Presbytery, PCUSA want
spoils from Kirk’s givers
By John H. Adams, The Layman, November 18, 2008
If the 2,600 members of Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church (EPC) are forced to abandon their property, it’ll be like a foreclosure – only worse. The Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma has submitted a list to civil court of what it wants left behind or transferred to its bank account.
Federal laws protect homeowners who default on their loans and lose their property by foreclosure. But they don’t have to give up the contents of their home or their checking accounts. The presbytery and the Presbyterian Church (USA), buoyed by their claims of being hierarchical and therefore rightfully due the spoils, have prepared a long extraction list.
For openers, they want the money that was in the Kirk’s bank accounts as of August 14, 2006 – the date the civil case began — including $60,000 that was given to help the down and out. That wouldn’t necessary be used to help the presbytery’s downtrodden – it may instead be used to hire lawyers to seize some other congregation’s property. The total of the bank accounts then was about $112,000.
The money is at the top of the presbytery’s wish list. But it goes on for seven pages and includes everything that the congregation purchased for its ministry.
This an alphabetized version of page 1 alone:
altar furnishings, Bibles in sanctuary, Bibles in other locations, blackboards, smartboards and dry-wipe boards, books, candelabras, candlesticks, choir robes, drums and other percussion instruments, educational supplies, exercise equipment, films, tapes, CDs and DVDs, keyboards, pianos, hymnbooks and songbooks, maps and globes, offering plates, organs, plant stands, reference material, sheet music, sporting equipment, Sunday school supplies, teacher training materials, unattached seats and pews, vases, vehicles, vestments.
If authorized to take everything on the list, the presbytery and the denomination would also grab cribs and cots, strollers, buggies, playpens, baby swings, changing tables and “all other preschool equipment and supplies.” No infant would be spared.
And what would the presbytery and Presbyterian Church (USA) do with its spoils? Possibly, if another congregation purchased the land and buildings from the presbytery and denomination, everything from organs to cribs would go in the deal. Or the presbytery could redistribute its newly gained wealth among other congregations.
Or it could sponsor the mother of all flea markets.