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Miss Marple, you didn't mention the holding of pensions by the denomination. This is a very powerful tool used by the liberals to control the clergy. You should review the details of how the Presbyterian clergy tolerated the liberalization of their denomination by the libs granting them a pension and then threatening to withhold it if they would not agree to liberalize their theology and policy. Machen, the last real Presbyterian, separated himself from the mainstream and created the Orthodox Presbyterians over this matter. There were many other Presbyterians who knew Machen was right but they wouldn't take a stand and jeopardize their pension. So ended the great and stalwart mainstream Presbyterian church in America, not with a bang but with a whimper. I found an online history book that described what happened to the Presbyterians in detail and I'll search it out again if you would like to look at it. Perhaps OPie still has a link to it. ~~ GWB

Good Post from GWB; a little "fast and dirty" as a summation but accurate in great part. I'd mention, in addition to Pastoral pensions, the matter of Church Titles -- not merely the extraneous billions of dollars in "real estate holdings", in which Presbyterians are not generally as wealthy as Episcopalians anyway, but rather the actual Worship Sanctuaries (the "church building") of the Congregation itself. In the Mainline Presbyterian Church, these Titles are owned by the Denomination. Leave the Denomination, and not only does the Parson lose his Pension -- but the entire Church is quite literally "out on the street"!

Take the Rivermont Presbyterian Church, the largest Church in Lynchburg VA aside from Jerry Falwell's 22,000-member Thomas Road Baptist mega-church -- incidentally, both of which I attended very-irregularly during my "wandering years" (I was not a covenanted Presbyterian at the time) prior to joining the OPC. I think Rivermont's covenanted Membership runs about 4,000 (or more) -- far and away the largest Presbyterian Congregation in their Mainline Presby USA regional presbytery. The Congregation had discussed seceding from the Mainline Presby USA denomination for years, but always they faced an unpleasant choice -- leave the Denomination, and the Denomination keeps the church building: Suddenly they're begging the local High School to rent out their basketball gym and a few thousand folding chairs every Sunday Morning, and hoping the ACLU doesn't bust them for using "State Property". At initial glance, this reticence may seem "materialistic", but there's another way to look at it: how'd you like to be the Elder who has to tell a Presbyterian Widow that the $100,000 endowment her husband left to the Church for the expansion of the Church Library's section on Biblical Creationism, has just become the sole possession of the National Denomination's "Committee for the Invention and Advancement of Imaginative New Heresies"?? Not very palatable.

Eventually, in 2001, Rivermont decided to secede from the Mainline Presby USA denomination anyway, consequences be damned... I believe the final straw was the 213th General Assembly's vote in favor of recommending that the Presbyteries eliminate the "fidelity and chastity" provision from the constitutions of the Presbyterian Church. Will wonders never cease, I was amazed shortly thereafter when it was reported that the Denomination would allow the Rivermont Congregation to KEEP their $5 million+ Worship Sanctuary. Had the National Denomination (in the face of a virtually Unanimous secession vote on the part of Rivermont) deigned to show them Christian Mercy, and let them keep the "house" which they had built upon the Rock??

Well, apparently not so charitable as all that. I later came to understand that the "inside story" was that Rivermont was made to pay $1.5 Million in "ecclesial arrears" -- or some such horse-puckey -- as the price of secession (pure Blackmail; Rivermont was not "in arrears", they were the financial sugar-daddy of the entire Regional Presbytery). Basically (from what I understand), Rivermont ended up having to go into a Legal "mexican standoff" against the National Denomination, and the Denomination backed down and decided to "settle out-of-court" for 30 cents on the dollar.

A steep price for Rivermont to pay for an Investment which the Congregation, not the Denomination, had already paid off 100%; but that's the price of bucking the Liberals. You know, those nice Christian Socialists who "don't care about filthy lucre", and all.

Gary North's excellent book, referenced by GWB, is available online for free, here:

CROSSED FINGERS: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church ~~ by Gary North

Purely as a matter of Baptist-Presbyterian academic interest, I note in passing that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has incorporated two substantive changes which differentiate us from 19th Century American Presbyterianism.

Both changes are (arguably) Baptistic in character.

THEONOMY: The OPC incorporates the 1903 Revision of Westminster Article XXIII (Of The Civil Magistrate), which permanently rejects the Anglican Establishmentarian theory of a State Church in favor of the Baptist Disestablishmentarian theory of a separation between the functions of Church and State (in fact, this is the only 20th-Century revision retained by the OPC; all other 20th-Century Revisions have been rejected).
ECCLESIOLOGY: The OPC incorporates the Baptistic commitment to congregational, not denominational, ownership of Local Church Property. What does the OPC National Denomination own? They own the National Denomination headquarters in Philadelphia, that's what. The Local Worship Sanctuaries are owned by the Local Church. The National Denomination still enjoys the Canon Law power over the Local Churches to define Communion (to permit or exclude them from calling themselves "Orthodox Presbyterians"), but the Local Churches are not financially enslaved to the Denomination if they come into disagreement.

So we OPC-ers must acknowledge our debt to the Baptists (or, together with Baptists, acknowledge our mutual debt to the Bible) in overcoming these Old Presbyterian deficiencies. Does this mean that the Baptists have all the right answers?

Well, I dunno about all that. I think that the diligent Baptist will find that many of the better Baptist Scholars endorse the Presbyterian theory of "multiple-elder" governance for the Local Churches, and not the "single-pastoral" model which is all-too-prevalent in many Baptist churches -- sheesh, even Jesus Christ had His under-shepherds. And I further suspect that, given the ongoing (and successful) Reconquista of the Southern Baptist Confession by the orthodox-calvinist "Founders' Movement", traditionalist Baptists like GWB may soon have reason to envy the OPC's Canon Law authority to define communion:

vehemently reject

Res Ipsa Loquitur

YOU'RE NOT BAPTISTS!!

I suspect that Baptists and Presbyterians still have much to learn from eachother (Indeed, as I admit, the OPC has adopted a small amount of "baptistic" thinking already). Maybe we have to -- John Calvin himself married a Baptist; and while, after 500 years, we still have our disagreements, it is in no way a vainglorious exaggeration to say that Presbyterian Calvinists and Reformed Baptists remain the only two Confessions to consistently uphold the essentials of the Reformed Faith.

Ever the Odd Couple; ever the Reformed. (grin)

best, OP

Let me commend you all on your posts. I'd like to use them on a methodist website.

Being a methodist, I heartily agree with Marple. Also, the pension and church ownership issues are serious albatrosses around the necks of conservative evangelicals and do prevent them from leaving the church, especially the church ownership issue.

The pension issue is real, but the pensions of methodism are transportable even if one leaves the denomination. They fall under various federal laws that govern their use. The PIP (personal investment portion) is owned as one of the paragraph IRA's (501 3cb??? -- I'm unsure of the designation.) The individual pastor can remove that and invest it in EF Hutton at this moment if he so chose.

The MPP (minsterial pension plan) also "belongs" to the individual to the extent that even if the individual left the denomination, the portion in their name that had been invested by their churches they pastored would still be theirs to draw upon. They can annuitize it quickly and draw it down to about 30% in roughly five years with federal legislation determining amounts and taxes. That remaining 30% is for the use of the "spouse" retirement and is to be drawn upon until the spouse's death. Any remaining amount at that point would revert to the denomination.

My situation is unique in that I have a military retirement and am not dependent on their cash. It makes it possible to speak more forcefully. I don't say that as if it is a badge of honor; I say it as an observation.

I might point out that many of our facilities are old, rundown structures that would be better off abandoned. The congregations have been so decimated, however, that there's no financial vitality in them to even REPAIR their structures.

This denomination will insist on their temple tax money coming from a church EVEN IF it means that the church will have ZERO money to run program. I just received such a letter from our superiors this past month. What it ensures is the slow death of these anemic local congregations.

Sort of, "send the money or else."

Thanks for that link to Gary North's book.

I forgot to relate that an SBC church in Kentucky or Tennessee (I think) just recently interviewed three candidates (two openly gay) and hired a lesbian as their pastor. When the local SBC association (statewide) found out about it, they started communicating and telling them that they could not be in fellowshop with them if they continued. As the local association investigated and sent delegates, it became clear that they would not recant their lesbo Baptist priestess nor would they vote to leave the SBC (some of the oldtime members refused to vote to leave) and a somewhat polite agreement with the local church was made that the local association would vote to disfellowship themselves from the apostate church. This occurred shortly thereafter. Once the apostate Baptists were expelled from the local association, they also automatically lost their Southern Baptist Convention affiliation as well.

The apostate church kept its properties and funds and local control over who they chose as their pastor/staff. But the SBC could not be brought down by this apostate bunch.

If only the mainstream liberal churches (e.g. Episcopalians among others) had had the organizational structure of the Southern Baptist Convention, it would have prevented the liberals from seizing control of the denomination assets, seminaries, properties, pension funds, etc.

We had a thread on this episode here at FR: Lesbian pastor ruffles Southern Baptist tradition in Tenn.

A thread that those who don't like Baptists might enjoy: Pastor of Baptist church in Virginia arrested for prostitution (photo included)

This Baptist church is not SBC as far as I can determine. This second thread shows how a Baptist church expelled its minister for soliciting a prostitute while dressed in women's clothing. If they were SBC and they allowed him to remain as pastor, their local association would almost certainly have expelled them from the association and, therefore, from the SBC as well. The knowledge of what the local association and the SBC will do to impious clergy serves to curb a lot of mischief and misbehavior.

And once you have the sort of 'denominational' solidaarity enjoyed by the SBC at present, your leadership can make statements like these:

The Rev. Jack Graham, elected the convention's president on Tuesday, said the Rev. Jerry Vines' comments about Islam were "accurate."

"Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives — and his last one was a 9-year-old girl. And I will tell you, Allah is not Jehovah either. Jehovah's not going to turn you into a terrorist that'll try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people," Mr. Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., said at a pastors' conference here on Monday.

Mr. Graham, of Plano, Texas, said that Mr. Vines' statement "is an accurate statement," and that he would not condemn his colleague. "I will not respond to Dr. Vines' statement, other than to say that anyone who follows any path, who wants to go to heaven, should look carefully at who they're following and what they believe," he said.

Now the Muslims didn't like hearing the truth about their false prophet. In fact, they were a little horrified that someone dared to speak the truth after all the petting and coddling they received from the Bush White House. But that's exactly why they need to confront the truth about their horrible false religion.

And a Baptist can still proselytize Jews as Christians always did, even if Rome and many Protestants have abandoned their responsibility for preaching the Gospel to Jews. And you can call sodomites to repentance in Christ as the Apostle Paul did. You can, in short, uphold the traditional message of orthodox Christianity without having to back down or apologize for it.