wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Lay Committee chief under fire

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #8038 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Lay Committee chief under fire
03528
December 5, 2003

Lay Committee chief under fire

Presbytery urged to withdraw validation of Williamson's ministry

by John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE - A task force has recommended that the Presbytery of Western
North Carolina withdraw its validation of the ministry of the Rev. Parker T.
Williamson, chief executive officer of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and
editor in chief of The Layman.

	If the presbytery's Committee on Ministry (COM) and the full
presbytery concurred, Williamson would become an "inactive" member and would
lose his rights of voice and vote at presbytery meetings.

	If he thereafter remained on inactive status for three years, he
would be stripped of his ordination and his name would be deleted from the
presbytery roll.

	The Rev. William Taber III, the executive of the Presbytery of
Western North Carolina, notified Williamson of the task force's
recommendation by email on Dec. 4 and invited him to attend a Dec. 9 meeting
of the COM.

	Williamson reportedly will be unable to attend because of a previous
commitment.

	According to its chair, elder Mary V. Atkinson, of Black Mountain,
NC, the task force based its recommendation on "the character and conduct of
the ministry of the Presbyterian Lay Committee."

	"It isn't Parker," she said. "It is the ministry in which he is
engaged."

	The vote was 4-1 to recommend against revalidation.

	The task force was appointed by the COM early this year to look at
what Atkinson called "applications for renewals for people in what I call
non-parish positions." In the past, she said, that process has been "a more
or less pro-forma situation."

	Atkinson said the task force considered "30 or more" applications and
recommended against revalidation in at least one other case.

	She noted that it is the responsibility of the COM, not of the task
force, to decide whether to ask the presbytery to invalidate Williamson's
ministry. For that reason, she said, she had asked The Layman to refrain from
writing about the matter until after next week's COM meeting, when the
committee "might make that same recommendation - but it may not."

	Atkinson also said that the task force has not proposed to "strip
Williamson of his ordination," despite a headline to that effect over a story
in The Layman.

	Williamson and Peggy Hedden, a lawyer who is chairman of the
Presbyterian Lay Committee, met with the task force on Nov. 9. According to
Atkinson, they reviewed the history of the Lay Committee and discussed its
current operations.

	During that meeting, Hedden distributed copies of a "Declaration of
Conscience" approved recently by the Lay Committee that calls on sessions to
"prayerfully consider" withholding per-capita and mission funds from the
Presbyterian Church (USA) on the grounds that its leaders have not been
faithful to Biblical standards.

	According to Atkinson, it was the declaration "that tipped the scales
for us. We felt that that was just going way too far." Although the Lay
Committee's statement stops short of directly urging sessions to withhold
payments to the denomination, she said, "We felt that they were definitely
trying to encourage churches to withhold funds."

	Atkinson, who said she is scheduled to rotate off the COM soon, added
ruefully, "I wish we had delayed this for one more month."

	Church courts have ruled, and several General Assemblies have
confirmed, that sessions have the right to determine how their offerings are
spent, and cannot be compelled to make per-capita payments.

	However, some church officials, including the Rev. Clifton
Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk of the General Assembly, have said that
Presbyterian officers who advocate withholding funds from the denomination
are in danger of violating their ordination vows.

	Williamson told The Layman: "I am at peace with this, however it
comes out. I believe in our ministry. I am immensely proud of our board for
... giving courageous leadership to this fractured denomination."

	Williamson has been a member of the Presbytery of Western North
Carolina since 1971, when he became the pastor of First Presbyterian Church
in Lenoir, NC. He was hired as editor of The Layman in 1989.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please send an email to
pcusanews-subscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org or
pcusanews-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org

To contact the owner of the list, please send an email to
pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org