Tulsa World: Kirk of Hills congregation faithful about future

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Kirk of Hills congregation faithful about future

By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer
Published: 9/14/2008 2:23 AM
Last Modified: 9/14/2008 2:53 AM

Members consider their options on the property

The congregation of Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian, which lost its property in court Tuesday, is facing an uncertain future and a myriad of options.

Under some of those options, they could remain in the church home they have built over the last four decades at 4102 E. 61st St.

Kirk of the Hills leadership and then the members voted nearly unanimously in August 2006 to leave the Presbyterian Church USA over concerns about the authority of scripture, gay clergy and other issues. They filed a suit in Tulsa County District Court asking the court to affirm that the church corporation owns the property.

Instead, District Judge Jefferson Sellers ruled Tuesday that the church property belongs to the denomination and the presbytery, not to the congregation, which has continued to meet in the building.

The future of the church was discussed in an upbeat, packed meeting Wednesday in the church sanctuary.

Co-pastor Wayne Hardy said the church is in its present situation because it took a stand on the authority of scripture.

"We're not frightened by the future, we know the Lord will be with us," he said.

Hardy said one charter member told him, "If we have to meet under a tree, I'll be there."

Co-pastor Tom Gray told the congregation that while he didn't like any of the options he sees in the future, "We're not distressed or crushed by all of this."

He urged church members to erase

any preconceived agendas and ideas, and to "listen to each other and to the Lord."

"Only God knows what our address will be," he said.

"Good News" candy bars were handed out in the meeting, and a projector beamed these words onto the wall: "When you're in God's will, the best is always still ahead."

Attorney Tim Trump told the congregation he was "very energized" after meeting with presbytery leaders earlier that day.

"They said they don't want to evict us, and they desire that we continue our ministry," Trump said.

"I think we can look forward to an agreement that will allow us to stay in the property."

Trump outlined several scenarios that could unfold over the next months.

First, he said, the church could buy back the property from the presbytery, ending all the litigation, possibly at below market value.

The value of the property is unknown, but some have put it at between $5 million and $10 million.

Second, he said, the church could lease the property from the presbytery and continue to meet there while the case is appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

"If the court rules in our favor, we stay. If not, we're gone."

Third, he said, the church could reach a bond agreement with the presbytery under which it could continue to meet in the building during the appeals process. The bond would ensure that the presbytery would receive fair value for the use of the building while the matter is resolved.

A fourth option, he said, is, "We walk."

"They don't want that, but if it happens, they'll sell it," he said. "They have no intention of creating a new Presbyterian Church USA on that site."

He said he was told there are interested buyers.

In answer to questions, church leaders said:

Presbytery statements that the church rebuffed efforts to negotiate a settlement over the last two years were untrue.

"The truth is we made several earnest attempts to settle," Trump said.

If the church buys the building, there will be no appeals process, and no chance that the church will get the property back through a favorable court ruling.

The name of the church is considered part of the intangible value lost in the court case, but the presbytery has said they have no interest in the name, so the congregation could continue to use it.

An appeals process could take one to two years.

The church has about $1 million in debt, which will stay with the building.

All automatic bank draft donations and credit card giving to the Kirk of the Hills corporation have been suspended.

A new corporation, Joppa, has been created for future giving to the church.

The Rev. Greg Coulter, general presbyter of the Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery, said his concern all along has been to balance their consitutional responsibilities with their pastoral concern for the Kirk of the Hills congregation.

"To that end we've tried to leave open all avenues of communication," he said.

Deborah Hills, manager of publications for the Presbyterian Layman magazine, said 63 churches have notified the Layman that they have left the Presbyterian Church USA since 2001. Of those, 23 paid their presbytery to keep their property; eight lost their property outright; six kept their property without payment; 16 are pending; 10 outcomes are unknown.

The legal issues

The Kirk of the Hills court decision was based on a 1973 Oklahoma Supreme Court decision, Presbytery of Cimarron v. Westminster Presbyterian Church of Enid.

In that case, the court followed the “hierarchical deference” approach in awarding the property to the presbytery.

Hierarchical deference means that the civil court defers to the church’s legal system in deciding property (and other) matters.

In 1979, Jones v. Wolf, the U.S. Supreme Court gave state courts the option of remaining hierarchical deference states, or becoming neutral principle states.

Thirty five states, but not Oklahoma, have adopted the neutral principle process, in which civil courts are free to decide church property issues, but not theological issues.

Kirk of the Hills attorney John O’Connor said he thought the 1973 case had significant diSerences from the Kirk of the Hills case.

“Wethink Oklahoma will overrule Cimarron in this case,” he said.

Bill Sherman 581-8398
Bill.Sherman@Tulsaworld.com By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer

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	Report Comment KJNOKIE, TULSA (9/14/2008 3:05:19 AM) Why didn't God tell them what the outcome would be before they incurred the legal expense and hassle of goint go court? Or maybe God is on the side of the Presbyterian Church USA?
	Report Comment PJF7, Tulsa (9/14/2008 8:25:30 AM) Kirk of the Hills broke with the national church over the issue of gay ministers. Homophobia is not only decidedly unchristian, in this case it has proved expensive. The Kirk of the Hills ministers, if not the entire congregation, knew the Presbyterian Church's rules regarding property and knew, too, that unlike the Baptists, local churches are not autonomous congregations. Kirk of the Hills received justice in the biblical sense. Maybe God is trying to tell them something.
	Report Comment Graychin, Eucha (9/14/2008 8:52:25 AM) "Scriptural authority" is just another way of saying "gays in the church." What a ridiculous reason for blowing up a large congregation and a major denomination! Is there even one other doctrinal dispute in this argument besides gays? If there is, no one has ever mentioned it. How about divorce? Jesus was perfectly clear about divorce, but I guess he didn't think that sexual orientation was an important enough subject to take his time teaching about it.
	Report Comment Rothko, Tulsa (9/14/2008 2:38:38 PM) Could some of you Kirk members tell me why the below was done? "All automatic bank draft donations and credit card giving to the Kirk of the Hills corporation have been suspended. A new corporation, Joppa, has been created for future giving to the church."
	Report Comment John BA, Broken Arrow (9/15/2008 9:14:47 AM) Rothko - It is pretty self apparent. They want to force dept to accumulate on the building so that its market values goes down. If “congregation” puts the money in a separate fund, rather than paying current dept, it puts that congregation in a better position when compared to any other possible buyers of the property. Other buyers would have to cover that dept, which the congregation will have already funded, but shielded the funds in another unrelated account. It is kind of like when two people go through divorce and one goes out and loads up the credit cards, and mores funds into secret bank accounts.
	Report Comment avr, (9/15/2008 4:03:31 PM) Rothko and John BA, When Judge Sellers made his ruling, all of the Kirk's property, including bank accounts and existing debts (ie: mortgage, utilities and maintenance on the property, etc), became the property of the Presbytery. The new corporation is the Kirk after the ruling, while the Kirk of the Hills corporation is property of the Presbytery. The new corporation is not hiding anything. There were no Kirk of the Hills funds to shield from the Presbytery as the church did not have excess monies sitting in accounts at any point in this process.
	Report Comment D.Boone, (9/15/2008 10:23:53 PM) This should be an eye opener to those who think they own the property where they are members of a church. I don't know the situation of our church but I will find out. I will not support a church where the local congregation does not own the local church property. If any one wants to do some digging about a church ( I think all you need is 3 or 4 people to be a church) in Waxahachie Texas where a Church (?) and the locals went to court about who owned the property. This happened in the fall of 1989 and was a real tragedy. This event was in the Dallas and Waxahachie newspapers,if your interested.
	Report Comment HockeyFan, Beggs (9/16/2008 10:28:16 AM) Taking the property defeats the whole purpose of being a part of a national organization. It was meant as a means to provide overseeing of doctrine, as well as providing a pool of ministers. Apart from that, it is the local community that paid for that church and it's property, not the national organization. It's absolutely a miscarriage of justice to hand the property over to the national organization, just because the local community no longer agree with the change in doctrine. It is their own church and it should be their right to pull out.
	Report Comment zzx375, BA (9/16/2008 12:07:14 PM) Graychin: Jesus never specifically addressed beating one's wife or torturing one's children, so are those permissible acts?
	Report Comment John BA, Broken Arrow (9/17/2008 9:44:13 AM) zzx375 - "Jesus never specifically addressed beating one's wife or torturing one's children, so are those permissible acts?" I guess that all depends on whether you are an ultra right wing conservative, or a liberal, ultra left wing flower child. I can assure you we flower childern do not condone beating one's wife or torturing one's children. We are also confident Jesus would not condone it either. I bet if you asked him why he never addressed it he would probably ask “Do I have to tell you to get out of the rain before you know that is the smart thing to do?” Same reason Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. It is natural, occurs throughout nature, and is so apparent there is no need for him to mention it.
	Report Comment Cov, Okmulgee (9/17/2008 2:33:55 PM) Now there is an intellegent comment ..... homosexality is natural throughout nature......so is eating of young. Greychin ......... common sense please. Jesus is a good Jew. He studied Torah. Torah is clear about sexuality. Same sex, sex with animals just ain't cool.
	Report Comment Tim Denver, Denver (9/17/2008 6:14:39 PM) We know what Jesus said about adultery and divorce, but what, exactly, did Jesus say about homosexuality?
	Report Comment zzx375, BA (9/18/2008 1:41:34 PM) JohnBA, I am having trouble following your reasoning. Let me see if I have this straight: You would not condone wife beating or torturing children. You are confident that Jesus would not condone such actions. Homosexuality is natural and occurs in nature, so there was no need for Jesus to mention homosexuality. But daily media reports offer coverage of wife beating and child torture so the “being natural and occurring in nature” fit both sets of activity, the same criteria as you cite for homosexuality. Neither of these is mentioned by Jesus, yet somehow you know Jesus would not condone this unmentioned activity. Your implication is that Jesus would condone homosexuality but you evaluate it with the same criteria for two actions that would be opposed. Isn’t this a bit contradictory? Graychin presumes (implies) that because Jesus did not address "sexual orientation" or mention homosexuality, both were acceptable to Him. Taking this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, requires one to accept other unmentioned actions (wife beating/child torture) as permissible.
	Report Comment Tim Denver, Denver (9/18/2008 3:06:03 PM) John, very well put. I noticed none of those who proclaim to follow the word of Christ were able to give me an answer. I find it amusing they proclaim their goal is to live a more "Christ-like" existence; however, they do not seem to understand what that means.
	Report Comment Tim Denver, Denver (9/18/2008 3:08:38 PM) Sorry, I meant JohnBA, very well put by zzx375, do you not agree?
	Report Comment D.Boone, (9/18/2008 5:18:14 PM) Did this get off the subject of who owns the Church property, local congregation, or the big shots in the Church hierarchy. I know of one Church (?) that rents out real estate ( wkich is tax free income) and pockets the money. I contacted the OK tax department and they informed me that as long as it is a church (?) it is tax free. Don't know who checks to see if this truly a church but I have learned that the goverment fails big time when it comes to watching who should or should not pay taxes. I was told by the tax department that " We are not an enforcing agency". My question is, if not them, who?
	Report Comment Tim Denver, Denver (9/18/2008 5:22:40 PM) You do realize I was being sarcastic, zzx375, right?
	Report Comment zzx375, BA (9/19/2008 9:11:11 AM) Tim Denver, Yes. I just wanted to point that one can make up a list of things that Jesus did not specifically address in the Bible. Since you are still posting, you obviously survived the huge influx of folks from the DNC.
	Report Comment Tim Denver, Denver (9/19/2008 6:21:47 PM) ZZX375, yes, I did survive the influx of the DNC. I bolunteered that week, got to see all the speaches in person, and, I can say I am even more proud of my party affiliation and my city then I was before. It was relatively calm and peaceful here, compared to St. Paul. Denver is going to benefit hugely from the international coverage. We can already see the dollars rolling in from toursits and conventions. Goes to show the Dems know how to throw a convention, and Denver knows how to ready itself for anything. Long live the Democratic party and God bless Obama!

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