Both pastors forced out of Baltimore congregation
The Layman Online, August 31, 1999
A dispute over leadership of the 200-year-old Second Presbyterian Church and intervention by the Baltimore Presbytery have resulted in the forced resignations of its co-pastors, The Sunday Baltimore Sun [August 29] reported.
The situation at Second Presbyterian also drew the attention of Lester Kinsolving, a Baltimore talk-show host and former syndicated religion writer.
‘Maladministration’ cited
On his August 30 WCBM show, aka “Uninhibited Radio Free Maryland,” Kinsolving called the forced resignations of co-pastors Ernest Ross Duncan Smart, 62, and Christa Fuller Burns, 49, “some of the worst maladministration in modern church history.” He said Smart, a native of Scotland, was a victim of “such brutal mistreatment … as boggles the mind.”
The Sun report by staff writer John River said that as a result of the turmoil at Second Presbyterian “feelings are raw, friendships have been ruined, some members don’t speak and others have vowed never again to darken the church’s door.”
“We’re walking away. I’m ashamed to be called a Presbyterian,” Clauson Smoot, a member of the congregation’s board of trustees who supports Smart, told The Sun. “After 18 years of [Smart’s] service to this church and building up one of the most successful churches [in North Baltimore], it’s a crime.”
An ill-conceived idea
The trouble at Second Presbyterian apparently began in 1996 with the idea for a co-pastorate, an arrangement the presbytery now concedes was ill-conceived.
The co-pastorate was viewed as a way to share authority between Smart and Burns and to boost the flagging youth ministry at Second Presbyterian, a congregation of about 1,000 members. Burns, previously the associate pastor of the congregation, was elevated to co-pastor in 1996.
But The Sun said there were ongoing disagreements between Smart and Burns and that church leaders were unable to resolve them. Therefore, the Baltimore Presbytery was asked for advice.
The Presbytery appointed an investigative committee to assess the situation. A conflict resolution consultant was hired to mediate differences among Smart and Burns and the session. But the situation did not improve. By May, according to The Sun, the session decided to bring the matter to the congregation. Members of the session drafted a motion, calling on both Smart and Burns to resign, and put it before the congregation for a vote. But the congregation instead approved by more than 2-to-1 a substitute motion to accept Burns’ resignation but to retain Smart as pastor.
Investigative committee appointed
The Sun said many in the congregation believed the matter was settled and things would go back to the way they were before Burns’ arrival. But this time the presbytery formed an administrative committee to investigate the conflict at Second Presbyterian and report to the presbytery, thereby taking over the decision-making authority of the congregation’s session.
The administrative committee recommended that Smart resign immediately.
On August 9, during an emotional meeting of the presbytery called to vote on the committee’s recommendation, Smart offered to resign if he would be allowed to deliver two final sermons on the need for grace, forgiveness and reconciliation. The presbytery accepted that condition.
Those who do not support Smart are often referred to in the congregation as the “pro-Christa” faction, the feminine form for Christ, The Sun reported. But some do not accept that label.
“The way I see it, there is one side, the pro-Ernest side. And then there’s everyone else. I don’t see it as two sides,” said Eloise Bensberg, one of the members who spoke at the August 9 meeting of the presbytery. “But I think the pro-Ernest faction has taken the stance that this stuff is all made up; the people who support Christa are out to get him. It’s not that way,” she said.
Statement issued by Smart
Neither Burns nor Smart would consent to an interview for The Sun article. But Smart issued a statement, through his wife.
“He feels that anything said in the press is probably going to hurt somebody,” said Rosemary Smart. “If other members of the congregation feel otherwise, they are free to express themselves in their own personal way.
“He, above all at this difficult time, wants to focus on healing and reconciliation,” she said, “and will do all in his power to assist the congregation to move ahead in the ministry to which all members are called.”
On his radio program, Kinsolving called the forced resignation of Duncan a triumph for feminism.
For Smart’s last sermon at Second Presbyterian, the session had decreed that there be no applause at the conclusion. “But during the recessional,” Kinsolving said, “as this gentle man of God walked down the aisle for the last time, there was not only loud applause, there were hundreds of his parishioners who wept openly.”