All Comments for: Denominations Join Episcopalian Diocese in Fight Over Church Property | Christianity Today

Free Newsletters:

RSS Feeds |

Audio |

Twitter

Home > 2008 > May (Web-only)

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

Denominations Join Episcopalian Diocese in Fight Over Church Property

Judge says Methodists, Worldwide Church of God, and others can participate in oral arguments.

Daniel Burke, Religion News Service | posted 5/20/2008 09:45AM

Sixteen Protestant denominations and regional districts have joined a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in contesting a Reconstruction-era state law that governs church ...

[Reader Reviews]

Average User Rating:

Rate and Comment on this article

Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 comments.

Page: 1

Show All

in NoVA

Posted: May 27, 2008 12:05 PM


Does no one see the irony that The Episcopal Church backed out of private negotiations in order to file a law suit... and now they are fighting that the court should not be able to tell them what to do?

James Reid Ross

Posted: May 23, 2008 3:28 AM


The Episcopal church is bordering on being apostate they shouild repent and quit ordaining homosexuals, fornicators, adulterers and other unrepentant sinners.

PK	Posted: May 20, 2008 9:17 PM


i wonder if the mainlines would fight as hard for a 30 member church as they will for a multi-million dollar church.

Apostle Paul

Posted: May 20, 2008 5:17 PM

Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, matters of this life? If then you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that your brethren. (1 Corinthians 6:2-8).

Rob Braun

Posted: May 20, 2008 3:47 PM

This is a difficult issue that is never a simple one to answer especially when it comes to congregation's financial commitment to their church buildings. Yet it is a first ammendment right issue and we in the church must always be careful when an issue like this comes to court. No matter how thorny the question maybe over who owns church property, the bottom line is that each church organization has the constitutional right to define how they have determined their own church polity-not the government. If the Supreme Court determines that government can over ride established church polity in property ownership than it opens the door to government interferring in church polity on other issues as well-a real Pandora's box that once opened will never be closed. Let's keep the box closed.

Wes H

Posted: May 20, 2008 2:57 PM


"Follow the money". Its a good thing Christ drove the beggars out of the Temple.

John G.

Posted: May 20, 2008 2:53 PM

Ian Scott gets it right. Mike and Mr. Peterson do not. By the way, read the article again. The reference to the Civil War was an historical one, not saying that the current actions constitute a "civil war." I would challenge Mr. Peterson to give examples of "naked greed and contempt for justice and equality" on the part of conservatives, and of recent examples of exploitation. Conservatives want Bible truth to be proclaimed, which is not the aim of the denominational hierarchies. Mr. Peterson sounds like the tired liberal who keeps protesting Viet Nam years after it was over, only he goes back farther, to insist that conservatives today still hold to pre-Civil War attitudes. As for his derision of conservative attitudes toward liberal, activist judges, I suppose he thinks that what the Supreme Court of CA did recently was a grand and noble thing!

Ian Scott

Posted: May 20, 2008 1:56 PM

The difficulty with the position of these denominations is that these buildings have been, in almost all cases, built and paid-for by the people of the local parish. Whatever the legal status of the property, is it just (i.e., righteous) for leaders to tell "Bob" and "Judy" that the church they paid for has to be given up? This is a particularly pressing problem since the people who built the churches would in most cases be siding with CANA on these issues, not the Episcopal hierarchy. True, none of this overrides episcopal leadership in church law. But should we, as Christians, not set aside such legal niceties when we see that they are leading to injustice?

Gregory Peterson

Posted: May 20, 2008 1:55 PM

"They" say that history repeats itself. First as tragedy, then as farce. Considering that churches were splintering before my grandfather was born in 1862 over issues of equality, it's really pathetic that they're still splintering over issues of equality in his great great grandchildren's day. At least this time, conservative evangelicals have kept their civil wars against their neighbors in churches and courts. Of course, anything that the courts might say that they don't like will be dismissed as some sort of satanic conspiracy against them by liberal "activist" judges...just as they did in 1954....hell bent on calling down God's judgment for not doing as they say. Their, as a collective, naked greed and contempt for justice and equality under the law and under God is almost as great as their traditional contempt for their neighbor...the one they so wish to exploit forever.

Mike	Posted: May 20, 2008 1:35 PM


The denomination owns the property. They should keep it. It has nothing to do with civil war. These churches who are breaking away know this. They should not be tied to a church or building, but to Christ.

Page: 1

E-mail this page

Write CT

Print this article

Post a comment