Businessman, 88, challenges leadership on ordination, endowment control
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, January 14, 2000
STAMFORD, Conn. – Ben Grant, an 88-year-old Presbyterian elder and businessman who still practices law, has begun a one-man campaign to coax First Presbyterian Church in Stamford back to what he believes are its roots.
Through a survey of the 742-member congregation, Grant has discovered that a majority disagrees with the pastors and session in their attempts to install an openly homosexual elder and to reduce the size of the session so that fewer people would control the destiny of First Church.
Grant says members returned 177 of the 588 (30.1 percent) ballots he mailed to their homes. He reported the following findings:
- 65 percent oppose ordaining practicing homosexuals
- 82 percent oppose same-sex marriages
- 91 percent oppose reducing the size of the session from 24 members to 12 members
In an interview with The Layman Online, Blair Moffett, co-pastor of First Presbyterian, declined comment on the specifics about Grant’s survey. He did say, however, that the session was concerned that Grant independently conducted the survey without first approaching the elders and that the results could not be validated. He said Presbyterian polity does not envision decisions being made through opinion polls.
Denomination utilizes polling
While opinion polls are not generally used in local congregations, the Presbyterian Church (USA), through the Presbyterian Panel, does extensive polling on views of Presbyterians. The results of those polls are widely disseminated by the denomination and provided for church leaders as background for decision-making. The Presbyterian Panel has conducted several polls on the issue of ordaining practicing homosexuals. Those polls reflect a national opposition to changing the ordination standard that closely parallels the 65-35 ratio that Grant’s poll disclosed.
Moffett said the congregation has been fully informed by the session about the session’s plans and that the elders knew before Grant’s survey that there were those who disagreed with the their strategies. Moffett said he did not believe the issue should be aired by The Layman Online.
Front-burner issues
The ordination issue and reduction of the session are on the front burner at the Stamford church. Last fall, the church court for the Synod of the Northeast ruled that the Stamford session wrongly decided to install Wayne Osborne as an elder.
Osborne has publicly announced that he is homosexual, living in a “committed relationship” with another man, but “chaste in God’s eyes.” During the synod trial, testimony disclosed that when the Stamford session asked Osborne point-blank whether he and his live-in house mate were sexually active, he declined to answer.
The synod court ordered the session to re-examine Osborne. It has not done so yet, although Osborne attends meetings of the session as a nonvoting participant. Osborne is also assigned many high-profile duties in the congregation — or, as one member put it, “He’s the busiest man on the planet.”
The next meeting of the session is on Jan. 18. Moffett would not say whether Osborne would be re-examined at that meeting.
Leadership opposes Grant’s strategy
Grant’s survey — and follow-up letter to the congregation disclosing those results – did not sit well with the leadership. He says the pastors and elders advised him that he should not have communicated directly to the congregation and tried to convince him not to disclose the results.
Grant says they questioned him about whether he would report his findings beyond the congregation. He says he mentioned the General Assembly, permanent judicial commissions and The Presbyterian Layman as a possibilities. After he included The Layman, he said he was quickly advised, “That’s not even Presbyterian.”
The Layman is an independent publication that is mailed six times a year to more than 500,000 homes of members of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The Layman Online is the daily news service. The Presbyterian Lay Committee, which governs both media, is a 27-member board whose directors are lay leaders in PCUSA congregations across the nation.
Grant did comply with the session’s request not to contact The Layman. Another member of the Stamford congregation sent copies of Grant’s correspondence and survey results to The Layman, and The Layman contacted Grant and Moffett.
Grant is not shy about his mission. Neither is he deterred by opposition of the leadership. He said one elder gave him a Book of Order and suggested he read the section on Discipline – as if Grant’s actions were a violation of church law. “I’d like to see them try me on that,” he laughed.
Grant’s past leadership
While he says “I can always use an extra Book of Order,” Grant is not unfamiliar with Presbyterian polity. He has served many terms on the session and in a variety of Presbyterian leadership offices — including national bodies for Christian education and evangelism. He says he may run for session again.
Grant was one of the principals in selecting the design of the current sanctuary, which was completed in 1958. It is dramatically unique — shaped like a fish, the Christian symbol, with more than 20,000 pieces of faceted glass depicting the story of the crucifixion and resurrection and a 32-foot high cross faced with wood from the Canterbury Cathedral in England. The pipes for a Flentrop organ also rise within the chancel.
He believes the current leadership is moving the congregation away from what the church was designed physically to represent. Scant attention is given to Presbyterian and Reformed history, he says. “I haven’t heard mentioned anybody between St. Paul and Martin Luther King.”
Grant recognizes that his current involvement in church issues is creating tension. “I think that the pastors may correctly feel this is an interference with a long-term plan,” he said. “They are particularly concerned with shrinking the session down to the point that it would be a little hierarchy under their control.”
‘Spearhead on homosexual issue’
Grant says the congregation’s pastors and elders have sought “to make this church a spearhead on the homosexual issue.” In the process, he said, many older, traditional members have left the congregation and giving has declined to the point that substantial funds are being transferred from the church’s endowment to underwrite the operating budget.
One member said the most recent report to the congregation on the endowment funds showed a total endowment of $3.1 million with $78,586 going to the annual operating budget. The 1998 operating budget of $473,583, less the amount of endowment going into the budget, represents per-member giving of about $530. That’s more than 22 percent below the national average ($682.92) for Presbyterians and far short of the proportionate giving in the congregation’s heyday years.
In the past, Grant says, the second-largest Christian church in Stamford, the Catholics, used to joke about how the Presbyterians had all the money for mission. No longer is that true, he says.
Issue of control is raised
That’s one reason Grant opposes reducing the size of the session. He says he fears that a 12-member session, including two co-pastors and an associate pastor, could more easily invade the endowment. “All they [three pastors] would need is four members of the session working with them to have control.”
Moffett, who does most of the preaching, is the most high-profile pastor in the congregation. He has been active in the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, the organization that seeks to a eliminate G-6.0106b, the “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard, from the PCUSA Constitution.
In a 1999 speech to the Covenant Network, Moffett described what Osborne told the session during an interview after his election. “We asked him, ‘Are you in a gay relationship?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ We asked him to describe it. He did and [said] it was wonderful. I asked him if this is a sexually active partnership, and he said, ‘I decline to answer.'”
Toughened by politics
A state senator for six years and chairman of the Stamford Republican Party for 20 years, Grant said he has been toughened by the rough and tumble of politics and remains undeterred in his efforts to change the direction of First Church — despite opposition from the pastors, session and a number of letters strongly criticizing him.
He has also received encouraging mail, he said, but he believes many people are unwilling to speak out because of the way they expect to be treated. Some members told The Layman that they were not openly disagreeing with the pastors and elders because of the way others have been treated.
Grant gave an example: “There have been various statements about compassion for homosexuals, but never any recognition or kindness toward the people who brought this issue to the presbytery. This kind of shunning does not belong in the church. They’re compassionate, except not compassionate with people who disagree with them. That’s the way it is in politics, but it ought not be that way in church.”