When we are in Tulsa, Okla., visiting our son and his family, we try to visit a different Presbyterian church on Sundays. One of those on our someday list was a large and imposing one we saw during a morning walk Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church.So it caught my eye I when I saw a picture of that church on the cover of a recent issue of The Layman, a bimonthly newspaper of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, the stalwart watchdog and advocate for orthodoxy in the Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination. The headline said the churchs session, or governing board, and then the entire congregation overwhelming, had voted Aug. 30 to pull out of membership in the denomination. By a 967-26 vote, the 2,800-member congregation decided to bolt. By almost the same vote, they chose to join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination.Prior to those actions, church leaders deeded the churchs property to an independent corporation and filed a quiet title suit in civil court to protect the property from seizure by the Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma, the Layman said. Legally, the denomination, the PCUSA, through its regional units, or presbyteries, owns the property of its churches, and whenever a congregation chooses to drop out of membership, the land, buildings and equipment are to stay in the hands of the presbytery. In this case it is the Presbyterian of Eastern Oklahoma. Kirk of the Hills happened to be its largest congregation. The Layman asserted that the presbytery claiming it was not targeting the Kirk of the Hills had previously filed affidavits in civil court on all local church property advising the court and lending institutions that the property is held in trust for the benefit of the PCUSA. The newspaper said it had warned churches like Kirk of the Hills that presbyteries would try to take coercive action to prevent local congregations from leaving the denomination with their property.Since then, the courts have been asked to sort it out. An administrative commission was set up by the presbytery to, among other things, ensure that those Kirk of the Hill members who wanted to stay with the denomination had a place to worship. Services were held at Southminster Presbyterian in Tulsa, a church we have worshipped at. The disaffiliation is driven by the growing dissatisfaction of more traditional Presbyterians with the denominations direction, including its greater accommodation of homosexuals, biblical interpretation, ecumenism and compromising truth with advocacy groups and causes. Parker Williamson, editor emeritus of The Layman, wrote a lengthy column in the issue, God bless the Kirk. He said, Make no mistake about it: the Kirk did not leave the Presbyterian Church (USA); the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. left the Kirk. He said the Kirks pastors, a decade ago, realized the denomination had set itself on a course of cultural compromise that could only end in apostasy. And what the PCUSA was doing made Kirk members feeling a growing sense of theological estrangement. So they have gotten out.Williamson wondered whether the church would fend off heavy-handed assaults by an alien that has laid claim to its property. He said the church must wage that fight for it cannot allow believers gifts that were dedicated to the Lord Jesus to be spent on lesser lords. Ouch!About 25 years ago, I was made chairman of a presbyterys administrative commission that was sent into a Presbyterian church outside of Ackley, Iowa, on a cold Sunday morning in January to inform its pastor and his followers that, because they had just joined the Presbyterian Church in America and had left our denomination, they needed to vacate the church that wasnt theirs any longer. It was a labored confrontation that snowy morning, but months later, that faction gave it up and moved on without a major court challenge. Then, like now, it was traditionalists versus progressives. Over the past quarter century, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has watched the divide grow, a fight particularly focused on ordination standards related to gays and lesbians and on biblical teaching. Some predict that there ultimately will be a great schism in the largest Presbyterian denomination. Currently, the battleground is the court as one congregation after another withdraws membership, yet seeks to stay on its campus.Some might argue that church property belongs to the active congregation at any time in its history, that if they suddenly get upset with regional and national authorities, they can simply withdraw affiliation and keep the church. But there is wisdom in the connectional church and for denominations to hold legal claim to property, if only for stability and to guard against the vagaries of leaders with maverick agendas. In some ways, it is a race: Will traditionalists who will never accepts gays into fullness in the church outlive and outlast the greater society and the progressives in the church that have already decided there is a place for all Gods children in the life, leadership and work of his church, so that The Church can move on to the real issues of humankind.

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