“The session of FPCH objects in the strongest possible terms to the Board of Pensions providing benefits to same-sex partners. This is contrary to both Scripture and the confessions. We sent our first objections to this policy in a letter to the BOP after the [2010 General Assembly], and we continue to maintain these objections. The only possible recourse we see is a relief of conscience, but even then only if there is a clear demarcation of funds.”

The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Board of Pensions has informed a minister that he cannot leave the denomination’s benefits plan as long as he serves as an installed pastor, despite his vehement opposition to recent controversial board decisions.

In two letters sent Tuesday to the Rev. Mark Patterson and Clerk of Session Debby Baker, both of Community Presbyterian Church of Ventura, Calif., BOP Vice President Andrew J. Browne said the church will be required to pay Patterson’s benefits dues and that the senior pastor will remain enrolled as long as he is an installed PCUSA minister.

The response comes a week after Patterson informed the BOP that he was severing all ties with the denomination’s health and retirement plan after its board agreed to offer health benefits to same-gender domestic partners.

Patterson told the BOP that its closed-door decision in March had forced him “to choose between staying with the BOP and its programs or submission to the Scriptures and constitution of the church.”

“My faith and conscience require me to take this second course,” Patterson said, adding that he had already procured other health insurance and pension services from another provider.

However, Browne said, in his letter to Baker, that “under the [PCUSA Book of Order] … the obligation for enrollment of plan members in the benefits plan … belongs to an employing organization.”

“Specifically, the terms of call of teaching elders in installed positions are constitutionally defined to include ‘participation in the benefits plan … including both pension and medical coverage,’” Browne added, quoting from the Book of Order.

In 2010, the 219th General Assembly of the PCUSA approved an increase in mandatory dues paid to the BOP to fund spousal and dependent benefits for same-gender domestic partners and their children.

The dues hike would require all congregations to pay up to a one-percent increase of total effective salary of all plan members to fund the measure, which will provide benefits to same-sex partners equivalent to those made available to spouses and dependents of current plan members.

Browne said that the BOP acted in accordance with the GA’s wishes, adding that the decision “was consonant with the actions of General Assemblies since 1977, which have consistently called for equal civil rights, recognizing ‘the need for the Church to stand for just treatment of homosexual persons in our society in regard to their civil liberties, equal rights, and protection under the law from social and economic discrimination which is due all citizens,” quoting from past GA minutes.

In the BOP’s response to Patterson, Browne disagreed with the pastor’s previous letter in which he stated: “the BOP has turned from the standards of the church.” Browne claims the BOP “followed the standards of the church at every turn, including amending the definition of spouse in the benefits plan to conform it to the definition of marriage in the Book of Order.”

Read More

[Editor’s note: Original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]