Stated clerk accuses Lay Committee
of ‘factual errors,’ ‘misrepresentation’
By Parker T. Williamson and John H. Adams, The Layman, November 20, 2008
General Assembly Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons has accused The Presbyterian Lay Committee of “factual errors” and “misrepresentation” in a letter that the Lay Committee sent to local church sessions, asking them to consider diverting their denominational per-capita requests and undesignated mission gifts to ministries that the elders support.
Gradye Parsons
The Lay Committee made that appeal in a November letter to 10,743 congregations. It described as “unconscionable” the behavior by presbyteries and the Office of the General Assembly to intimidate local congregations that are considering leaving the denomination.
In a letter dated Nov. 18, Parsons contested the Lay Committee’s statement that presbyteries are suing local churches and, in some cases are naming their session members and trustees individually in an attempt to seize their property. He also objected to the Lay Committee’s statement that the 2008 General Assembly established a $2-million fund to support presbyteries in their litigation against local churches.
He also took issue with the Lay Committee’s statement that the heavy-handed tactics have been exacerbated by a recent ruling from the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission. The Lay Committee said, “Defying its own constitution, our denomination’s highest court has ruled that presbyteries can establish permanent commissions armed with the power to defrock your minister, remove your session, seize your property and even deny your congregation the right to hold a meeting.”
First allegation
Parsons said the Lay Committee report was erroneous in that the 2008 General Assembly “did not create a two-million-dollar defense fund as requested by the Presbytery of Northern New England.” He stated that the assembly had created a fund by a different name, the “Constitution Legal Defense Fund, and it is numbered E05258.” Parsons added that the fund would be funded by voluntary contributions and that as of November 18, “we have received no contributions to this fund, and no money from the per capita budget has been allocated to it.”
The Lay Committee’s letter reported only that the fund had been established by the General Assembly, a fact that the stated clerk’s response did not dispute. The Lay Committee did not specify the fund’s formal name, nor did it identify the mechanism that was chosen for its implementation. The $2 million figure was cited in the Lay Committee’s letter because this was the amount presented to General Assembly commissioners at the time of the vote. General Assembly rules require that “financial implications” for any proposed action be specified.
The Lay Committee did not say that money from the per-capita budget was being allocated to the fund. In fact, the stated clerk’s per-capita budget has been funding church property litigation in several presbyteries since at least 2002.
In his response to the Lay Committee’s letter, Parsons acknowledged that his current per-capita budget includes $50,000 to assist presbyteries in litigation. In addition, attorneys in his office have provided legal advice to presbyteries, including the “Louisville Papers,” that advise presbyteries to seize local church properties, change the locks, freeze bank accounts, and choose judges who favor hierarchical church government, e.g., Catholic judges rather than Baptist judges.
Second allegation
Parsons also criticized the Lay Committee for “misrepresenting the actions of presbyteries in property disputes.” The Lay Committee’s letter “suggests that presbyteries have taken aggressive actions to deprive congregations of their pastors and property via ecclesiastical processes and the secular courts,” Parsons said.
The Lay Committee based its statement on documented actions by the presbyteries and the Office of the General Assembly that it believes have been intensely aggressive. A few examples:
a) Presbyteries have taken legal action against pastors, elders and trustees individually, a coercive move designed to make church leaders back out of pursuing dismissal from the PCUSA. The Presbytery of Western North Carolina charged the trustees of Montreat Evangelical Presbyterian Church with “breach of fiduciary duty” and “actual or constructive fraud and constructive trust/unjust enrichment.” It asked the court to hold them “personally liable for damages.” Similar lawsuits were filed by Washington Presbytery against the minister and lay leaders of Peters Creek Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania and by the Hanmi Presbytery against the elders of Serone Presbyterian Church in California.
b) In one property dispute involving a Korean congregation, presbytery and synod officials – as well as the then-moderator of the General Assembly, Rick Ufford-Chase – disrupted a worship service to stake their claim on the property being used by the congregation’s majority. The worship service interruption resulted in a near brawl when presbytery representatives tried to push the congregation’s pastor out of the pulpit as he was leading the congregation in prayer. The Layman published photos from a video made during the raucous demonstration.
c) The congregation of Norcrest Presbyterian Church in Findlay, Ohio, voted to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2002. The next day the church was padlocked by the presbytery. The congregation had to meet the next Sunday at a dog pound. Since that incident in 2002, the exiled church has nearly doubled in size and built a $3.5-million building on another site. The denominationally loyal minority has vacated the building that the presbytery padlocked on its behalf because it had insufficient members to make mortgage payments.
d) The Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma, with strong backing from the Office of the General Assembly, became aggressive before there ever was a cause for action. It filed affidavits in county courts, claiming ownership of all local church property in the presbytery. Leaders of Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church filed a court action disputing the presbytery’s claim against its property. The congregation has since joined the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
e) The Presbytery of South Louisiana, following the recommendation of the Office of the General Assembly, adopted a policy of taking action against congregations even “contemplating” leaving the denomination.
Parsons said that local churches, not presbyteries, have initiated most of the property claim lawsuits. “Of the thirty-nine cases in civil courts, thirty-six have been filed for local sessions,” he said.
Attorneys for the local churches argue, however, that because of restrictive denominational policies, the civil courts are often their only recourse. If they avoid the courts and agree to play by presbytery rules, administrative commissions can move in to defrock their minister, remove their elected church officers, and seize their assets simply on learning that the congregation is discussing the subject of leaving the denomination. By requesting a temporary restraining order from a civil court, several churches have attempted to hold presbytery officials at bay while they discuss among themselves what they believe is the Lord’s will for their congregation.
Attorney Lloyd Lunceford, editor of A Guide to Church Property Law, told a November 2008 meeting of the N
ew Wineskins Association of Churches, “Sadly, the religious landscape today is often marked by one side [the presbytery] misrepresenting the law in order to lay claim on property belonging to another [the local church]. Legal strategy memos [“the Louisville Papers”] are distributed that are filled with harsh tactics. Pastoral letters are e-mailed in the afternoon offering discussion, but, before a reply letter can be sent, an already-prepared eviction suit is filed the next morning. Standing administrative commissions are appointed automatically to remove ministers and elders for the ‘sin’ of publicly thinking about the possibility of leaving the denomination – a right which the Book of Order expressly provides for, and which is supposed to be protected by bedrock freedoms of speech, worship, and association.”
“Here in America,” continued Lunceford, “property rights are not determined by ecclesiastical edicts, as if this were 14th Century France. … An independent, impartial judiciary is one of the crown jewels in our American way of life. Equal justice under law is certainly preferable to its historical predecessors: trial by sword, trial by ordeal, the divine right of kings, or biased ecclesiastical edicts that would control temporal matters.”
In Parsons’ objection to the Lay Committee’s letter he noted that several presbyteries have created “processes” that he says are “provided by the Book of Order for congregations that wish to leave the PCUSA.” He cited a ruling by General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission in Sunquist v. Heartland that he said “affirmed the validity of those processes.”
Sunquist v. Heartland is one of the most sweeping rulings ever in the Presbyterian Church (USA). It denies freedom of conscience to individuals and congregations considering leaving the denomination. The court said, “There shall not be any secret or secretive acts by sessions, pastors or congregations; bylaw changes or transfers of assets effectively negating the Book of Order or diminishing a church’s connection to the PC(USA); or curtailment of communications with the presbytery as a prelude to dismissal. Congregational meetings called or conducted by sessions for the purpose of voting on dismissal without the involvement of the presbytery are improper and have no binding effect.” The effect of this ruling is to allow presbytery administrative commissions immediate authority to assume original jurisdiction in the local church, depose the session and even defrock the pastor.
Third allegation
Parson’s complained that the Lay Committee’s letter misrepresented rulings of the denomination’s highest court (GAPJC) in stating that local church sessions have “absolute and unequivocal authority to direct and disburse all funds received from the congregation.”
In support of his contention that the Lay Committee had misrepresented the court, Parsons quoted from Johnston v. Heartland Presbytery: “The congregation’s responsibility is not to itself, but to itself in light of its call to ‘fulfill its responsibilities as the local unit of mission for the service of all people, for the upbuilding of the whole church, and for the Glory of God.’ (Book of Order, G-4.0104).”
But the stated clerk failed to quote the full text of the Johnston v. Heartland Presbytery decision. In fact, he did not include the next sentence in the same paragraph from which he drew his quote. That statement reads, “While the Book of Order refers to a higher governing body’s ‘right of review and control over a lower one’ (G-4.0301.f), these concepts must not be understood in hierarchical terms, but in light of the shared responsibility and power at the heart of Presbyterian order (G-4.0302).” [Emphasis added]
In the Heartland case, the GAPJC repudiated the hierarchical heavy-handedness of the presbytery, which had punished Johnston’s congregation for not paying its per capita request. The court also upheld previous GAPJC decisions and the Book of Order that assert that per-capita payments are voluntary and may not be coerced. “The Heartland policy improperly turns payment of per capita apportionments or the fulfillment of a mission pledge into a mandate,” the GAPJC said.
The stated clerk also failed to mention two previous high court decisions, Minihan and Richards v. Scioto Valley Presbytery and Central v. the Presbytery of Long Island, both of which affirmed the right of the local church session to determine the distribution of congregational offerings and declared that sessions may not be coerced into paying per capita nor punished for their decision not to do so. Both cases were cited in the Lay Committee’s letter.
Concluding comments
Parsons concluded his commentary with “some final words,” encouraging Presbyterian conversations about dismissal to “avoid lawsuits” and “be Christ-like.” But he failed to take into account the GAPJC’s recent ruling that prohibits congregations from meeting even to discuss dismissal without the permission and participation of presbytery officials, and the GAPJC’s approval of standing presbytery administrative commissions that are permanently empowered to take control of congregations, denying them the leadership of their ministers and elected officers. Because these rulings have been handed down by the denomination’s highest court, they cannot be appealed. Because these ecclesiastical avenues have been denied them, many congregational leaders feel they have no place to turn other than to the civil courts.
Parsons said he hopes that actions of the 2008 General Assembly “can help us avoid future civil cases by having established clear presbytery policies.” But it is precisely those clear policies that congregations are citing as reasons for legal redress. Lunceford argues that “a declaratory judgment action in a church property case simply asks an impartial forum to determine the respective rights of the parties concerning any competing property claims. … Declaring civil courts an inappropriate forum for resolving church property issues leaves the matter to be decided only by a body which is not impartial.”
Not all agree with Parsons’ view of lawsuits. John Calvin and the Westminster divines, fearful of harsh hierarchical actions, promoted the use of civil magistrates to mediate disputes in local churches.
“A presbytery, synod or General Assembly has a financial interest in the outcome,” observed Lunceford, because it has asserted a trust and claimed beneficiary interest in the local church’s property. Having made such claims, these higher governing bodies can hardly be considered impartial.