c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) When married parents break up, the most contentious legal scrums are often over who gets custody of the children. When congregations walk away from the Presbyterian Church (USA), the biggest battles are often about who keeps church property.

As the 2.4 million-member denomination deals with the fallout from its June decision to loosen bans on gay clergy, these “custody” battles are elbowing aside theological disputes.

Jerry Van Marter, director of the Presbyterian News Service, said at least five of the denomination’s 11,200 congregations have decided to leave the denomination since its national assembly in June, when delegates voted to give local churches more leeway in applying rules against gay clergy.

Conservatives are arguing that if the denomination can overlook rules against gay clergy, then it should also overlook rules that require breakaway congregations to leave their property behind.

The New Wineskin Association of Churches, a network of 128 congregations unhappy with the direction of the denomination, recently asked church leaders for a moratorium on disciplinary action against dissident clergy and congregations. The group also urged the denomination to refrain from legal action over church property.

The church’s top elected officer, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, refused, insisting that church leaders “are bound to uphold the constitution of the church and do not have the power unilaterally to set aside any portion.”

Moreover, church leaders say the constitution is ironclad when it comes to property. Local congregations hold church property in trust for the denomination. If a congregation wants to leave, the stained glass stays. Van Marter said he could not recall one instance in which PC(USA) lost a legal dispute with a congregation over church property.

Recent court decisions seem to back up the denomination’s claims. Three rulings recently issued by the Los Angeles County Court all sided with the denomination.

But the Rev. Parker Williamson, former editor of the independent conservative newspaper Presbyterian Layman, and a member of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, said in the complicated field of trust law, there is no such thing as an open-and-shut case.

Even churches that do not plan to leave the denomination may want to wrest control of their property, if only to have more bargaining power with PC(USA) leaders, according to Williamson.

“There’s a sense that you go to the table in an unbalanced position,” Williamson said. “A number of churches feel that if they could get the church property thing settled in their favor … they might be in a much better negotiating position with church leaders.”

For Kirk of the Hills Church in Tulsa, Okla., the decision to split comes after years of trying to steer the denomination to the right, said spokesman David Block.

“It was a relatively long, arduous effort on our part,” that ended when conservatives failed to sway church leaders at the June meeting, according to Block.

On Aug. 30, the 2,800-member congregation will vote to join a smaller, more conservative denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Block said. The Michigan-based EPC includes approximately 200 churches and about 70,000 members.

“Kirk of the Hills is the biggest congregation to leave,” Van Marter said. “That’s why it kind of sends a shudder through people.”

Theologically, Kirk of the Hills may be able to split from the PC(USA), but legally, it may not be so easy.

In March, the local governing body, the Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery, filed court documents asserting ownership of the church’s property. Kirk of the Hills filed a lawsuit in response, asserting the property is theirs.

The PC(USA) has an internal process for churches that wish to leave, but Block said the deck is stacked in those proceedings. “The presbytery acts as the judge, the jury and the benefactor. There’s just not a lot of fairness in the process.”

Still, with money and sweat poured into the Kirk of the Hills since its founding in 1961, the congregation won’t let church property go without a fight.

“You can bet that one is going to be a case to watch,” Williamson said.

KRE/PH END BURKE