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Your Turn / Re: Congregation sued by ELCA
« on: Today at 07:13:41 AM »
A few years ago one of the AFLC leaders told me of a LC-MS congregation that had been meeting with us about leaving Missouri and joining the AFLC. He said their DP told them that the Synod would take their church building and they backed down. I said I knew that to be untrue and the only thing I could think he meant was that, if their mortgage was held by the CEF, it could be called and they'd need to get another funding source. But the threat worked.
Of course, as a convinced congregationalist, this idea that the "wider church" should have a claim on the property of a separately incorporated entity which has paid its own mortgage and maintenance strikes me as just plain wrong. I do, however, agree that a dissolving congregation should have, in their constitution, a list of what Christian charities will receive their assets. That's especially true if there is a cemetery involved. To have no such provision would indicate they have not been what we like to call "a free and living congregation."
Of course, as a convinced congregationalist, this idea that the "wider church" should have a claim on the property of a separately incorporated entity which has paid its own mortgage and maintenance strikes me as just plain wrong. I do, however, agree that a dissolving congregation should have, in their constitution, a list of what Christian charities will receive their assets. That's especially true if there is a cemetery involved. To have no such provision would indicate they have not been what we like to call "a free and living congregation."