04437
October 1, 2004

Presbytery ordered to validate Williamson’s ministry for at least one more year

by John Sniffen
Associate Editor
Presbyterians Today
Special to the Presbyterian News Service

RICHMOND — Presbyterian Lay Committee CEO and executive editor the Rev. Parker T. Williamson will retain his status as serving in a validated ministry for at least one more year.

      After two long days of testimony Sept. 27–28 at Ginter Park Presbyterian Church here, the 10-member Synod of the Mid-Atlantic Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) found that Western North Carolina Presbytery failed to provide Williamson with “adequate due process and fundamental fairness.”

      The procedure in question, from November 2003 to January 2004, led the presbytery to vote to not validate Williamson ‘s ministry with the Presbyterian Lay Committee (PLC) and instead give him member-at-large status.

      That status and the presbytery’s action were put on hold in March when Williamson filed the complaint against the presbytery that led to this week’s hearing.

      The Commission’s 14-page decision sustained three full “specifications of irregularity” and parts of two others cited by Williamson and his attorneys, Robert L. Howard and Peggy M. Hedden, the Lay Committee’s past and current chairs.

      The presbytery’s procedures and actions were fully upheld in rulings on 11 of the 16 charges and parts of 2 of them.

      But it was the issue of adequate process and fundamental fairness, as specified by a 2002 General Assembly PJC decision, that gave Williamson another chance to defend his ministry.

      The presbytery was ordered to set aside the action of its Jan. 31 meeting and to not review the status of Williamson’s ministry for one year. “This period of time should be used to review and revise the process of review and determination of validated ministries to address the concerns of the SPJC . . .”

      Those concerns primarily centered on the manner in which the presbytery’s Committee on Ministry (COM) handled Williamson’s case. They include observations on how the COM should have proceeded, including meeting with Williamson before sending its recommendation to presbytery, providing him with a short, clear, concise statement of its concerns, the reasons for them and any appropriate argument or evidence; providing him with that statement as soon as possible; not raising additional matters beyond those contained in the statement; and being scrupulous in verifying the accuracy of any allegations or evidence used to support the recommendations.

      The synod PJC also orders Williamson and the presbytery to “jointly formulate a plan to implement a presbyterywide process of reconciliation concerning this issue.”

      Ironically, the Commission’s order starts with a paragraph commending the presbytery’s guidelines and procedures, saying it “went the extra mile” in providing Williamson with opportunity to present his case at the Jan. 31 presbytery meeting.

      And the COM’s written material prepared for the meeting, including questions and answers about the case, contained, in the Commission’s opinion, “the substance of reasons for its recommendation that is a constitutionally acceptable basis.”

      However, a PowerPoint presentation shown at the Jan. 31 meeting — not approved by the COM as a body and containing erroneous information and new claims against Williamson — was one of the major points that led to the PJC decision. That and the fact the COM did not give Williamson one more opportunity to defend himself before the presbytery meeting.

      Prophetically in his closing argument for the presbytery, minister and former attorney the Rev. Mark Clark said it was the issue of fundamental fairness that would decide the case — and only the synod Commission could make that decision.

      In response Howard noted that Clark said the process was fair, “but process does not trump substance.  That is not the law of this church.  . . . The process was fair, but the implementation was unfair.”

      In comparison to the raucous, emotional atmosphere at the Jan. 31 presbytery meeting, the synod PJC hearing was conducted for the most part in a controlled, serious manner, with even a few moments of levity.  When, during the final evening of testimony, PJC moderator H. Stephen Morse returned from checking on a noise in the hall outside the hearing room, he noted that he was pleased with the proceedings and thanked all concerned.

      In addition to the Commission, the attorneys and witnesses, only a dozen or so observers were allowed into the room.

      Howard, a retired attorney from Wichita, KS, told the synod PJC at the beginning of the hearing that he would prove three points through evidence and the testimony of witnesses: the presbytery should have had written guidelines for determining the validity of a ministry outside the church; the presbytery failed to follow the written rules it did have; and the presbytery failed to follow the denomination’s judicial precedents for fundamental fairness in the matter.

      Howard said Williamson was not granted a fair hearing before the Validated Ministries Task Force (VMTF) or the Committee on Ministry of the presbytery.  He said in essence the presbytery was seeking to discipline Williamson without the due process of a disciplinary hearing.

      “What occurred in the Presbytery of Western North Carolina ought not to occur in a church that values doing things decently and in order, “ said Howard. “It was a gross miscarriage of justice.”

      Bob Riddle, an attorney in Asheville, NC, and elder at First Presbyterian Church of that city, said Howard was wrong in using the terms court, discipline and charges to describe the proceedings. “They are not what this case is about.”

      “As editor of The Layman, he has used his power to advance an agenda,  . . . [which] revolves around the premise that the PC(USA) is malevolent and that he must defend against that. In his view, The Layman is the keeper of the truth,” said Riddle.

      Howard used the testimony of four witnesses to support his arguments for Williamson: the Rev. Garrett Dawson, former pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lenoir, NC; the Rev. Laura Long, a minister living in Black Mountain, NC; the Rev. Bill Serjak, a minister living in Sylva, NC; and Williamson.

      Dawson, now pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Baton Rouge, LA, served on the VMTF, which first recommended that Williamson’s ministry not be validated.  Williamson attends First Presbyterian Church in Lenoir and his wife, Patty, is an elder there. Prior to joining the staff of the Presbyterian Lay Committee  in 1989 Williamson was pastor of the Lenoir church.

      Under examination by Howard, Dawson testified that the task force claimed to have done a full review of Williamson’s application for validation, “but it was based on very little evidence, and we did not do a thorough review.” Instead of facts, the recommendation was based on opinion, and was really about the Declaration of Conscience, a document approved and signed by the PLC board last October.

      The declaration says that “spiritual schism exists within the Presbyterian Church (USA) because of a deep and irreconcilable disunion among its members over the person and work of Jesus Christ, the authority of God’s Word written, and God’s call to a holy life. We are two faiths within one denomination.”

      Further on it says that the unrestricted mission and per capita mission budgets of the PC(USA) are not worthy of receiving donations, and that sessions should consider redirecting or restricting giving “to ministries at home and abroad that are demonstrably faithful to the gospel.”

      Dawson said the task force, in his opinion, was moving toward validation of Williamson when Peggy M. Hedden, chair of the PLC, who attended the Nov. 3, 2003, task force meeting with Williamson, brought up the declaration, which the PLC had approved several weeks earlier.

      After the task force members read the declaration, “there was a decided change in the room,” Dawson testified. He quoted presbytery executive and stated clerk William Taber as saying out loud, “We can’t validate that.” (Taber later testified that he did not remember saying that, but noted that it would not have been out of character for him to do so.)

      In its decision the synod PJC rejected Williamson’s charge that the presbytery erred in considering the declaration as a part of its reasoning for invalidating his ministry and he was being punished for his opinions in the matter.  

      The PJC said the characterization of the presbytery’s action “. . . as punishment is false and provocative, but (fortunately for complainant [Williamson] it is exactly the sort of protected speech the complainant enjoys as a minister of the Word and Sacrament under the onstitution of the PC(USA).”

      When the task force voted to not recommend validation at its Dec. 3, 2003, meeting, Dawson was the lone dissenter in a 4–1 vote.

      Also testifying for Williamson were two members of the presbytery COM, which six days later voted 10–4 to recommend that the presbytery not validate his ministry.

      Long, a supply pastor serving the Clinchfield Presbyterian Church in Marion, NC, and Serjak, pastor of the Sylva Presbyterian Church for 28 years, both voted against the recommendation, but for different reasons.  Long appeared to agree with the Lay Committee’s philosophy, while Serjak said the COM could have done better in handling the Williamson case.

      In response to cross-examination by Riddle, Long said the question was raised at the COM meeting whether The Layman is divisive or prophetic.  “Look at the prophets and they are pretty divisive,” she added. “Just depends which side of the table you’re on. . . . That’s the very nature of the creature.”

      Serjak, who serves on the synod PJC but did not participate in this hearing because he signed the order staying the presbytery’s action making Williamson an at-large member of the presbytery, said he thought the issue should have been handled judicially instead of administratively.

      “The work of the Lay Committee is like a loyal opposition in a democracy,” he testified.  “If Williamson is doing it badly, we need to bring it up as a judicial action.”

      Making his own case, Williamson testified about the process through the Jan. 31 presbytery meeting in Asheville. Continuing to build on the argument that the presbytery did not give him a fair opportunity to defend his ministry, Williamson noted how he felt when what he and Howard referred to as “allegations” or “charges” were presented there.

      “I was really stunned,” Williamson told the PJC.  “These were new allegations I’d never seen or heard before.  Several I knew to be simply not true.  I was dumbstruck that I had not had any time to prepare for this. I did not know it was coming. I sat there simply mystified.”

      When Howard asked if he felt he was accorded a “level playing field,” Williamson responded, “Oh, not at all. I felt my hands were tied behind my back. It was a terrible experience.”

      Williamson offered as written evidence excerpts of depositions taken from several of the COM presenters after the presbytery meeting, in which they recanted or qualified their statements to the presbytery.

      During cross-examination Clark, a former attorney now serving as a parish associate at Unity Presbyterian Church in Denver, NC, questioned Williamson about the Lay Committee’s Declaration of Conscience.

      He asked Williamson what items in the General Assembly’s per capita budget should no longer be supported. Williamson included “some huge and disproportionate amounts” for the World and National Councils of Churches, then added, “It’s hard for me to see per capita dollars that are supposed to go to upholding of the constitution not being used for that,” referring to the Office of the Stated Clerk, Clifton Kirkpatrick.

      When Clark said that eliminating per capita would also mean elimination of services like the Permanent Judicial Commission hearing Williamson’s complaint against the presbytery, Williamson countered that the PJCs could be kept. “Those programs and agencies that are providing a worthy service to the church” would be supported by other sources, he added.

Presbytery’s Defense

      In response to Williamson’s charges, the Presbytery of Western North Carolina brought five witnesses to the stand: Julia Richards and Mary V. Atkinson, both members of the TFVMask Force on Validated Ministries; the Rev. James Aydelotte, a member and now chair of the Committee on Ministry; the Rev. Wallace Johnson, former chair of the COM, and Taber.

      Through the questioning of these witnesses, Riddle and Clark sought to show that the presbytery did have a written procedure in place (language already in The Book of Order) and followed it. And Howard continued, in cross-examination, to try to prove the opposite.

      And what may have been the main impetus of this particular action — the Lay Committee’s Declaration of Conscience  — came up for more testimony and cross-examination.

      Asked if she considered the declaration to be divisive, Richards, a retired English teacher, said, “Definitely. My sense of the position often taken by The Layman . . . is it is intentionally undermining the foundations of the church which I have loved for many years. It’s hurtful even for me to read [the declaration]. It would be irrational for the presbytery “to give its aegis and validation to this ministry  . . . when they are actually operating to undermine the institution of which they are a part.”

      In his cross-examination of Richards, Howard sought to emphasize that the Lay Committee had the right to express itself through the declaration and that withholding of funds is protected under the church’s constitution.

      Richards agreed, but added, “I think an individual has an obligation, has a responsibility, to fulfill his vows to support the church or to try to change it through the election process — not through withholding money.”

      Atkinson, the chair of the VMTF and a retired General Assembly staff member, affirmed that the declaration was a major factor in the recommendation to not validate Williamson’s ministry.

      Aydelotte, a former college administrator and minister who serves supply pastorates in the presbytery, said he moved to delay the Committee on Ministry’s Dec. 9 vote on the task force recommendation so there would be more time to consider it, not because he supported Williamson’s application. The motion failed in a tie vote and then he voted against the task force’s recommendation, which passed 10–4.

      Asked if he voted “no” because he thought it was a valid ministry, Aydelotte said,  “No, I did not. I was deeply troubled by the character and conduct of [Williamson’s] ministry.  It tends to exacerbate problems and divide — not speak the truth in love.  If it raises valid issues, it does not do so in positive manner.”

      Johnson, who chaired the December 2003 meeting of the COM, also voted for deferring action a month but did not vote on the main motion.  Asked how he would have voted, Johnson said he would have voted not to validate the ministry.

      “I feel like The Layman and Williamson continue to be divisive to our denomination,” said Johnson. “I don’t see any sign that this is going to change.  Our responsibility is to say this divisiveness that’s in our denomination has to stop.  This is unacceptable.”

      Noting that the Lay Committee’s declaration contains language about spiritual schism because of “deep and irreconcilable issues,” he said it seems to say there is no give-and-take.  “In my heart of hearts that saddens me. I would do whatever I could to bring about reconciliation.”

      When Howard questioned Johnson about his vote for deferring the action for a month and the suggestion that the committee should talk further with Williamson to try to reach some compromise, Johnson noted that “countless people have tried to do that and failed.”

      Taber was also asked whether he thought further talks with Williamson and the Lay Committee would have been productive. He replied, “No.”

      He noted that “again and again the General Assembly has tried to work with the Lay Committee  . . . last time they said “we don’t ever want to do this again.’ . . . I have talked with Williamson about it. The word I get back is, ‘It’s not personal, we’re just trying to do good witness’ . . . Williamson believes that he is not tearing down the church, and he believes he has a prophetic ministry within the church. . . . 

      “I do not believe that Williamson would agree to anything that says, ‘Can you say this in a different way?’ “