Taxation without representation. . .

I am by no means a congregationalist.  The strange experiment of the Missouri Synod Lutherans trying to find a middle way between a hierarchical structure and a congregationalistic one has proven to be odd and often unmanageable. Either people assume that doctrine and confession are local or they assume that property and finances are national (district) and sometimes it seems that is how things are phrased.  In reality, doctrine is not supposed to be congregational but bound together as a Synod under our constitutional confessional standards and doctrinal statements and resolutions.  Along the same lines, the Synod is not supposed to have authority over congregational property or how it chooses to spend its money.  There are no bills sent out nor do district or national judicatories have the power to coerce the congregation into giving it a say so over its property or to force them to pay up.  It is not perfect and it is often misunderstood but it is certainly better than the hierarchical options when it comes to property and finance.

Rome has the power to close church buildings, merge congregations, sell off property, and assess taxes upon the parishes and schools of the dioceses.  It is arbitrary and often coercive.  For example, parishes have been closed or consolidated and their assets used against the sexual abuse claims of the diocese.  Because the property and money belong to the bishop, I can see why victims and insurance companies pursue these assets but the sad reality is that most of these parishes are also victims and not perpetrators of this abuse.  So they are twice victims -- having endured those bad priests and bad bishops who protected them and now losing everything in order to compensate the victims.  Ouch.  Furthermore, the bishops use the whole system of property ownership and finances and taxes to the parishes to force compliance -- which might not be so bad in the case of promoting orthodox doctrine but which is used to shut down Latin Mass type parishes and those who lean to the right in church matters.  Inexplicably, those who lean the left seem to enjoy relative immunity from this coercive system.

The Episcopal Church in the US has a long and storied history of taking property away from the local parishes when those parishes have sought to preserve their confession and leave the diocese.  Over the years I have chronicled the millions spent on lawyers in pursuit of property when whole congregations have voted to leave for the ACNA or an independent status.  It is another example of the rather arbitrary and egregious way jurisdictions have manipulated things while never paying a thin dime for the actual construction or maintenance of said properties.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America also has mechanisms in place to prevent parishes from leaving for more orthodox pastures and uses the rules to keep the property and assets in punishment of those who have the nerve to reject their liberal and progressive agenda.  In the past I have reported on synods which have sold Lutheran properties to Muslims instead of to the people who voted to leave the ELCA.  It is shameful.

In the end there must be a better way.  On the one hand, Missouri seems to have little ability to prevent a congregation with some money but no people from continuing while Rome and the Episcopals have the power to punish a majority for not towing the party line.  It is a terrible state of affairs and it would seem that common sense is an uncommon commodity in all of this.