Conservative Culture

Eminent Domain is a hot topic in the secular aspect. It doesn’t exactly fit this situation when we talk about the taking of a local church property by the church government at either the state or national level. But there are enough similarities to make note of them.

Eminent domain (U.S.), compulsory purchase (United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ireland), resumption (Australia) or expropriation (Canada, South Africa) in common law legal systems is the inherent power of the state to expropriate private property, or rights in private property, without the owner’s consent, either for its own use or by delegation of the taking power to third parties who will devote it to “public uses”

In Michigan a church voted to leave the Methodist church. Most likely the issues are over the liberalization of the church. One might think that this would be the end of the issue.

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) - Members of Lane Boulevard Church say they’ve been pushed out of their longtime home by the United Methodist Church, which says the denomination and not the congregation owns the building.

Lane Boulevard Church members voted this year to removed “Methodist” from their name.

On Nov. 27, Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge J. Richardson Johnson issued a preliminary injunction giving the Western Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church access to the early 20th century building.

The 120-member Lane Boulevard congregation now holds Sunday services at the Hungarian Church of Kalamazoo.

“I know that it is hard for them,” said the Rev. Zawdie Abiade, the Kalamazoo-area district superintendent for the denomination. But, he added, “the property legally belongs to the United Methodist Church.”

The Methodists’ Western Michigan Conference “is part of a hierarchical church organization, and the plaintiff local church is under its jurisdiction and control,” Methodist lawyer Thomas Shearer wrote in a legal brief for the case.

American religious groups vary widely in how much authority the denomination exerts over individual congregations, from full control to loose, voluntary affiliation.

The church was built and founded as an independent congregation and later joined the EUB denomination which ended up joining with the United Methodists. Isn’t the local congregation have the right to retain the building they build and supported with their own money. The leadership of the Methodists has grown increasingly liberal and lean far left while draining resources from the congregation to fund the liberal leadership which claims control over them.

Founded as an independent congregation, Lane Boulevard Church later joined the Evangelical United Brethren Church. In 1968, that denomination merged with the United Methodist Church.

Lane Boulevard members narrowly voted to participate in the merger.

“We never agreed to their discipline or to their contention that they owned the church,” longtime member Richard Spigelmyer told the Kalamazoo Gazette for a story Sunday. “We began as a German congregation, and we’ve always been very independent.”

So the the Methodists will go to court to seize the property they didn’t build and only benefit from it after seizing it. The sad thing is that the congregation will be given no money and sent to the street. All because the congregation was merged into the Methodist church some number of years ago. Doesn’t anyone else see a problem with this?