Layman Column: Presbyteries’ heavy-handed
tactics undermine constitution
A column by Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, July 6, 2009
Presbyteries have become clergy union halls. Within these walls gatekeepers let clerics in, kick clerics out, regulate their salaries and benefits, reward those who support the denomination and punish those who don’t.
It is on the presbyteries’ turf – where ministers’ performances are assessed and their livelihoods weighed – that the denomination has chosen to fight for its survival. The Office of the General Assembly’s strategy is crystal clear: Corral congregations by having presbyteries tighten the reins on their ministers.
Ministerial punishment
In Denison, Iowa, the Rev. Brian Rihner ruffled the union’s feathers when in his congregation’s newsletter he criticized actions of the 2008 General Assembly. Rihner’s people were not pleased to learn that their denomination equivocates on the singular saving lordship of Jesus Christ and legislates wiggle room for leaders who will not limit their sexual activity to marriage. So the Denison session began to consider alternative denominations.
That did it! Prospect Hill Presbytery descended upon Denison. Following advice from the Office of the General Assembly, it ordered the congregation to conduct its meetings only on the presbytery’s terms, sought to curtail e-mails and letters among members, separated the pastor from his elected officers, and barred him from the pulpit, using an administrative procedure that ran roughshod over due process.
What was the result of this intervention? Prospect Hill made a martyr of a pastor whom many of his people loved, thereby dismembering what was once a lively congregation. Rihner and the majority of his church will likely continue their witness to the Lord Jesus Christ wearing a different denominational label, and Prospect Hill will claim an empty shell that was once a well peopled sanctuary.
Ministerial rewards
Wielding analogous heavy-handedness Central Florida Presbytery is harassing the elected leaders of New Life Presbyterian Church in Fruitland Park. Six months after it employed the Rev. Greg Cruice, the congregation realized that he was, in the words of a search committee member, “not the person we thought he was.” Adding to the congregation’s unhappiness was a fact that had been successfully hidden from the search committee. Members in two of the minister’s previous congregations had found him similarly unsuitable.
But Cruice had something going for him that Brian Rihner did not. The clergy union was on his side.
New Life’s session voted to call a congregational meeting for the purpose of seeking Cruice’s dismissal. Sensing that the majority would oust him, a committee composed largely of Cruice’s friends forged a severance package. Totaling more than $720,000, the package required the congregation to guarantee his $125,000 annual salary for two years, purchase his house for $340,000, pay $70,000 in “relocation costs,” pay his wife and each child thousands of dollars for “counseling,” and underwrite the cost of interim minister training for himself.
The session balked, and Central Florida Presbytery rushed in. Executive Presbyter Paige M. McRight strong-armed the session, insisting that the presbytery would not allow the congregation to vote on dissolving the pastoral relationship unless the severance package was made a part of the deal. The presbytery dispatched an administrative commission to the scene whose spokesman told the clerk of session that the session’s motion recommending dismissal must include the proposed severance, even though the session had not approved it.
When the congregation met, the session dutifully followed presbytery’s orders, but church members who had studied Roberts Rules of Order had substitute motions prepared, successfully separating action on dismissal from action on severance. The congregation overwhelmingly voted to dissolve the pastoral relationship, and it called on a committee made up of session and presbytery appointees to negotiate a severance proposal for action by a future congregational meeting.
During the negotiating period, session members were not allowed to meet without presbytery representatives hovering over them. The presbytery’s commission appointed a “temporary supply” to serve as head of staff, and it lectured the session on “being Presbyterian.” Meanwhile, the associate minister was chastised for not having supported the senior minister, and he was told to update his Personal Information Form, a signal that presbytery leaders wanted him gone.
When the congregation reconvened, it reluctantly agreed to pay Cruice $65,000 up front and fork over an additional $99,000 during the next nine and a half months. During the meeting, a session member received vigorous applause when he protested the presbytery’s intervention. Another echoed those sentiments but urged the congregation to approve the package in order to get the presbytery off its back. All this after a mere six months on the job.
Continuing harassment
Turning a deaf ear to this increasingly restive congregation, the presbytery’s administrative commission continues its surveillance of local church leaders. Session members are nearing the limit of their tolerance. “Why must we live with this Gestapo?” one member asked The Layman. “They treat us like school kids,” said another.
But the New Life congregation is far from dead. There are rumblings of an exodus that could include as many as 500 of the church’s most active members. The large building is almost paid for, but its operating and maintenance costs – not to mention having to fulfill the former minister’s severance – could overwhelm a small, denominationally loyal remnant. The presbytery’s pockets do not run deep, so an unlimited life support from that source appears unlikely.
Pyrrhic victories
Muscle-minded presbyteries like Prospect Hill and Central Florida would do well to rethink the advice they have been receiving from denominational headquarters. Slash and burn tactics may bring them a “win,” but what have they won when it cost them the church?
Church membership is, after all, a voluntary matter. History has shown that coercion is often the last gasp of a failing institution. Invariably, it alienates the very people whom it seeks to control.
God’s people will not be intimidated. If driven to do so, they will ultimately act on Martin Luther’s words: “Let goods and kindred go. This mortal life also. The body they may kill. God’s truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever.”
The Rev. Parker T. Williamson is editor emeritus, consultant to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, and an honorably retired PCUSA minister.