The Committee on Church Polity voted on Saturday to disapprove an overture (05-08) that would have allowed churches that leave the denomination to take their property with them.
Committee members voted 35 to 5 against the overture, with four abstaining, and added a comment that affirms the current policy, that churches’ property is considered to be held in trust for the use and benefit of the PC(USA):
‘The church is not a voluntary association of those who share the same opinions but is an organic body called into existence by God. The constitutional provisions under which congregations hold property for the benefit of the Presbyterian Church (USA) reflect our theological conviction that this denomination constitutes one indivisible body with itself is part of the body of Christ and which encompasses not only the visible church today but also the great cloud of witness who have come before us. We order our affairs out of the conviction that persons do not join the Presbyterian Church (USA) of their own volition, but are called to membership in this denomination by God, and participate in our government through the work of the Holy Sprit.’
Discussion of the issue was marked by a tense dispute about protocol that some committee members said appeared to show bias against the overture’s advocate, Jeffrey Ogden, a minister from Stockton Presbytery.
Before the overture was presented, committee leadership called on Cynthia Campbell, president of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, to give an overview of the church’s tradition of property ownership. She spoke for several minutes about the theological basis for the church’s policy and alluded to how the overture’s recommendation would contradict that. The church ‘is not an association of like-minded persons or a membership organization,’ she said. ‘We live together as part of one organism. The reason for that organism is God and not our own decision to join up with it.’
Ogden said he was ‘furious” that Campbell was given more time than he and complained that she was allowed to advocate against his overture before he could present it.
‘I would just like to express that I think that this is unfair,’ he said. ‘There is deep and profound distrust at a local level in this church. And it comes from what we feel is manipulation by the national church of the people at the local level. Every time little people try and speak up they get double-teamed and triple-teamed by the national organization. But there comes a time and a point where people are not going to take it any more.’
Some commissioners expressed sympathy and the committee voted to apologize and to allow Ogden more time to speak; he apologized for his anger.
