Good morning.
This past month has been my “Groundhog Day” while reading the news. You’ll no doubt recall the movie of that same name (one of my favorites), when actor Bill Murray endlessly repeats the exact same February 2nd in Punxsutawney, PA (which I’ve always wanted to visit, though not necessarily on Groundhog Day).
In my case, the groundhog-like repetition has to do with the similarity I see between national events and what’s happening locally, especially here at our church. It’s a more apt metaphor than I’d realized when I wrote the first paragraph above. But you’ll have to read to the end to understand why.
Nationally, it seems like Groundhog Day again and again since my last report on December 15.
The crisis at the U.S. border with Mexico continues to repeat itself, with no apparent end in sight. Since the start of the Biden administration, the U.S. has released more than 2.3 million migrants at the border, while 6 million have been taken into Customs and Border Protection custody. Inflation is no longer voters’ top concern, according to this new poll. The top concern is controlling the southern border. Only 7% of Americans say the border is “not much of a problem,” while 45% deem it a “crisis.”
In the dead of winter in America’s “sanctuary” cities, providing sanctuary to a growing population of migrants has become an overwhelming problem.
In Chicago, parts of O’Hare Airport have been converted into a migrant shelter. In New York City, a large public high school was transformed into migrant housing. The students – most of whom are underprivileged and receive free lunches – were forced out of their school. They were asked to pivot to “remote” learning (called “remote” for a reason – the chances of getting an education from it are quite remote, according to this story in liberal ProPublica).
Even usually staid Harvard University is in turmoil. There, Claudine Gay became the second Ivy League president who was forced to resign over errant testimony she gave during a congressional hearing. If you recall from last month’s report, after hesitating to condemn the Hamas 10/7 attack on Israel, Gay stumbled when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s student conduct rules.
But what really undermined Gay’s support were charges of plagiarism in her doctoral thesis documented by conservative muckraker Chris Rufo, who said in this post: “The funniest outcome of the Claudine Gay saga is all of the academics coming out in defense of plagiarism and all of the journalists coming out against journalism.” Gay will still keep her position on the Harvard faculty and a $900,000 annual salary.
Pro-Hamas demonstrations continue to draw attention. Recently, the mother of a 19-year-old who was raped by the Hamas freedom fighters – that’s what they are called at Harvard, instead of terrorists – was speaking at a private home in New York City, while a massive protest outside blocked the street. As the mother of the kidnapped daughter walked out – her daughter is still being held hostage – protesters screamed, incredibly, “shame on you” at the mom.
We surely do live in a morally depraved and obtuse world, don’t we?
But what really caused me to notice the similarity between national events and local in our own midst was the continuing saga over Donald Trump.
Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave somewhere, you are no doubt aware that our 45th president is the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Last week, he won the Iowa caucuses by an unprecedented 30-point margin. On Tuesday, Trump won a decisive 11-point victory in the New Hampshire primary over the lone top-tier challenger still opposing him, Nikki Haley. It now looks probable that we are headed, remarkably, to a rematch of the awful 2020 presidential contest. It’s Groundhog Day again!
Mr. Trump is an unusual candidate in many respects, not the least of which is that he faces 91 felony charges in four different indictments. I have no doubt that much contained in these indictments was politically motivated. However, the reality is that he was indicted – and could face jail time if found guilty. Any other candidate would have been crippled by such a circumstance, but he thrives on adverse publicity. It’s made him a political martyr among his non-establishment supporters.
You may not support Donald Trump, but does that mean voters who do should be prevented from voting for him? Absolutely not. That’s exactly what is happening in our democratic republic, however (if we can keep it, as Benjamin Franklin famously said).
In two extraordinary developments over the past month, candidate Trump was taken off Republican primary ballots in two states, Colorado and Maine, by the Democrat-controlled Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State. Similar measures are pending in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico, California and New York. Indiscriminately removing candidates from ballots is the kind of thing I observed firsthand when I covered the Soviet bloc as a reporter during the Cold War, and it has no place in the United States of America.
To the people who love Trump, these legal maneuvers only intensify his support. But those who loathe him hail it as a clever (and possibly unconstitutional; the U.S. Supreme Court will decide the issue soon) way to stop Trump, whom they view as an existential threat to the country, without having to beat him at the ballot box.
The only way to save democracy, in other words, is to end democracy.
The idea of rigging ballots to save democracy seems patently undemocratic on its face. But it reminds me of our situation in the ballot we face here in our church on February 4.
In a nutshell, I see a similar strategy at work, with similar motives: The only way to save Beverly Heights is to destroy it. For the balance of this report, I’d like to explain the latest developments in our protracted “Groundhog Day” dispute.
That dispute – between your Session and the denomination we are members of – is what caused Session to file a lawsuit yesterday in the Court of Common Pleas in Allegheny County, in advance of our upcoming vote on February 4.
I imagine you have questions about this situation. I will attempt to answer them in this report. If I fail to do that sufficiently, please feel free to email me: tom@beverlyheights.org. I’m available to answer any questions you may have (though I may not hold this job after February 4, depending on the outcome of the vote).
Our church is the plaintiff in the complaint filed against the Presbytery of the Alleghenies (POA), the defendant. The POA did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit filed against it.
The Presbytery is the representative governing body of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), the denomination we’ve been part of since 2007, when we were successful in negotiations then with our prior denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA). That earlier settlement gave our congregation full and undisputed legal title (for $250,000) to our property at 1207 Washington Road and all other assets held by the church (including the manse, which was sold in 2019).
The essence of our complaint is that the POA has unlawfully sought to manipulate our voting rolls while seeking to remove what they regard as our renegade senior pastor (Nate Devlin) and all ten members of our Session who support him. The fact that Pastor Nate and Session were all duly elected by you and that state nonprofit law prohibits them from tampering with the voting rolls are inconvenient truths the POA ignores.
Doing the work for the POA is the Administrative Commission (AC) it formed on August 1, which is comprised of five members who were hand-picked by the POA. Since September 16, after the AC spent all of six weeks reaching its conclusions, writing its report and delivering its contents publicly, the discord between us and the POA has escalated greatly. Hence, the lawsuit.
The commissioners seem mostly adept at issuing sweeping pronouncements, the most recent of which triggered the lawsuit. Even though the POA never once in 15 years questioned either our authority or our methods in maintaining and updating our membership rolls each year, it is now challenging both our authority and our methods.
But Section 5758 of the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Corporations Act is quite clear on this matter. The authority that controls the voting rights of members in a nonprofit corporation in our Commonwealth resides with our governing board, the Session, not with the POA.
Specifically, the commissioners, acting on behalf of the POA, have unilaterally sought to restore the voting rights of 26 former inactive members in advance of the February 4 vote. Their inactivity was previously certified when the membership rolls were reviewed through the required annual review of the minutes that member churches submit to the POA. In addition, Session provided the AC with extensive documentation verifying that the 26 persons were rightfully moved to inactive status. But the AC declined to consider or even acknowledge the documents submitted to them while ignoring Session’s protests.
What’s more, another 27 individuals – whom the Presbytery admits are legitimate BH members in every respect, save one (you guessed it; their voting rights) – would be unilaterally eliminated from the voting rolls if your Session had accepted the AC’s assertions as the final word.
The vote to withdraw from the EPC requires a two-thirds majority of the active (and therefore, voting) members voting in person. Having last attended church in our sanctuary years ago does not meet the active standard, no matter what the commissioners contend. To capitulate on this point would make a mockery of every valid vote. Elections, whether for president or within our church, should be free and fair.
Fortunately, Session did not accede to the AC’s bullyish tactics, as that swing of 53 possible votes compares to a base of 192 active members as of the date (October 9) when Session formally notified the POA of its intention to seek dismissal from the EPC, the lawsuit explains.
Convinced that they’d heard enough from the commissioners, Session decided it was time to consult – and thereafter, retain – legal counsel. The attorney they chose is a veteran of Presbyterian denominational disputes.
He is Frank Kosir, Jr., a partner with the downtown law firm of Meyer, Unkovic & Scott. He was the junior counsel on our successful negotiation with the PCUSA in 2007. He also represented Peters Creek Presbyterian (where many former BH members now attend and where the AC held one of its offsite “focus groups” in September) when the church bought suit against the PCUSA. Peters Creek lost that litigation but ultimately regained its property.
The stated purpose in appointing an Administrative Commission was to restore the “peace, unity and purity” of our body. Having had many encounters with corporate organizations as they conducted similar activities when I was a corporate reporter for the Wall Street Journal, I would state unequivocally that the report the AC issued on September 16 is among the least peaceful and most harmful documents I’ve ever seen. It was so harmful, in fact, that it obliterated any chance of future compromise between the parties.
The original, precipitating event that put us under the POA microscope was a complaint filed in March of last year by three dissident BH elders. The essence of that complaint – which the POA ultimately dismissed – had to do with Pastor Nate’s alleged personality defects and how he wasn’t pastoring and managing the church in the same manner as his predecessor, Rev. Rick Wolling, who’d been our senior pastor for 33 years.
Using a firefighting analogy (which makes sense to me, as the son of a fire chief), the AC was called in to quell and contain a kitchen fire. But instead of extinguishing it and actually seeking to restore our “peace, unity and purity,” the commissioners (for reasons that are unclear to me, though I have my theories) decided to spray gasoline on the fire.
The resultant four-alarm blaze is now the subject of litigation. Hence, my shorthand for this mess: to save Beverly Heights, our adversaries have determined they must destroy it. All the elders on Session must be sacked, along with the pastor, triggering the probable departure of the entire staff. That is the inevitable outcome of the contempt charges the AC has filed (more on that in a moment) if the vote to leave the EPC fails.
That’s 21 elders and senior staff who’d be forced out, plus uncertainty for dozens more part-time employees (mostly teachers in the Preschool and Academy, my wife Louise and daughter Cara Webster among them) who are on the church payroll. That’s why I am convinced that the outcome of the vote on February 4 will be decisive for the future of Beverly Heights. These are weighty matters and not the least bit “trivial” (“trivial” being the standard the Apostle Paul cites in 1 Corinthians 6 when he prohibits lawsuits among believers).
My staff colleague Kyle Bennett often says that the end is in the beginning. In this situation, the end was cast when the AC’s involvement began on August 1 and escalated significantly on September 16, the day the commissioners read their stunning report which summarized their actions and recommendations.
I was present the day the report was read. So were Senior Pastor Nate Devlin and staff associates Peter Chace and Kyle Bennett, both of whom at that time were seeking ordination in the EPC. Another report read that same morning noted a shortage of qualified pastors in the POA. Yet, through its actions on September 16, the Presbytery managed to disenchant two hugely qualified ordination candidates – Peter and Kyle – while castigating Pastor Nate, a former POA moderator.
All three of us on staff – Peter, Kyle, me – were seated together that morning when we heard the report read aloud by the five commissioners. My immediate thought at that moment was that the commissioners’ treatment of our pastor and elders on Session (two of whom were also present, Dean Marshall and Todd Loizes) and our church was unconscionable. There was no due process whatsoever extended to Session or Nate, just judgments and edicts formed without any opportunity to cross-examine evidence or testimony. There was not even the most basic courtesy extended to Nate warning him beforehand of what was to transpire.
Bureaucratic agencies are seldom able to exhibit “pastoral care,” but because this was a church organization, I hoped my worst fears would not be realized. That hope was shattered the morning of Saturday, September 16.
Kyle’s recollection of that day’s events (recounted in episode 3 of The Parrhesians podcast, accessible here) mirror mine: “… there was so much dripping from the room that was uncomfortable, that was immoral, that was wrong. And I felt that personally to such a degree that I had to suspend my [ordination] candidacy and I didn’t go on the floor [of the Presbytery] because I thought to myself, ‘Why would I submit to the care of the Ministerial Committee of this denomination if this is how [they] … treat their pastors?’”
On the same podcast, Peter recalls that day similarly: “I really was optimistic about the process [before the report] because I know two of the men [on the commission] personally. I’ve had very good interactions with them in ministry. And it seemed like this process was a good faith process.”
As copies of the report were distributed and Peter began reading it, I did the same seated next to him. We didn’t speak a word, but our thoughts were congruent. “I read halfway through that document and I remember [thinking], the Administrative Commission has failed. … This whole process has failed. That was truly discouraging. … I was humiliated for [Nate], but for me that was one of the most discouraging moments in ministry I’ve ever had.”
Discouraging, yes, and shocking, too (if you’d like to read a summary of the report’s contents in the Timeline of Events, click here). But not quite as shocking as what followed in the months ahead.
The basis of our lawsuit is that the commissioners are tampering with the membership rolls of the church for the sole purpose, we contend, to engineer the outcome they prefer. They will of course deny this.
But I am less persuaded by what people say and more by what they do. The Lord judges people according to their deeds (Jeremiah 17:9-10). And on that basis, I have no doubt whatsoever that the commissioners have acted punitively, unfairly and, most probably, unlawfully (that will now be for the civil court to decide).
After the report was issued, Nate resigned a month later, only to discover after Christmas that the POA didn’t consider his resignation “official.” It hadn’t been official because the Presbytery had cancelled a vote by our congregation on “acceptance” of his resignation. Then, on December 28, adding insult to injury, it endorsed contempt charges against Pastor Nate – and all individual members of Session – for failing to follow through on the actions and recommendations.
In any event, I naively thought back in October that with Nate now uninvolved, perhaps his absence might lead to an improved climate and better outcomes with the Presbytery. Not only didn’t that happen – the situation suddenly got far, far worse.
The act of seeking dismissal appears to have been the trigger. The EPC’s own constitution permits member churches to seek dismissal with their property. And in the email commissioners sent to Session on October 3, they clearly stated that there are two options open to you: comply with our demands or seek dismissal. Session chose the second option, but still ended up being charged with contempt.
In doing so, the AC appears to have violated its own constitution, as spelled out in the EPC Book of Government, Chapter 5, Clause 10, Paragraph 1, which reads as follows: “Once a Church Session has notified Presbytery of its desire under this section [which we did, on October 9], Presbytery shall take no action to dismiss, dissolve or divide the local church and its elders until all proceedings under this section 5-10 are fully completed” [my italics added].
Yet the POA did take action to dismiss Session on December 28, before the vote on February 4, when it authorized commencement of contempt proceedings.
This apparent impropriety was not lost on retired Pastor Russ Howard. The former senior pastor of Peters Creek Presbyterian, which lost its property to the PCUSA only to later regain it, asked during the Zoom conference call held on December 28 if the POA wasn’t premature in seeking contempt charges against us. He suggested that his fellow Presbyters extend grace and not proceed with the charges until after the vote on February 4, in accordance with the EPC constitution cited above.
Rev. Howard’s plea fell on deaf ears, however. The AC responded by saying that they “felt they needed to proceed.” The motion passed.
Here is Russ Howard’s quotation when he raised his objection on that Zoom call: “I guess my question is if Nate has resigned and if the Session and congregation is in a dismissal process, why are we proceeding with this? Why don’t we at least let them finish their dismissal process. I feel like there’s a need for grace …”
I concur – there’s a need for grace. Everyone involved in this lamentable situation needs grace extended to them. But I am convinced, sadly, that this church is not going to get grace from the POA. I like our chances better in a court of law, where the standards are not based on perceptions or feelings. That’s a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the EPC, which seems to have acquired many of the same habits as the PCUSA. But from my perspective, that’s the reality we are dealing with.
Peter Chace discovered as much when he assumed some of Nate’s duties as the temporary head of staff, during the three-month hiatus Nate was absent, when he thought he’d resigned.
Peter explains on the podcast what happened once Session had formally notified the AC on October 9 that it intended to seek dismissal from the denomination.
“Every communication [between the Session and the AC] was less and less trustful,” he says. “And every time, in my opinion, the AC sent an email, the situation got significantly worse.” Peter had conversations with several members of the Presbytery, articulating the position that the AC’s actions were breaking Scripture, Westminster and the EPC Book of Order, to no avail. Not long thereafter, the die was cast. We had sought legal counsel.
I’ll end where I began with the reference to Groundhog Day. In the movie, the character of Phil Connors transforms in magnificent and remarkable ways.
When the film opens, Phil is an egotistical weatherman for a Pittsburgh television station who gets caught in a time loop while covering an event he has come to loathe: Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog whose shadow, according to local legend, predicts how many weeks of winter will remain. Gradually, through the adversity he faces (having to relive each day over and over), he becomes kinder and more lovable (and gets the girl of his dreams, Andie MacDowell).
By the same token, we seem caught in a situation that surely has repetitive aspects. We face another congregational meeting on February 4, which will significantly test our strength and courage individually and corporately. And filing the lawsuit may mean more acrimony lies ahead. But God has a purpose for us in this situation.
As we face this test, I take heart in all the transformation I see around us, within our body, which was not evident to me in years past. I see friends who’ve come closer together through our adversity and have leaned into their responsibilities to each other within a true “covenant community.”
One beautiful example of this is the support that’s been extended to our daughter Erin and husband Scott Westgate, when she gave birth to identical twin boys on October 27.
For the past three months, about 30 people from our community have provided meals for Erin and Scott. Not just a few meals, but meals three times a week, without fail.
People also have stopped by their house after dinner (as did Nate and Holly above recently), to lend a hand holding Augie and Otto while daughter Sommer is put to bed. My sister Pat (who recently visited us) is still telling friends back home about the “amazing” care our church provides to parents of newborns.
I also take encouragement from Nate’s return to the pulpit. The sermon series he began on Sunday from Joshua (click here) is titled “God’s Good Future.” The sermon he preached was a stirring call for joyful obedience in the face of adversity.
“We all want the turmoil to end but there is only one way to get there. And that is through joyful obedience. Death and resurrection,” Nate said.
“God’s good future belongs to Christians. Real Christians. …
“Christians are men and women and children who have been conquered by the power and the grace and the love of the great Joshua who did battle for us on the cross. He battled sin and death there, on the cross, and he battled it right here,” pointing to his chest.
“We lost. And He won. And He is victorious over our own stony hearts to the point where we say, ‘I am not in charge. I am not in control. I am willing to go where you are taking me. My life is forfeit. I am yours.’
“That’s who a Christian is. That’s who will occupy God’s good future.”
Friends, I join Nate and many others in declaring that God has a good future for us. Whether it’s at 1207 Washington Road or another location (to be determined), the Lord has a good future for us all.
God bless. Vote your conscience. I know I will.
The Parrhesians 