Presbytery maps plan to wrest
control from sessions of churches
‘contemplating’ leaving PCUSA
By John H. Adams , The Layman , September 17, 2008
Suppose your session members – or maybe some members of the congregation – “contemplate” whether to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) because it is abandoning Biblical and Reformed beliefs and practices.
Quotes
Rhetorical flourish
“Fighting over the use of property or over title to property damages faith and destroys the witness of the church.”
But the fight goes on
The Pastoral Response Team also would be responsible for examining “how money is held, title to property, insurance documents, mortgages or other loan documents, corporate officers, corporate articles, bylaws, charters – especially changes in any of these … [and to] review recent (subsequent to 1 January 2005) changes or modifications to articles of incorporation, bylaws or deeds.”
If you’re in the Presbytery of South Louisiana, or possibly other presbyteries, you could face a PCUSA firing squad of presbytery members who have been instructed to wrest control of your congregation, require session members and pastors to become whistleblowers and instigate a presbytery audit of everything your congregation owns.
South Louisiana is considering what’s called a “Policy on the Severance of Relations between a Particular Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) including Disposition of Property.” The presbytery has scheduled a meeting on Sept. 23 to vote on the nine-page draft.
Rhetorical flourishes
The document is window-dressed with a number of rhetorical flourishes, including:
- “The goal of the church is mission and discipleship, not ownership of property.”
- “We are to let love be our guide in all that we do.”
- Fighting over the use of property or over title to property damages faith and destroys the witness of the Church.”
But the essence of the document is a strategy of intimidation and usurpation of powers that rivals the “Louisville Papers” that were written by lawyers who worked under the direction of former PCUSA Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick.
Narrow view of property ownership
The policy takes a narrow denominational view of property ownership: If a congregation decides to leave the PCUSA, its property is the denomination’s. No consideration is given those who paid for the buildings, Bibles, hymnals, communion sets, chairs, tables, etc., etc. – or to those who left bequests to the congregation or provided endowments for ministries. The best hope for the departing congregation, according to the policy, is to gain the right to buy the property again at the presbytery’s price.
The policy cloaks its planned intrusions in deceptive language, including the empty declaration that the presbytery “expresses its trust in its congregations, and earnestly desires that its congregations would trust that this presbytery will do nothing detrimental to the health, or the strength, or the mission of any of its particular churches.”
Presbytery’s attack plan
Nonetheless, at the hint of any possible consideration by a congregation of leaving the PCUSA, this is what the policy proposes:
- It establishes a permanent Administrative Commission to address “all instances where a particular church is contemplating the severance of its relationship with the PCUSA.” The commission would have seven members plus six standby members and be ready to act on a moment’s notice. How the commission might monitor the “contemplative” musings of members of a congregation is not explained. ”
- The proposed South Louisiana policy does not follow the requirements of G-11.0103s in the Book of Order, which says intervention can occur only after the presbytery determines if the session “cannot exercise its authority.” As a precondition to appointing an administrative commission, that requirement adds, “Whenever, after a thorough investigation, and after full opportunity to be heard has been accorded to the session in question, the presbytery of jurisdiction shall determine that the session of a particular church is unable or unwilling to manage wisely the affairs of its church.”
- If any congregation scheduled a vote on separating from the PCUSA, that action would “trigger an immediate original jurisdiction … over the session of said particular church.”
- The policy requires the clerk of session to “immediately notify the presbytery that such discussion has begun and that severance is contemplated.” Requiring the clerk and/or the moderator to be a whistleblower comes with a threat: they “are reminded of their ordination vow to support the polity of the Presbyterian Church (USA).”
- The policy says the Administrative Commission’s primary contact with the pastor and session would be euphemistically through a “Pastoral Response Team.” But its pastoral duties do not extend to the members of the congregation who favor leaving the PCUSA – which has amounted to the overwhelming majority in most cases. Instead, the commission would primarily serve as “advocates for the presbytery, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the members of the congregation [no matter how few] desiring to remain committed” to the PCUSA.
- The Pastoral Response Team also would be responsible for examining “how money is held, title to property, insurance documents, mortgages or other loan documents, corporate officers, corporate articles, bylaws, charters – especially changes in any of these … [and to] review recent (subsequent to 1 January 2005) changes or modifications to articles of incorporation, bylaws or deeds.”
- The policy requires sessions to provide the team “with an address list, including the e-mail address, of all active members of the congregation … complete copies of all of its incorporation papers and by-laws including originals and amendments along with the minutes of any corporate meetings.” It requires sessions to provide minutes of session and congregational meetings for the last five years … [and] the names and addresses of all members of its board of trustees that hold any property of the church along with minutes of any meetings of the board of trustees for the last three years.”
- If it comes down to a congregational vote, the “session and the Pastoral Response Team shall endeavor to obtain attendance of at least 65 percent of the active membership of the congregation to vote on the issue.” Presbyterian polity establishes a quorum for a congregational meeting at “not less than 10 percent.”
- The policy does not spell out how the property issue would be settled, but says the Administrative Commission could make one of four recommendations:
- (1) To dissolve the congregation, with the presbytery to assume control over the property.
- (2) To sell the property to a third party.
- (3) To retain the property for a new church development, or for another mission of the presbytery.
- (4) To sell or lease the property to the membership of the dismissed congregation, on condition that the church is dismissed to another Reformed denomination.
The Catch-22
Recommendation 4 is the catch-22. The denomination of choice for most congregations leaving the PCUSA is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. But the 2008 General Assembly called for an investigation of the EPC for allegedly proselytizing PCUSA congregations, despite repeated denials by the EPC and the leaders of PCUSA congr
egations that aligned with the EPC.
The request for that investigation has gone to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a liberal, socialist-leaning organization whose president is former PCUSA Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick originated the call for an investigation. Now he is in a position to guide WARC into discrediting the EPC as a Reformed denomination even though the EPC is far more committed to Biblical and Reformed teaching.
Despite the rhetoric, from Louisville, to presbyteries, to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, it’s about property.