Church v. Church | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Free E-mail Newsletters:

RSS Feed | More Feeds | RSS Help

Home > 2008 > February (Web-only)

Christianity Today, February (Web-only), 2008 |

Church v. Church

Korean American congregation alleges racial discrimination in church property sale.

Lisa Parro | posted 2/06/2008 09:15AM

Related articles and links |

1 of 1

A Korean American church in Chicago's suburbs is suing a primarily white congregation for rejecting its bid to purchase the congregation's property. The suit alleges the decision was based on racial grounds, a violation of Illinois' Human Rights Act.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed on September 18, Antioch Korean Covenant Church offered to pay $1 million to purchase Prospect Heights Community Church's building. The bid was rejected in favor of a $500,000 offer from Cornerstone Bible Church. Both Cornerstone and Antioch had rented space on the property before it went up for sale.

Prospect Heights Community Church officials did not respond to requests for comment. However, in a motion to dismiss the suit, the church's lawyer wrote that Antioch's offer letter was so unspecific as to "not constitute an offer under contract law."

Officials at the Prospect Heights church, which had experiencing a dwindling membership and financial difficulties, began discussing the sale of their building after unsuccessfully seeking to merge with other churches, including Cornerstone Bible Church. Members of the Prospect Heights church, a United Church of Christ congregation, had voted against the merger with Cornerstone, citing theological differences and the absence of a monetary offer.

"We've been trying three months to negotiate; however, they don't think it's racial (discrimination)," said the Rev. Seng Kim, Antioch's pastor, as translated by his daughter, Hanae. When asked about Paul's prohibition against suing fellow Christians in 1 Corinthians 6, Kim said, "We really tried hard. We tried to treat them as brothers in Christ, and they did not want it."

Although a religious institution can discriminate on the basis of religion, it cannot do so on the basis of race, national origin, or other federally protected classes. Carl Esbeck, a law professor at the University of Missouri, reviewed the 11-page complaint for CT.

"My general reaction is there are no church-state or religious freedom issues here," Esbeck said. "If this is purely [a case of] national origin discrimination, the court has jurisdiction."

Related Elsewhere:

The Daily Herald also reported on the story.

1 of 1

February (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52

E-mail this page

Write CT

Print this article

Post a comment

Reader Reviews are below

Subscribe to Christianity Today and get 3 free trial issues. No credit card required.

Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only.

If you decide you want to keep Christianity Today coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive nine more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The three trial issues are yours to keep, regardless.

Click here for international orders

2-for-1 Gifts!

[Reader Reviews]

Average User Rating:

Displaying 1 - 3 of 5 comments.

See all comments

Anonymous

Posted: February 14, 2008 1:55 AM


Little wonder their members are leaving and they are closing down as a church. That said, it is wrong to sue fellow christians under such circumstances. The korean church should withdraw the lawsuit and leave the matter in God's hands. He will get them a better property. At best its a poor example of how to react to discrimination and negates Christ's teachings about love in 1 cor 13.

Jack	Posted: February 10, 2008 6:05 PM


Be very careful about drawing conclusions from an article that only quotes one side of the issue. Not saying the article is untrue, just that more information is needed before passing judgment.

Raymond Takashi Swenson

Posted: February 06, 2008 4:28 PM

Since the interest of the seller church is solely in getting rid of the property and maximizing the funds it can realize from the sale, it should proceed to settlement of the lawsuit through a consent decree rather than burn up the proceeds through litigation. The third church is better off looking elsewhere for property, rather than trying to enforce its purchase contract, since after settlement the seller church and the Korean church will both interpose the lawsuit and its settlement consent decree as effectively a determination that the seller church lacked legal authority to sell to the third church in light of the prior offer by the Korean church.