Presbytery motion says Kirk must submit to PCUSA hierarchy
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 18, 2006
The Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma has filed civil court motions saying that its claim to the multi-million-dollar property of Kirk of the Hills in Tulsa is supported by a 36-year-old Oklahoma Supreme Court decision and a 135-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision.
But the case involving Kirk of the Hills is significantly different from the 1970 Oklahoma property dispute and gives scant mention to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that held civil courts were not bound to the “hierarchical” ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1871.
The two major differences are:
- 1. The Oklahoma court decided in favor of the presbytery in a case in which a congregation was financially dependent on the presbytery. The property dispute erupted after the presbytery rejected another plea for funds and the congregation voted to leave the denomination. Although the presbytery’s brief says Kirk of the Hills borrowed money from the presbytery to start the congregation, the Kirk’s documents say all money borrowed was paid back with interest.
- 2. While emphasizing the 1871 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Watson v. Jones, the presbytery gives little attention to the Supreme Court’s ruling in 1979 in Jones v. Wolf and its recommendation that courts consider applying “neutral principles of law” to resolve property disputes. The 1979 court said the First Amendment “does not require the States to adopt a rule of compulsory deference to religious authority in resolving church property disputes.”
Nonetheless, in a motion for a stay of action to counter the Kirk’s “quiet title” claim on its property, the presbytery argues that Oklahoma’s case law, developed before the 1979 Supreme Court decision, supports the presbytery’s right to decide who gets the Kirk property. The stay, filed before State Judge Jefferson D. Sellers, asks the court to let the presbytery decide what it will do with the property after it completes its administrative review.
Citing the 1971 decision in Presbytery of Cimarron vs. Westminster Presbyterian Church of Enid, lawyers for the presbytery argued, “[T]he Oklahoma Supreme Court has expressly held that disputes over title to church property which arise within the Presbyterian Church must be submitted to the hierarchical judicatory process established by the Constitution of the PCUSA.”
In the Enid opinion, the court noted that the congregation was financially dependent on the presbytery, receiving funds from the presbytery’s National Missions Committee for salaries and housing for its minister. In 1969, leaders of the church met with members of that committee to seek more assistance, but the committee members recommended that the congregation be dissolved rather than provide additional money. The Cimarron presbytery approved that proposal in November 1969.
However, the Enid congregation broke its ties with the presbytery and decided to continue as an “autonomous” Presbyterian congregation. It refused to deed over its property to the presbytery. Although the then-United Presbyterian Church (USA) had no property trust clause, it filed suit claiming that the denomination had an implied trust clause and a polity that gave the presbytery “hierarchical” authority over the congregation.
The Cimarron court quoted extensively from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1871 Watson v. Jones ruling. That ruling was in response to the “hierarchical” claims of the then-Presbyterian Church US, the Southern denomination that reunited with the United Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1983 to form the current Presbyterian Church (USA).
“All who unite themselves to such a body do so with an implied consent to this government, and are bound to submit to it,” the Supreme Court said in Watson v. Jones, which provided the only basis for resolving property disputes in hierarchical denominations until Jones v. Wolf.
(The PCUSA and its predecessor denominations have long claimed to be “hierarchical” in matters involving property disputes while shunning the term to describe its governance. The PCUSA argues that it is similar to the Episcopal Church (USA), the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox denominations, whose governing decisions are made by bishops. But the PCUSA’s government is presbyterian – meaning ruled by elders and not by bishops. PCUSA lawyers advise presbyteries that they should tell the civil judges that they are the equivalent of bishops to emphasize their hierarchical claims.)
Most polity courses in Presbyterian seminaries, when training prospective Presbyterian ministers, emphasize three types of church government:
1) Congregational, as in the Baptist Church, in which congregation holds all power independent of any other association;
2) Episcopal, as in the Episcopal Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church and Orthodox denominations, in which power is vested in bishops;
3) presbyterian, a representative form of government in which ministers and lay elders share governing responsibilities.
“It is clear from the Cimarron decision that the hierarchical deference rule of Watson v. Jones was adopted as the law of the State of Oklahoma,” the presbytery motion said. “Pursuant to the clear authority of Cimarron, although Plaintiff [Kirk of the Hills] has attempted to disregard the express provisions and procedures of the PCUSA Constitution when it chose to affiliate with the PCUSA, Plaintiff must now submit the instant property dispute to the judicatory authority of the administrative commission.”
Kirk of the Hills has initiated a number of actions to remove itself from the authority of the presbytery or its administrative commission. The Kirk has formed an independent corporation with title to the property and other assets. The session and the congregation voted overwhelmingly to disaffiliate from the PCUSA and align with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. And the two senior ministers, Tom Gray and Wayne Hardy, renounced the jurisdiction of the PCUSA. By acclamation, they were called to be pastors of the realigned congregation.
In another motion, the presbytery has asked the state court to require the Kirk to “produce records” so that the administrative commission could “perform its investigatory and judicatory functions.” It identified the presbytery’s membership rolls as the most essential record.
The presbytery’s lawyers argue that Kirk of the Hills – despite its withdrawal from the Presbyterian Church (USA) – is obliged to submit to the requirements in the Book of Order. In response to that argument, John M. Connor, the attorney for the Kirk, notified Craig W. Hoster, the presbytery’s attorney, in a Sept. 7 letter: “Please be advised that the Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church has left the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Kirk, therefore, does not recognize the actions taken at the Special Called Meeting on August 28, 2006.”