Sacramento Presbytery drives Fremont church to lawyers
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, March 23, 2012
“We are committed,” Sacramento Presbytery declared publicly in its gracious dismissal policy “to working pastorally with any Minister of Word and Sacrament, session or congregation that contemplates or seeks dismissal from the PCUSA.” Trusting that assurance, on Oct. 16, 2011 Fremont Presbyterian Church decided in an almost 4-1 vote to be dismissed from the denomination.
The presbytery’s dismissal policy mandates the establishment of a negotiation team following the dismissal vote of one of its congregations in order to engage the departing congregation in property and other follow up discussions. “It is expected that once a congregation has voted to be dismissed from the denomination, the negotiation process would be completed as soon as possible,” says the policy.
Under the table
Sacramento Presbytery did name a negotiation team, but the team allowed three months to pass, despite repeated pleas from Fremont, without setting up a meeting with Fremont’s elected leaders. It has now come to light that during that delay, members of Sacramento’s negotiation team were conducting clandestine meetings with 25 Fremont church members who oppose their church’s leaving the PCUSA in an apparent attempt to undermine the congregation’s decision and destabilize the majority’s interest in its property. During these meetings presbytery officials quietly encouraged Fremont’s minority members to recruit others to their cause (one report says that their number has grown to no more than 60 in a congregation of more than 1,200). Presbytery officials facilitated this recruitment by giving them meeting space, presbytery letterhead stationery, and assistance in opening an escrow account to hold their church pledge payments while they organized their opposition.
Members of the PCUSA oriented group (the “Faithful Fremont Fellowship”) say that they are the “true Fremont Presbyterian Church,” thereby claiming its valuable five-acre property across the street from the University of California’s Sacramento campus.
‘Seems to be schism’
“There seems to be schism within the congregation between identifiable and large groups of Presbyterians,” declared the presbytery’s Committee on Ministry at a subsequently called presbytery meeting. Based on that undocumented computation, the committee urged Sacramento Presbytery to set aside its dismissal policy and establish an administrative commission to deal with the alleged schism.
At the presbytery meeting, Fremont representatives argued vigorously but unpersuasively that in a large church it is not unusual to discover disagreement among members on a variety of issues, but disagreement does not necessarily mean schism. “There is no schism in our congregation,” they said.
Spokespersons for Fremont said that during their October congregational meeting 164 of the church’s 1,234 members voted against the motion to leave the PCUSA. But many of those who voted in the negative have accepted the will of the majority and plan to stay stay with the congregation. Considering the context, Fremont representatives say that the Committee on Ministry’s labeling of 25-60 members as “an identifiable, large group” is absurd.
Apparently, Jay Wilkins, Sacramento’s “Transitional Presbyter” counts Fremont’s numbers differently. “There are a significant number of people at Fremont who did not want to leave the denomination,” he told reporters for the Sacramento Bee. “Before we move forward,” he continued, “we have to find out who the true church is.”
Finding the ‘true church’
Lobbied by the Committee on Ministry and Wilkins, the presbytery voted 81-51 to establish the requested administrative commission. Commenting on that decision, the Rev. Donald Baird, Fremont’s senior pastor, told the Sacramento Bee, “This was a slick sideways move. We followed all the rules. Our presbytery has decided to abandon its own guidelines, and it came up with new ones for Fremont. It’s obvious who the true church is – the vast majority who voted to leave …”
Administrative commissions are typically granted broad authority, including the power to remove a congregation’s minister and elected session, fire and hire staff, and access bank accounts. In short, once an administrative commission takes over the local church, it alone can decide which faction in the congregation may get control of the property.
“According to our constitution, a majority vote does not determine who the true church is… The administrative commission will decide,” said Wilkins.
Fremont fights back
After the presbytery meeting, Fremont lawyers moved quickly to defang the newly formed administrative commission. They filed charges against Sacramento Presbytery with the Synod of the Pacific Permanent Judicial Commission, accusing the presbytery of failing to follow its own dismissal policy. Fremont was granted a “stay of enforcement” while the case is being heard.
Its administrative commission having been neutered by the stay of enforcement, the presbytery’s council sought to find a way forward. Faced with the fact that the negotiation team’s under-the-table activities were now public knowledge, the council removed the offending team and appointed another in the hope that negotiations called for in the presbytery’s dismissal policy might get back on track.
That action catapulted Wilkins back into the fray. Having admitted in an earlier letter to “colleagues” that he is “not too familiar” with portions of the Book of Order, Wilkins opined that the council was out of order when it dismissed the negotiation team and appointed a replacement. He said that since the Committee on Ministry appointed the first negotiation team, it alone had the authority to remove or replace it.
So as it now stands, Sacramento Presbytery must face charges before a Permanent Judicial Commission, has an administrative commission that is barred from action, has a negotiation team whose stealth strategies moved the council to remove it, and has a replacement negotiation team whose legitimacy is challenged by executive fiat.
The presbytery has retained an attorney and named a committee of counsel made up of three original negotiation team members to defend its behavior in Presbyterian courts.
What’s next?
Meanwhile, Fremont, a church whose presbytery promised “a negotiation process that would be completed as soon as possible,” is mired in what appears to be a long and drawn out affair whose end is nowhere in sight. The presbytery has labeled its dismissal policy “gracious.” Baird and his people are wondering how they define that word.
Fremont is not Sacramento Presbytery’s only loss. In fact, it is only the latest in a stream of debilitating departures. Six congregations, Fair Oaks (2,286 members), Roseville (1,143 members), Sierra (438 members), Gridley (116 members), Pioneer (60 members) and First, Redding (190 members) have beat them to the exit, and word on the street is that more are on the way.