May 22, 2009
Opinion: The Bully Pulpit
by Jim Auchmutey
The Wall Street Journal
ATLANTA -- Ever since the Pilgrims crossed an ocean in search of freedom from the religious doctrines of the Old World, their descendants in the Congregational Church have prided themselves on independence. Now that sense of independence is on trial. A regional body of the United Church of Christ has sued to oust a tiny congregation here from its property. The plaintiff: the Southeast Conference of the UCC, whose 1.2 million members make it the nation's largest Congregational fellowship. The defendant: Center Congregational Church, 36 members on a good Sunday.
"As far as I can see, the UCC just wants to bully us," says Rick Langdon, chairman of the trustees at Center Congregational. But there's more here than a David-and-Goliath story. The dispute involves doctrinal issues, legal complexities and conflicting personalities. A church breaking away from its denomination is something like a divorce, with all the attendant messiness of property division. Each case is unique -- yet similar -- and dissident churches everywhere will be watching this one for clues about how far a denomination will be allowed to go legally when things get ugly.
Center Congregational occupies a modest brick building on the edge of Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood, a district of mansions, megachurches and private schools. The sanctuary seats 100 people but is seldom even half-filled. The members -- most of them gray-haired -- sing old-time songs out of the Pilgrim Hymnal, like "God of Our Fathers." As they gather to worship on red-cushioned pews, they face the pulpit of their fathers: a rough-hewn lectern charred in a fire that destroyed the church's original wooden building in 1941.
The UCC is known as one of the more liberal Protestant denominations. Center Congregational's members, by contrast, are generally conservative. Over the years they sometimes groused about the liberal positions that the UCC adopted at its biennial General Synod, but there was no reason to get too upset. In the Congregational system, Synod votes are not necessarily binding on individual churches. Center's attitude changed in 2005 when the assembly, meeting in Atlanta, gave its blessing to gay marriage.
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