Hearing on complaint against moderator and clerk set Feb. 28
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, February 25, 2003
KANSAS CITY – The elders of a small Presbyterian Church in Canton, Ohio, will try to convince the highest court in the denomination that its top elected officials – the moderator and stated clerk – wrongly invalidated a petition that calls for reconvening the 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
A hearing before the General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Feb. 28 at the Embassy Suites near the Kansas City International Airport.
The case has been historic from its outset, when Alexander F. Metherell, a commissioner to the 214th General Assembly, last year began a campaign to convince other commissioners to sign a petition for a special assembly to deal with constitutional issues.
As presented, Metherell’s petition was valid. It included 57 signatures – seven more than required – and exceeded all other requirements as well. He presented the petition to Moderator Fahed Abu-Akel at the meeting of the General Assembly Council on Jan. 14. Upon receipt of such a petition, the constitution says, the moderator “shall” call the General Assembly back into session.
But Abu-Akel and Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick countered with a one-two punch. Abu-Akel wrote letters to commissioners “imploring” them to change their minds. And Kirkpatrick, instead of merely determining whether the signatures were valid, asked commissioners if they had changed their minds. Simultaneously, a host of presbytery executives and even a former moderator contacted commissioners, pressuring them to withdraw.
Days later, Kirkpatrick’s office declared that 13 commissioners said they had changed their minds. Kirkpatrick declared the petition invalid.
After Abu-Akel and Kirkpatrick scuttled the meeting, which would have been the first called assembly in the 214-year history of the PCUSA and its predecessor denominations, there was an outpouring of criticism by Presbyterians who believed the leaders had exceeded their constitutional bounds. The constitution provides neither for the moderator’s lobbying campaign against the petition nor for the stated clerk’s requirement that commissioners vote again.
The complaint by Westminster Presbyterian Church in Canton, Ohio, an evangelical congregation led by the Rev. William Pawson, is the only formal challenge against the actions of the PCUSA leaders.
It asks the court to declare that Abu-Akel and Kirkpatrick acted unconstitutionally and that the 214th General Assembly be reconvened.
Since the complaint was filed, an executive committee of the Permanent Judicial Commission has, without the benefit of hearing arguments, declared that the Westminster complaint does not state a claim upon which relief may be granted. If, after a hearing Feb. 28, the full court agrees with that order, the case will be dismissed. If not, a trial will be conducted.
For the hearing, the executive committee instructed participants to be prepared to present arguments and briefs on a number of matters, including “the propriety and appropriateness of the procedures used by the Office of the General Assembly to determine the legitimacy of the petition …”
The case follows the David v. Goliath script.
In challenging the stated clerk, Westminster takes on a gigantic opponent whose office handles the constitutional matters in the Presbyterian Church (USA). The stated clerk has a staff of lawyers who specialize in the church’s constitutional law. His office also serves the General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission and the Advisory Committee on the Constitution.
In addition, the stated clerk’s office maintains close ties with synod and presbytery executives in the denomination’s middle-governing bodies, forming a bureaucratic chain of support. Ministers and sessions who disagree with how the clerk’s office is – or is not – “defending and supporting the constitution” may find themselves subject to close scrutiny by people who can influence their careers.
Such has been the case in Westminster’s presbytery, where the executive and the Committee on Ministry have expressed concern over the case filed by Pawson and his elders. Officials in Pawson’s presbytery are questioning his “collegiality.”
Westminster is represented by a lone lawyer – Paul Rolf Jensen of Reston, Va., a Presbyterian elder who is a newcomer to the PCUSA’s judicial system. Last year, Jensen left a private law practice in California to work as a legal counsel in the U.S. Senate.
He became upset that dozens of church officers were issuing public statements of defiance against church laws, including:
- Ordaining or declaring that they would ordain practicing homosexuals.
- Conducting “marriage” ceremonies for same-gender couples.
- Admitting non-Christians as church members.
- Serving communion to non-Christians.
Consequently, Jensen filed 20 complaints against defiant Presbyterians across the nation. None of those cases has gone to trial. In two cases, presbyteries have summarily dismissed the charges even though respondents in the cases have publicly stated that they are practicing homosexuals.
Although Jensen now lives in the East, he is still a member of the 4,100-member St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Calif. Metherell, a physician-engineer, also is a member of the Newport Beach congregation. Their pastor has issued public statements opposing their efforts.