PCUSA's highest court voids presbytery policy mandating per capita By John H. Adams The Layman Online Wednesday, October 20, 2004 The Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly has ruled that the Heartland Presbytery's policy requiring local congregations to pay their full per capita and make and fulfill a Presbytery mission pledge before being eligible for presbytery services was unconstitutional. Heartland policy Adopted by presbytery on June 17, 2003 No congregation will 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 Pensions dues, the filing of annual statistical reports, and the annual reporting of the pastor's terms of call. In an unanimous decision handed down on Oct. 18, the highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA) denied the presbytery's appeal of a synod court decision. It was the fourth ruling by the General Assembly court affirming the right of local church sessions to determine how the tithes and offerings of their members and worshipers are spent. Previous rulings, as well as statements by the past General Assemblies, held that sessions could not be compelled to pay per-capita requests to support higher governing bodies and that ministers and elders could not be punished for failure to do so. The Heartland policy, affecting congregations in Missouri and Kansas, was adopted after two congregations withheld their per-capita requests to the General Assembly for reasons of conscience. The policy would have denied presbytery approval for the two evangelical congregations to undertake capital expansion projects to accommodate growth. "A presbytery's right of oversight cannot be construed to give presbytery a right that our polity withholds – namely, a right to mandate a session's full payment of per capita apportionments as a condition of its eligibility to seek presbytery's assistance," the court said. "Furthermore, a presbytery's right of oversight does not permit it to avoid its duty to counsel with churches, to share in mission, or participate in ecclesiastical duties as required by the Book of Order." Previous per-capita decisions by PCUSA's Permanent Judicial Commission John Minihan and J. Randall Richards v. The Presbytery of Scioto Valley (2003) Session of Central Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Long Island (1992) Westminster United Presbyterian Church v. the Presbytery of Detroit (1976, UPCUSA) The presbytery had argued that its policy could not be construed as "punishment" because congregations have no vested constitutional right to receive grants, mission support or loan guarantees in the first instance. However, in upholding the ruling against the presbytery by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Mid America, the General Assembly court said, "The policy improperly turns payment of per capita apportionments or the fulfillment of a mission pledge into a mandate." It added, "… a congregation's failure to pay full per-capita apportionments or to fulfill a mission pledge ordinarily cannot become determinative or dispositive of a presbytery's refusal to grant that congregation financial assistance. Therefore, a congregation's failure to pay per-capita apportionments or to fulfill a mission pledge cannot be made a condition of eligibility to request a presbytery's financial assistance." The General Assembly court told the presbytery that its "failure to consider the requests of applicants made ineligible by its policy is a misuse of its discretion and therefore improper." In defense of its policy, the presbytery argued that the synod court had abridged the right of the presbytery to govern a lower body, the session. "While the Book of Order refers to a higher governing body's 'right of review and control over a lower one" (G-4.0301f), these concepts must not be understood in hierarchical terms, but in light of the shared responsibility and power at the heart of Presbyterian order (G-4.0302)," the court said. The Heartland case was the fourth ruling in which the denomination's highest court has upheld the discretion of church sessions to determine how to spend the tithes and offerings of their members and worshipers. The complainants in the Heartland case were A. Kirk Johnston, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Paola, Kan., the session of the Paola congregation, and Johnston's wife, Laurie Johnston, who is pastor of Hillsdale Presbyterian Church in Stillwell, Kans. Both congregations are members of the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA). They were represented by Wichita attorney Robert L. Howard, an elder at Eastminster Presbyterian Church and the former chairman of the Presbyterian Lay Committee.

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