Highland Park halts gifts to higher governing bodies
The Layman Online, December 4, 2006
The session of Highland Park Presbyterian Church has suspended all contributions to higher governing bodies in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The 4,324-member congregation had a 1995 budget of $9.7 million. Its per-member giving is more than double the denomination’s average.
An announcement of the session’s Nov. 27 decision has been posted on Highland Park Web site.
Before reconsidering whether to make any contributions to higher governing bodies, the session said it is studying the possibility of redirecting “in a new way all or some of the funds we have historically given to the PCUSA.”
The session said the reason for stopping gifts to the higher governing bodies, including the General Assembly and PCUSA mission programs, was the 2006 General Assembly’s approval of an authoritative interpretation that undermines the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” requirement in the Book of Order (G-6.0106b).
The session outlined a number of steps it has already begun:
1. Recommend to Grace Presbytery a standards resolution to clarify that AI-5 does not grant “local option” within Grace Presbytery. (The presbytery voted by a two-to-one margin against the resolution on Nov. 11.”
2. Present an overture to Grace Presbytery to send to the next General Assembly to overturn the authoritative interpretation.
3. Recommend to Grace Presbytery that it adopt the “Essential Tenets and Reformed Distinctives” that were adopted by the Presbytery of San Diego in 2003 and adopted by the session in 2005.
4. Have the Church Relations Committee of the session form a task force to re-assess the stewardship of financial resources and recommend to the session whether it should re-direct all or some of the funds from all or some of the higher governing bodies in the PCUSA to which the church contributes annually.
The session said it expects to make a final decision on this issue in February of 2007 after receiving a report from the Task Force in January.
Highland Park also publishes material on denominational issues on its Web site under the heading, “The Continuing Response to Actions of the PCUSA General Assembly 2006.”