 Lay Committee chairman asks presbytery to validate Williamson By John H. Adams The Layman Online Thursday, January 8, 2004 Peggy Hedden of Columbus, Ohio, chairman of the national Presbyterian Lay Committee, has asked ministers and elders in the Presbytery of Western North Carolina to vote for continued validation of the ministry of Parker T. Williamson, who is chief executive officer of the Lay Committee and editor in chief of its publications. "We think that the COM's [Committee on Ministry] decision disregards the facts of Rev. Williamson's faithful service to the PCUSA and the standards of our constitution," Hedden said in a Jan. 6 letter to ministers and stated clerks in the presbytery. The presbytery is scheduled to vote on Williamson's validation during its meeting Jan. 31 in Asheville. After receiving a recommendation from the presbytery's Validation Committee, the Committee on Ministry voted 10-4 on Dec. 9 to ask that the presbytery immediately deny Williamson voice and vote at presbytery meetings by demoting him to inactive status. Church law requires that an inactive minister be shorn of his ordination credentials after three years unless revalidated. Williamson has been a presbytery member in good standing for 32 years – 18 as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lenoir, N.C., and 14 with the Presbyterian Lay Committee – and has never been disciplined or had his ordination of the Word and Sacrament challenged. "During those 32 years, Rev. Williamson has fulfilled his ordination vows in all particulars, guided by our Book of Confessions and governed by our church's polity. There has never been any objection raised by the presbytery in all those years," Hedden said in her Jan. 6 letter. "Yet, without any specification of what in Rev. Williamson's ministry disqualifies it under the standards of G-11.0403, the COM has suddenly declared that his ministry is no longer valid." She noted that the meeting of the Committee on Ministry was closed to the public and "its members were not given any of the documents submitted by Rev. Williamson or the Presbyterian Lay Committee to the Validated Ministry Task Force to show how the ministry fulfills the requirements of G-11.0404. Those documents set out in detail how Rev. Williamson, in his work with the Lay Committee, is in demonstrable conformity with the mission of God's people in the world as set forth by the PCUSA. Rev. Williamson has requested that these documents be included in the packet for commissioners for the January meeting." [The inset box with this article contains links to those documents.] "We ask that you read them carefully and consider the ministry that the COM seeks to terminate," Hedden said. In recommending the invalidation of Williamson's ministry, the Committee on Ministry cited the "conduct and character of the ministry" of the Presbyterian Lay Committee – "without stating any specific criticisms of the ministry," Hedden said. "Yet the conduct and character of the Lay Committee has not changed since in the last 14 years, and certainly not since April of 2003 when the COM of the presbytery recommended the validation of another Lay Committee staff person, the Rev. Steven Strickler." Strickler is director of church relations for the Presbyterian Lay Committee. Hedden told the ministers and stated clerks that the Lay Committee had been approved "after examination by five General Assemblies, the most recent in 1995, when a recommendation to censure the Lay Committee for disturbing the peace of the church was rejected by a vote of 517 to 20." Furthermore, "that 1995 assembly declared its hope/expectation that the matter would not be brought up again," she added. "The only new Lay Committee Board action between April and December, 2003, was the adoption of our Declaration of Conscience on October 18 (copy enclosed)," Hedden said. "In the Validated Ministry Task Force meeting on November 2, several members stated that the Declaration, particularly as it spoke to the issue of redirecting per capita from the General Assembly, would disqualify a minister from working with our ministry. That conclusion seems to be based on a significant misunderstanding about the voluntary nature of per capita. In three cases (the most recent in July, 2003), the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission has clearly ruled that per capita is a voluntary gift to the denomination and that sessions or pastors may not be punished for failing to pay per capita. The Westminister case specifically states that a pastor may not be removed from his position because the session of his church decides not to contribute per capita." Hedden, a non-practicing attorney, is an expert on cases involving per-capita issues. On behalf of the Presbyterian Coalition, she wrote a comprehensive assessment of per capita in the PCUSA titled "Responding Faithfully: Making Decisions about Financial Support of PCUSA Governing Bodies in Times Of Disorder." Presbyterian court decisions are included in the appendix of that document. "Based upon these case authorities," she said, "it is also clear that a PCUSA-related ministry cannot be denied validation, nor its minister employee be punished or discriminated against because that ministry declares as a matter of conscience what we have stated about stewardship in our Declaration." Both Hedden, an elder, and Robert L. Howard, also an elder and Hedden's predecessor as chairman of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, have been asked to be allowed to speak at the presbytery meeting on July 31. Howard is senior counsel for a law firm in Wichita, Kan. They have not been notified whether they will be allowed to speak. |
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