nFOG Part III: CONSCIENCE BE DAMNED! MANDATORY PER CAPITA IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which conditionif he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

-John Philpot Curran, Speech before the Privy Council, July 10, 1790

For many years, withholding per capita has been the only means for churches to register their disapproval of actions of the GA or other courts of the church.

In several cases, those higher courts (now referred to as "councils") have sought to coerce payment of per capita through the institution of disciplinary measures or by limiting the right of congregations to participate in presbytery. For nearly the same amount of time, presbyteries and synods have attempted to make payment of per capita mandatory. Several amendments to the Book of Order added ambiguous language that could be read either way. Nonetheless, in every such instance in which such an attempt has been made, the PJC has reversed such decisions. See, e.g., Johnston v. Heartland Presbytery, Rem. Case 217-2 (GAPJC 2004) (“The Heartland policy improperly turns payment of per capita apportionments or the fulfillment of a mission pledge into a mandate”); Minihan and Richards v. Scioto Valley Presbytery, Remedial Case 216-1 (GAPJC 2003) (1992 amendment to G-9.0404d did not grant a presbytery power to compel a session to transmit the per capita apportionment assigned to it.); Session, Central Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Long Island (Minutes, 1992, page 179) (governing body may adopt a per capita system for financing its operations, but a church may neither be compelled to pay nor punished for failure to pay any amounts pursuant to such plan); cf., Westminster United Presbyterian Church of Port Huron, Michigan v. The Presbytery of Detroit (UPC, 1976, p. 228)

The basis for the GA PJC decisions has been the clear language of Book of Order §G-10.0102 , (Responsibilities of the Session), which states in pertinent part,

The session is responsible for the mission and government of the particular church. It therefore has the responsibility and power . . . to establish the annual budget, determine the distribution of the church’s benevolences, and order offerings for Christian purposes, providing full information to the congregation of its decisions in such matters . . . §G-10.0102i.

Because the session alone possesses control of the congregation’s purse, the bureaucrats may not unilaterally overrule the conscience of the congregation.

And they have tried! In 2001, Scioto Valley Presbytery overtured the 213th General Assembly to approve an amendment which proposed to add the following sentences to G-9.0404d:

Unless excused by the presbytery, a session shall be responsible for raising and timely transmission of per capita funds to its presbytery. A presbytery may exercise care and oversight over congregations in its bounds that fail to raise or transmit such funds to the presbytery.

The 213th General Assembly (2001) disapproved the Overture.

These decisions are, of course, repugnant to the bureaucracy. When a session of a church that does not agree with the actions of the GA elects to successfully withhold per capita, the lifeblood of the bureaucracy, it encourages other churches to do the same. However, as demonstrated by the example in 2001, an effort to make per capita mandatory would, even today, have a doubtful chance of making it out of the GA.

If, that is, it was presented as a stand-alone amendment. Enter nFOG.2. Hidden in nFOG section 3.02 (THE SESSION) is a new section that provides as follows:

3.0202 Relations with Other Councils

Sessions have a particular responsibility to participate in the life of the whole church through participation in other councils. It is of particular importance that sessions:. . .

f. send to presbytery and General Assembly requested financial contributions, statistics, and other information according to the requirements of those bodies (emphasis added).

Section G-3.0202f makes payment of per capita a “particular responsibility” of the session.

Elsewhere in nFOG, the presbytery is authorized to

assume original jurisdiction in any situation in which it determines that a session cannot exercise its authority. After a thorough investigation, and after full opportunity to be heard has been accorded to the session,the presbytery may conclude that the session of a congregation is unable or unwilling to manage wisely its affairs, and may appoint an administrative commission with the full power of session. This commission shall assume original jurisdiction of the existing session, if any, which shall cease to act until such time as the presbytery shall otherwise direct.” Section G-3.0303e [The Presbytery’s] Relations with Sessions

The standard for such action remains the same as in the current Book of Order, but by changing payment of per capita into a “particular responsibility” of the session, it will be easy for a presbytery to declare that when a session does not perform that “particular responsibility”, it has demonstrated that it “is unable or unwilling to manage wisely its affairs”. An AC can then come in, take over the checkbook, and send the congregation’s money to Louisville.

So, sessions and congregations beware. If §G-3.0202f is adopted, hang onto your wallets. The GA’s bagmen will be coming.

nFOG Part II: CLOSING THE DOOR

“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients and by parts.” Edmund Burke, April 3, 1777

Edmund Burke was a contemporary of the founders of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. The republican form of government adoprted in the Summer of 1787 in Philadelphia by both the PCUSA and the United States in their respective constitutions was no accident. And the fear of strong central governments held by the men of that day can still be found in the words of those constitutions.

The desire and demand of free men for liberty is anathema to despots, and they endeavor by all means to usurp the power that ought belong to the individual. That is especially evident in the restructuring of the Form of Government with respect to the congregations. Rights that have always been conceded by the leadership to reside in the congregations are quietly removed in the hope that the commissioners to the presbyteries will not notice their absence.

Compare, for instance §G-7.0304 of the current Book of Order with the proposed §1.0503 of nFOG.2. Section G-7.0304 declares that

G-7.0304
Business
a. Business to be transacted at meetings of the congregation shall include the following:

(1) matters related to the electing (sic) of elders, deacons, and trustees;
(2) matters related to the calling of a pastor or pastors;
(3) matters related to the pastoral relationship, such as changing the call, or requesting or consenting or decliningto consent to dissolution;
(4) matters related to buying, mortgaging, or selling real property (G-8.0500);
(5) matters related to the permissive powers of a congregation, such as the desire to lodge all administrative responsibility in the session, or the request to presbytery for exemption from one or more requirements because of limited size.
Limitations b. Business at congregational meetings shall be limited to the foregoing matters (1) through (5). . . . (emphasis added).

New §1.0503 (“Business Proper to Congregational Meetings”) strips away all of the powers heretofore residing in the congregation and then sets forth a new, very limited authority:

1.0503 Business Proper to Congregational Meetings
Business to be transacted at meetings of the congregation shall be limited to matters related to the following:
a. electing ruling elders, deacons, and trustees;
b. calling a pastor, co-pastor, or associate pastor;
c. changing existing pastoral relationships, by such means as reviewing the adequacy of and approving
changes to the terms of call of the pastor or pastors, or requesting, consenting to, or declining to consent to dissolution;
d. buying, mortgaging, or selling real property;
e. requesting the presbytery to grant an exemption as permitted in this Constitution (G-2.0404).

Note the differences. The introductory phrase of §G-7.0304 (“Business to be transacted at meetings of the congregation shall include the following:. . . “) is changed to “Business to be transacted at meetings of the congregation shall be limited to matters related to the following: . .” (emphasis added). From being a constitutional form in which all powers not delegated to the GA belong to the congregations, it has flipped into an oligarchical form in which the oligarchs dole out those few meaningless powers,e.g., to appoint local leadership, that they do not want---yet.

In other words, powers that had previously belonged to the congregation alone have been stripped away. The phrases “shall include” and “such as” in §G-7.0304 clearly connoted that the list that followed was not exclusive and that other powers also resided in the congregation and could be the basis for a congregational meeting.

Because the current Book of Order is ambiguous, and because it was drafted by the GA, in the event of a dispute between a congregation and its presbytery or the GA over the right to disaffiliate, under the legal doctrine contra proferentum, the ambiguity would be construed against the presbytery or GA. Hence the change.

By nibbling away at the rights of the congregation, if nFOG.2 is ratified as written, congregations that previously had the power to disaffiliate will be trapped in the PC(USA) at the mercy of the GA. The right of a congregation to unilaterally disaffiliate from the PC(USA) will be gone.

And, once trapped, there is more. . . . .

THE nFOG COMES IN ON LITTLE CAT FEET

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

-Carl Sandburg-

SWMBO and the kids are back in school. The cats have settled down for a much needed 18-hour nap after the hard work of eating breakfast, staring out the window at the trash truck, chasing air, and looking beautiful. And I can get back to the blogosphere.

Over at A Classical Presbyterian, Toby Brown has written a very nice cautionary piece about stewardship of emotion and effort, noting that we can often use up our strength on outrage when our energies could be better directed elsewhere. That piece struck home. There was a time when I scoured the web for news from the PC(USA) out of a need to protect our congregation from the depredations of the gang in Louisville. The disclosure of the Louisville Papers over a year after they had been distributed to presbyteries and synods revealed that secrecy and ambush were to be their chosen methods. But I also needed a place to vent against the hijackers of a once great denomination.

Two years ago, our little church on the hill—with other similarly situated congregations—fought our way out. Since that time, we have marveled at the peace, trust, and fellowship that can come from finding a home in a denomination that knows what it stands for and is unafraid to say just that. In the EPC, we found brothers and sisters who are not afraid to declare the sovereignty of God, the divinity of Christ, and the inerrancy of God’s word revealed in Scripture. In the EPC, we don’t need to tear pages or whole chapters out of our Bibles.

I write this by way of preface. My review of the antics and actions taken by the PC(USA) are no longer driven by self defense. I now have the freedom to watch what PC(USA) leadership and its minions are doing simply as an intellectual exercise. And they are making it easy.

The 2006 GA of the PC(USA) commissioned a re-write of its cumbersome Book of Order, but forbade any changes to the ordination standards set forth in §G-6.0106b or the odious unilateral declaration of a so-called property “trust.” The resulting product was released late and met with an uncharacteristic distrust across the denomination. Despite efforts by out-going Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick and his team to get the new form of government through the 2008 GA, it failed. Instead, the GA added some new members to the committee and directed them to take another crack at a re-write.

To their credit, the new committee worked hard to get their proposal out in sufficient time for people to study it. (A major criticism of nFOG.1 was that it was not released for review until just before the 2008 GA. Commissioners were leery of voting on something they had not read and digested—oh that the folks in Congress were so conscientious! But, I digress.) So, now it is out, loaded with booby traps for the unwary, a ticking time-bomb. If the 2010 GA does not reject this effort, and if the presbyteries adopt it, they cannot say that they did not have an opportunity to know what they were doing. And reject this piece of work they should.

As was the case with nFOG.1, nFOG.2 is a plan for reforming the PC(USA) into the Roman Catholic model of church governance. It strips congregations of long-held rights which protected them from unilateral action by the bureaucracy, remodels the “presbyterian” form of government into a hierarchical directorate, adds language that can be used to make payment of per capita mandatory, and adds a “fuehrer oath” for members of congregations.

As a child of the prairies of Illinois, I learned my Sandburg. His description of the fog as a silent predator, creeping into place unnoticed until it is too late for the prey, is an apt comparison to the nFOG that has now been unleashed on the PC(USA). I hope that sessions of the PC(USA) congregations will take responsibility to study nFOG.2 and act accordingly when they send commissioners to presbytery and the GA. If they do not, they have no one to blame but themselves.

-30- (Extra credit to the first one of you boys and girls who can explain this.)

THE nFOG CRISIS

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program for a bulletin.

The Presbyterian Outlook reports here on the proposed "new Form of Government" ("nFOG") which will be offered up at the PC(USA) General Assembly this June. Included is a report on a debate between Cynthia Bolbach, Esquire, co-moderator of the nFOG Task Force and Rev. James Berkley, Director of Presbyterian Action for Faith and Action.

Imperial Louisville is pushing hard to have the GA adopt nFOG and to send it out to the presbyteries for prompt ratification. A number of presbyteries, noting that this is a drastic overhaul of the current Form of Government, have overtured the GA to simply receive the nFOG and to then send it to the presbyteries for two years of study. Action could then be taken at the next GA in 2010.

Why the big push from Louisville to get this done now?

The nFOG makes several changes that inure to Louisville’s game plan to establish a hierarchical, episcopal government within the PC(USA). In particular:

The reference in the current Book of Order to “permissive powers of the congregation” has quietly disappeared. The matters on which a congregation can act will be limited to four narrowly drafted topics in which Louisville has no interest.

Moreover, in an ambiguously written revision, it appears that payment of per capita by congregations can be forced. Arguably, failure to pay per capita can then expose a session to action by its presbytery to assume original jurisdiction to force payment.

Churches that want to leave the PC(USA) with their property had better act quickly. They can no longer trust that the constitution means anything to those people in Louisville. More and more, disaffiliation appears to be the only constitutionally permissible means of severing a congregation’s voluntary affiliation with the PC(USA.