 Follow the money  The Layman Volume 36, Number 5, Posted September 12, 2003
But faith and fortune are related. As the Episcopal Church (USA) budget will soon discover, there is a price to be paid for abandoning one’s standards. Huge deficits loom in this denomination’s future. Parallel problems The Presbyterian Church (USA) infrastructure is infected by the same ideology that has corrupted its Episcopalian counterpart, and it is only a matter of time until ecclesiastical politicians launch another assault on the moral standards that are embedded in our Constitution. The strategy employed by many of our national church leaders is clear: Refuse to enforce the standards while working to overturn them. Thus the stated clerk of the General Assembly, whose office is funded by our per-capita contributions, continues his dereliction of duty by insisting that it is not his job to enforce the Constitution. Meanwhile, multiple agencies in Louisville, whose offices are funded by our mission contributions, continue to promote curriculum materials, conferences, programs and publications affirming an aberrant sex ethic that the denomination’s standards officially reject. Mission and per capita Having concluded that our national church program agencies are intractably corrupt, many Presbyterians are redirecting their contributions to causes that they can trust, primarily in mission work that is conducted by their local churches. Louisville’s annual mission budget deficits testify to this trend. Now the stated clerk’s $12 million per capita budget is also under fire. If this office will not preserve and protect the Constitution – including its standards of sexual behavior that were recently reaffirmed by almost three fourths of the presbyteries – why should Presbyterians pay its bills? Applying coercion Feeling the pinch from redirected contributions, some presbyteries are turning the screws on their churches. The Presbytery of Long Island tried to coerce Central Church in Huntington, N.Y. But Central’s session took the presbytery to court and won its case against this patently unconstitutional power play. Undeterred by that ruling, the Presbytery of Scioto Valley applied pressure on its churches, an act that was declared unconstitutional by a unanimous Permanent Judicial Commission in July. But those two strikes did not deter Heartland Presbytery, whose leaders adopted a policy punishing non-paying churches by denying them access to mortgage money. We are confident that when this case goes to court, Heartland’s coercion will also be struck down. These unlawful acts by heavy-handed presbyteries would stop in an instant if the stated clerk’s office drew the line. But it is apparently too much to ask that an office whose income is derived from per capita would defend the constitutional rights of those who refuse to pay it. On the contrary, this office is bending over backwards to encourage coercion, including the issuance of a bizarre opinion that while local churches may have a constitutional right not to pay per capita, ministers who encourage them to exercise that right can be disciplined. History reminds us that coercion is the final act of a crumbling regime. Having lost any moral credibility with its people, Louisville can expect continuing deficits. And on the day that Presbyterians face what has just been done to the Episcopalians, the denomination’s moral bankruptcy will trigger a financial one as well. Parker T. Williamson is chief executive officer and editor in chief of the Presbyterian Lay Committee’s publications. |
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