Heartland
presbytery appeals
decision on per-capita ruling
By John H.
Adams
The Layman
Online
Tuesday, May 11,
2004
The Heartland
Presbytery in Kansas has appealed a decision by the Permanent Judicial
Commission of the Synod of Mid-America that prohibits the presbytery
from disapproving loans for local congregations and denying them other
services if they fail to pay their per capita and make and meet a
mission pledge to support the presbytery's programs.
The Heartland Presbytery Policy
Adopted June 17, 2003 "The Presbytery Council
moves that no congregation be considered eligible to request
assistance from the presbytery in the form of mission support,
shared grants or loan guarantees unless that congregation has
demonstrated its full participation in the fiscal and ecclesiastical
life of the presbytery including the payment of per capita, the
making and meeting of a mission pledge, being current on Board of
Pension dues, the filling (sic) of annual statistical reports and
the annual reporting of pastor's terms of call." |
The appeal to the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General
Assembly, the highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said the
synod court committed four errors in its interpretation of D-8.0105g in
the Book of Order:
- Specification 1: The decision undermines and interferes with the
right of presbytery to determine its budget and policies with regard
to its own budget, grant application procedures and criteria for
budget administration, as established in the Constitution,
G-11.0304; G-11.0103 a-c.
- Specification 2: The decision erroneously equates exercising
discretion in allocating mission support with "punishing a
session."
- Specification 3: The decision improperly abridges the historic
principles of church government and the right of a higher governing
body to govern the lower as established in the Constitution,
G-1.0400; G-4.0302f; G-4.0301i; G-9.0103; G-11.0103; and elsewhere.
- Specification 4: The decision applies an overly broad
interpretation of earlier General Assembly PJC decisions and
diminishes and disregards portions of their findings, reducing them
to the idea that sessions possess an absolute right to designate and
determine distribution of offerings and benevolences.
The Heartland case pits the presbytery against ministers of three
local congregations and the session of First Presbyterian Church of
Paola, Kans. The ministers and session filed a remedial action against
the presbytery after it adopted a policy that required that local
congregations remit their full per capita to support presbyteries,
synods and the General Assembly before they would be entitled to
presbytery services.
The complainants in A. Kirk Johnston et al v. Heartland Presbytery
won their case in the synod
court, which affirmed two previous decisions by the General
Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission. In Session, Central
Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Long Island and Minihan and
Richards v. Presbytery of Scioto Valley, the highest court ruled
that sessions could neither be compelled to pay their per capita nor
punished for failure to do so.
The appeal by the Heartland Presbytery was filed on May 6. In a letter
to members of the Heartland Presbytery, the three members of the
presbytery's committee of counsel for the case gave their rationale for
the appeal.
"This case raises very important polity issues for not only our
presbytery, but also for the entire Presbyterian Church (USA),"
they said. "There is a great deal of confusion around the church
about the nature of our unity in the midst of divergent understandings
of our shared life. As it is General Assembly-level decisions that we
believe have been misrepresented, it is necessary to seek clarification
from that body. Our Synod PJC is not in a position to give an
authoritative word." |