Episcopal Church lawsuits ahead?
Posted December 10, 2006
When St. John's Episcopal Church in Versailles clashed with Lexington Bishop Stacy Sauls in Jan. 2004, diocesan leaders bumped the historic congregation from parish to mission status. This made it possible to fire St. John's democratically-elected vestry (governing council) and replace it with a board selected by the bishop.
The fired vestry members all left and formed a new congregation -- St. Andrews Anglican Church. But the buildings, the trust funds, the hymnals -- all the property had to be left behind. St. John's, not the diocese, held the title to the property and could have sued to keep it, but instead walked away.
Now, what happened in Versailles, could happen again -- this time in Virginia. Bishop Peter Lee has told leaders of Truro Church and Falls Church -- two of the biggest Episcopal congregations in the country -- that if they attempt to leave the Episcopal Church USA, their parishes could be demoted to missions. But the churches could vote as early as this week to break away anyway.
If the Virginia diocese tries to remove the churches' elected leadership, right in the shadow of the nation's capital, this will be a story that will capture national headlines. Unlike the Episcopalians in Versailles, it appears the Virginians will probably go to court in an effort to keep the property.
Archived Comments
I think it would be interesting to also point out in this, that Bishop Sauls has been appointed to lead the TEC legal effort relative to strategies and tactics associated with TEC's efforts to retain church property and funds. He cut his teeth in Versailles, Lexington, and Maysville and he is taking it to the bigger stage of ECUSA.
As a disinterested outsider, I have to agree with you, Caleb. Just let them go. If the congregation owns the building and the hymnals, then the diocese should back off.
However, I am not as sanguine as you are about seeing them again. The Episcopalian Church has been losing membership for years. The loss of these parishes is only one small part of this overall trend.
You might be right about the parishes not being able to find a home in the evangelical community, but the members might. That is where most of them are going, after all. The Catholics, the Evangelicals, and the Mormons are the ones picking up the majority of the defecting mainline Christians.
If the parishes do eventually come back, you are liable to find yourself rejoicing over the return of a building full of history and little else, and a stack of pristine hymnals -- barely used. Meanwhile the Mormon Church will have erected their third new building filled to overflowing with young familes and new converts, the local Catholic Church will be humming right along, and the nearest evengelical mega-church will be popping.
Such are trend lines. They are what they are.
Mark, there is no question that the Episcopal Church, like all of the other mainstream churches (United Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc.) is losing members.
I don't think this has anything to do with the current crisis, though, because it affects all the other churches, and was going on long before this issue came up.
I do question your suggestion that very many "lapsed" Episcopalians will end up in the evangelical churches, though. I think the real reason for the loss of membership has to do with there being less societal pressure today than there was in the past for a person in business or professional life to be a member of a church. I suspect that most of the lost Episcopalians simply don't attend church at all. That is, I suspect they left out of a lack of interest in religion in general rather than a desire to join another church.
As for the Methodists and some other mainline churches, they are closer to the evangelicals than we are, and may well lose some members to them, or to other Methodist churches that are more evangelically oriented than the mainstream of the United Methodist Church these days.
Mark,
I think you are on to something with the declining numbers, but I think the picture you have painted is too symplistic.
I do not beleive that the problem the mainline church is facing is that young families and upset members are bolting. On the contrary, I would argue that the mainline churches have greatly benefited from upset people fleeing other denominations.
Try this experiment sometime: go to an episcopal or lutheran church socail gathering, and ask everyone to raise a hand that used to be a Catholic or a Baptist. Then go to Catholic or Mormon Church and ask ask how many used to be mainliners.
The Catholic Church is growing because of immigration. The Southern Bapist church and other denominations are growing, but at rates less than overall population growth. Other denominations that experianced massive growth (Assemblies of God, anyone?) are tapering off.
The slant the mainline churches are always smeered with is that they are losing members because they are too liberal. I would disagree, largely the loss in membership is based on three things:
1. Lower birth rates. This goes beyond just "educated people have fewer children" (although that is true), rather many of the regions that the mainline churches have historically been based in (Midwest for Lutherans, for example) are the regions that are experiancing the slowest population growth, whereas areas with other religious backgrounds are growing.
2. People no longer need to belong to the "right church", and church is longer a necessary ingrediant for social success. Lots of people from mainline backgrounds simply aren't attending church because there is no social pressure to do so. In German there is a great term for this: "schein katholisch" for example, for someone who is Catholic on the baptismal registry, but not practicing. There are many, many "schein lutherans, epsicopalians, etc.".
3. Lack of evangelism. I guess this is most important issue: when was the last time a mainliner knocked on your door? There are many, many reasons why the mainline churches are declining, and most of them are things the church can't control (population shift, etc.), however one reason for the decline is that they aren't bringing in enough new members.
Anyways, I just want to restate my position that the mainline churches aren't decling because people are deciding they'd rather go from Mark Hanson to Jerry Farwell or Joel Olsteen. In toher words, being "liberal' theologically doesn't seem to be the problem here. I would love for anyone to provide information to the contrary.
My understanding is that the congregations DO NOT own the property--when they are made parishes they agree to hold the property in trust for the diocese.
So, when they break from the diocese ideologically, they leave the property and assets. It seems pretty simple to me--you just can't have it both ways.
Editor's note: Some of these parishes were formed long ago and never turned over their title to the national church. The lawyers will eventually decide whether these old churches hold the title in trust for the national church.
Episcopal parishes that were formed before 1979 owned their own property-they did not "hold it in trust for the diocese" as Catholic churches do. In fact, that was how the oldest “Episcopal” churches in this country were able to retain their property at the end of the Revolutionary War (not to mention how the Church of England was able to retain its property when it split from the Church of Rome). With the advent of the Dennis Canon in the National Church in 1979 churches in the Diocese of Lexington were requested by the Diocese of Lexington to sign their property over to the diocese. Many parishes in the diocese of Lexington, including St. John's of Versailles (and Christ Church of Lexington), did not do so. When St. John's was "made a mission" by the bishop and his executive council, it was clearly done in order to force the parish to sign documents including the deed to the property over to the diocese. Incidentally, the only difference between a "parish" and a "mission" is that a mission is not self supporting and is financially dependent upon the diocese-and St. John's was NEVER financially dependent upon the diocese, and, in fact, had substantial unrestricted cash at the time that it was "made a mission." In June of 2004 in order for St. John's to "become" a "parish" again, the "Bishop's Committee/Vestry" signed over the deed to the property to the diocese of Lexington.
With respect to the previous post: There is obviously a basic disagreement over which entity has broken from the faith. It is clear which entity has broken from the diocese ideologically, but the diocese, as well as all of the Episcopal Church, has morphed into something that previous generations would never recognize.
I guess I don't understand parishes disregarding the national canons for nearly thirty years, even after the diocesan bishops asked for the parishes to comply. That seems to be a bigger problem than one ideological disagreement or another.
I'm not minimizing the great heartache felt by many regarding recent events. I'm just saying that the break from the national church by parishes that didn't entrust their property happened long ago, probably in many cases because they were sore about the church ordaining women.
The church is wise to hold the property in trust so that we have to try to work our problems out. To put it simplisticly, we can't just "pick up our toys and go home" when we don't like how things are going. I grew up in a congregational, conservative, protestant church, and I know how churches can break into smaller and more exclusive and more judgemental groups over time.
As a loyal Episcopalian, I quote the solemn old judge who used to open each broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry with the command, "Boys, let 'em go!!"
If Falls Church and Truro Church and St. John's want to leave, let them. And I say let them take their property with them. The Episcopal Church, while hierarchical to some degree, has always allowed parishes a great independence and to own their own property. This business of demoting a parish to mission status over an issue like this is unfair and probably illegal under Episcopal canon law.
They'll be back, just like St. Hubert's left over the issue of ordination of women and ultimately came back. It might take five years, or ten, or even twenty (when you've been in North America for 400 years as we have, you tend not to focus on the immediate term), but they'll soon realize that swimming with the evangelical sharks is not as fun as they thought it would be, and they'll get their financial pockets picked a few times and learn their lessons.
And, like the father welcoming the prodigal son, we should welcome them back in with open arms when they do return, as this diocese did for St. Hubert's.