Largest Korean church in PCUSA files property claim in Calif. court
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, April 21, 2005
The largest Korean congregation in the Presbyterian Church (USA) has filed civil action stating its claim to its property in anticipation of a scheduled congregation meeting in which its members will decide whether to leave the denomination.
Peter B. Min, an associate minister at the 2,700-member First Presbyterian Church in Torrance, Calif., said the session has already voted to dissolve the relationship with the PCUSA. He cited two reasons: denominational leadership that has espoused non-Biblical causes and treatment by two presbyteries and the Synod of the Pacific.
The Torrance congregation issued a call to a pastor in Washington to become its senior minister, but just before the pastor was to arrive, the Presbytery of Olympia halted the process by deciding to consider charges against the minister.
Min said the charges had to do with style and not theological substance, and that an investigating committee determined that there was no justification for the accusations. Nonetheless, a second investigating committee began pursuing other allegations and the Torrance pulpit remained vacant.
Min said the controversy over the call was being kept alive by disgruntled members of the Torrance church to the detriment of the congregation. Membership, listed at 3,100 at the end of 2003, has dropped by about 400.
He said the session requested numerous times for permission to allow the designated senior minister preach at the church, but that leaders of the Presbytery of Olympia and the Synod of the Pacific would not approve.
None of the accusations against the man selected by the congregation to be the minister dealt with charges of heresy or impropriety, Min said.
He said the staff and session have repeatedly asked presbytery and synod leaders for permission to move forward, but to no avail. “We filed a petition that 2,400 people signed asking them to expedite the process.”
He said the synod’s stated clerk told him that, “‘Even Jesus Christ himself said the law is the law.'” Mim said he was shocked by the legalism of that statement and responded to the clerk, “We exist for Jesus Christ.”
Currently, the Torrance church is under the management of an administrative commission from the synod with instructions that the session not meet without permission.
Mim said the session has employed three Korean lawyers to handle the civil action. The three – Young Lim, Heesok Park and John Lim – are Presbyterians, but they are not members of the Torrance congregation.