Craig co-pastored this church with her lesbian “spouse,” Rev. Bear Ride. The Presbytery fully approved of – even exulted in – these Presbyterian pastors’ sexual immorality.
- West Hollywood Presbyterian Church is world-famous for its promotion of homosexuality as behavior acceptable for Christians. Its pastor, Rev. Dan Smith, is chair of the Presbytery’s General Mission Council.
- The Presbytery did not censure or discipline Rev. Chuck Robertson for his apostate prayer and “inter-faith” communion service at the May 10, 2005 Presbytery meeting.
Some of the most telling evidence that the Administrative Commission and the Presbytery of the Pacific are ungodly is their utter disregard for the Book of Order with regards to Hollywood Presbyterian Church:
- The Committee on Ministry purposely avoided bringing the complaints of the approximately thirty members and staff to the attention of Hollywood’s session. This was in direct violation of their mandate to bring such matters to the attention of the Session of the church so that the Session may deal with them (G-11.0502 i. and j.). The COM also shirked its responsibility to mediate and to assist the session. Instead, it asked the pastors to resign within 24 hours (never even having spoken to Dr. Manock before) and, when they refused, called a meeting of presbytery to remove them and place an Administrative Commission over the session.
- The Presbytery of the Pacific recklessly appointed an Administrative Commission with original jurisdiction over the personnel, property and finances of HPC – an AC handpicked by the COM to do what it could not get the presbytery to do, remove the pastors. The Book of Order (G-11.0103) required the presbytery to appoint an administrative commission only after a thorough investigation and the session was given a full opportunity to be heard. The Presbytery did not perform any investigation whatsoever (please don’t call the COM’s listing of anonymous complaints an “investigation”). And the session’s elected commissioners were only given five minutes to speak before the presbytery – definitely not a full opportunity to be heard.
- The night of May 3 saw the presbytery vote against pastoral dissolution, but wrongly for an administrative commission. Minutes after the Presbytery adjourned, early on May 4, the newly appointed AC served Drs. Meenan and Manock with draconian administrative leave orders (papers prepared days before the AC was even appointed). This huge action and decision of the AC violated the Book of Order’s G-9.0505 b., which requires it to afford to all affected parties fair notice and an opportunity to be heard before its decisions are enacted. Neither was done.
- In June, a stay of enforcement was duly filed regarding the AC’s placing the pastors on administrative leave. This was done in strict accordance with the Book of Order D-6.0103 a. (2), which involved obtaining the signatures of one-third of the members in attendance at the relevant Presbytery meeting (May 10, 2005, where the presbytery voted to approve the administrative leave). This stay of enforcement was connected to a remedial complaint filed by the pastors and should have removed the administrative leave until their complaint could be heard by the Synod’s Permanent Judicial Commission. And so the pastors briefly returned on the last Sunday of June. But the stated clerks of the presbytery and the synod wrote nonsensical letters denying the stay was valid. And Reverend Catherine Hughes called Dr. Meenan’s cell phone while he was with out-of-town relatives at Disneyland, threatening that if he returned to HPC’s campus, he would be forcibly removed.
- There are many other points that could be made, such as the Presbytery Investigative Committee’s witch hunt, the COM’s refusal to grant the session time to deal with any problems on its own, the presbytery’s consistent blocking of attempts to obtain attendance lists of presbytery meetings for use in obtaining signatures for the stay of enforcement, etc. But the basic point is that the presbytery and its AC do not follow the Book of Order except when it complies with their political goals.
Much of the staff of HPC was complicit with the presbytery and the AC. Few elders that remained on session stood up against the AC or even diligently investigated the facts of the charges against the pastors or the Book of Order requirements. Session chose the easiest route: comply with the AC. I have not heard that anyone who betrayed HPC to the liberal Presbytery of the Pacific has expressed remorse or contrition.
I want to lovingly warn those on staff and the session who have never seriously considered the facts I have now laid before you: Do you choose to be yoked with those who violate both Scripture and the Constitution of the PCUSA? Do the ends justify the means? You in leadership are held more accountable than the congregation before God. This is the time to seek the truth, to repent, and to receive forgiveness.
In the midst of apostate rule by the AC and Presbytery and unrepentant complicity by much of the staff and session, I cannot continue to worship and serve as a member of Hollywood Presbyterian Church. With deep sadness, yet trusting that the Good Shepherd will lead my family and me to safe pastures, I resign my membership at Hollywood Presbyterian Church.
In the grace and truth of the Lord Jesus,
Jon Thomasson