By Eric Adler, The Kansas City Star
The Presbyterian Church of Stanley, 14895 Antioch Road in Overland Park, is seeing some of the same drama of division that has been playing out in congregations across the country in recent years. (TAMMY LJUNGBLAD THE KANSAS CITY STAR)
It’s church time, close to 9 a.m. last Sunday.
Katherine Milligan, 66, walks through the central hallway of the Presbyterian Church of Stanley, feeling more uncomfortable, more spurned and more angry than she has in all her 33 years attending this Overland Park church.
“I’m too old. I don’t care what people think,” the Olathe woman said later, defiant in the battle she has joined. “No one is going to tell me I can’t worship in my sanctuary.”
Yet in late April a trial scheduled in Johnson County District Court will effectively determine exactly that. Judge Kevin Moriarty will hear arguments on who owns this $4.4 million house of God, a white modernist building erected in 1978 on a grassy rise at 148th Street and Antioch Road.
For six months, two factions of the church have been embroiled in what both sides agree has been an ugly and hurtful conflict.
Although easy to view as a parochial property matter, the same drama of division has been playing out inside hundreds of congregations across the country in recent years, notably in mainline Presbyterian and Episcopal churches split over conservative and more liberal theology.
For more than a decade, in fact, the 1.9 million-member Episcopal Church has watched as one conservative congregation after another and even entire dioceses have abandoned the denomination over what’s viewed as its liberal theology, fueled in particular in 2003 when the denomination ordained its first openly gay bishop.
Similar strife has riven the church in Stanley.
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I believe the 600-member Texas congregation of which I was a member before leaving PCUSA would end up being sharply divided, as this Kansas church is, if the question of leaving PCUSA were to come up. That’s why the pastors, leading a mostly docile Session, have tried hard to divert the attention of church members away from what’s been happening in recent years, culminating in the passage of 14-F. The pastors are quite content leading a congregation ignorant of the extent to which their denomination has been transformed, as long as that ignorance prevents a situation such as this one in Overland Park.
Tough case, and there are a lot of problems. First, it doesn’t sound as though the church went through the dismissal process, which would hurt them. Second, there’s the question about whether they placed the property in trust when today’s PC(USA) denomination was created in ’87. That was an option for the “southern” churches that might not have been available here, but it’s worth clarifying.
This kind of messy divorce is EXACTLY why I believe a case needs to be made to GA that dismissal policies ought to be *truly* gracious, and concerned chiefly with maintaining the congregation’s ability to effectively serve its mission after leaving. As Christians, we ought to make the property disputes a very distant concern and focus on the church’s mission. If that means shaming the national denomination into acknowledging this, sobeit.
The alternative is bitterness, as we see here.
I watched the videos from both Katherine Milligan, and the Pastor,twice. Not one time did she mention the Bible, her only belief is that the book of order should be supreme, and then she on about being open and welcoming, that’s a red herring. This presbytery has only one gracious dismissal policy, you graciously leave the door keys and bank account numbers, and kindly get the hell out of the building. They showed this the others, Colonial comes to mind, and they kept their Kansas campus through court order.
So the church may not have had many options here. Time will tell, I do know this, and so does luoisville, revisionist don’t tithe, so the only way they can keep their “anything goes” social club,with Jesus thrown in, is to take it from soembody else. I’m sorry it has come to this, but with the cash cow churches leaving, this is only going to get worse!
sorry about the spelling, James H
The PCUSA – OPEN AND GRACIOUS? – the fine print “No Bible believing people may apply – we are only open and gracious and inclusive to liberals and anyone else who will SHUT UP and follow our ‘progressive heresy!'”
As to who “OWNS” the church I thought offerings were freewill and that the church belongs to God who is found in HIS WORD which is true today, tomorrow and forever.
The Johnson County, Kansas, District Court ruled that because Colonial was a Missouri NPO, the Missouri courts were the appropriate venue for that property dispute. But whereas Missouri law utilizes the Neutral Principles, Kansas law (at least for now) utilizes the Hierarchical Deference, which means that the Stanley Church, and a Kansas NPO, is likely in for a rougher time in Kansas Court unless the Kansas Legislature revisits and passes Neutral Principles in its church property dispute legislation. Regardless, it looks like the Stanley Church is more divided over the issue of disaffiliation than was Colonial, which will make things much more difficult if and when this case gets to court.
As an aside, if schism is bad, why does the PCUSA faction refuse to worship with their brothers and sisters in Christ by insisting on a separate worship service?
Who wouldn’t want to belong to the PCUSA. They believe in
everything except biblical truth and repentance.
BILL, you are so very…….wrong. You just have no idea how wrong you are but you must be one of those people that knows what is right for everyone else? That’s what the Taliban and ISIL types do is pick what parts of their scripture taken out of context to enforce while ignoring the others. The roughly 70% of Presbyterians that stood and voted to be supportive of this change are just regular folks that read attend worship, read their bibles, live and love and pray for guidiance. They had no axe to grind or point to prove. The PCUSA didn’t press any agenda. This is based on interpretation and faith. Not fear and loathing as the Layman types seem to respond to. Jesus loves us all though so I forgivde you too, just like he said! You should try it too!-RB