LOUISVILLE - The Virginia lawyer who has accused more than 20 Presbyterian ministers of failing to uphold the so-called "fidelity/chastity" provision of The Book of Order has charged a North Carolina pastor with heresy on doctrinal grounds.

Paul Rolf Jensen filed the complaint against the Rev. W. Robert Martin III, a member of Western North Carolina Presbytery who is transferring to the Presbytery of San Jose in California, where he has been called to be pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto.

According to Jensen, who was not present, Martin said during his examination before San Jose Presbytery in April that he does not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus or His ascension into Heaven "as taught by the confessions and scripture."

The constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) requires Western North Carolina Presbytery to appoint a committee to investigate Jensen's allegation.

Martin is now the pastor of Warren Wilson Presbyterian Church of Swannanoa, NC, and a chaplain at Warren Wilson College, a Presbyterian-related school.

On the heels of his accusations, Jensen is asking congregations in both presbyteries to withhold "all per-capita giving," and urging "faithful Presbyterians" to demand the resignation of the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the denomination's stated clerk.

The Presbyterian church hasn't held a heresy trial since the 1920s.

More than 60 percent of the members of San Jose Presbytery voted to receive Martin, according to John F. Lococo, the presbytery stated clerk. He said his office will assist the Presbytery of Western North Carolina in its investigation.

Jensen is accusing Martin of heresy and of several instances of "willful violation" of his ordination vows, including failure to be instructed by the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as articulated in the confessions, and failure to accept the scriptures as the "unique and authoritative witness" to Jesus Christ.

The Presbytery of Western North Carolina voted on April 29 to approve Martin's transfer as of July 1. Until then he remains a member of the North Carolina presbytery.

Jensen told the Presbyterian News Service that he doesn't differentiate between behavior and belief in acting against "heretics and apostates" in the church.

"It is the same point - somebody is defying the constitution," he said by telephone, equating the action of ordaining sexually active homosexuals and unbelief in the bodily resurrection. "To me, it is exactly the same issue."

Martin and officials of Western North Carolina Presbytery declined to comment, noting that disciplinary actions in the PC(USA) ordinarily are kept confidential unless and until charges are substantiated by an investigating committee.

However, the session of the Palo Alto church that has called Martin spoke up in his defense, issuing a statement in which it said it will "materially, financially and spiritually" support him. The First Presbyterian session said it is confident that the PC(USA) judicial system will exonerate Martin. It also noted that the Presbyterian church elected during the 1920s to tolerate a diversity of views about the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

The Rev. Nan Swanson, Palo Alto First's interim pastor, said: "We regret that certain minority factions of the PC(USA) continue to sow division through their ongoing campaign of litigation against Presbyterians who don't conform to certain 19th-century conceptions of orthodoxy.

"When dozens of PC(USA) churches are forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours responding to legal actions, the true work of the Church - feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, preaching the gospel - gets put on hold."

A remedial case against Martin before the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific will be dropped this week, Jensen said, because the complainants, a minister and an elder in San Jose Presbytery, have withdrawn their complaint.

Jensen said he is worried about the possibility that "pressure was brought to bear" on the complainants. Lococo said they simply came to believe judicial action is unwarranted and "dialogue between brothers and sisters" is a more appropriate means of resolving the matter.

Jensen is a member of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church of Newport Beach, CA, whose session and pastor, the Rev. John Huffman, have disavowed his actions.

To date, only one of his cases has been tried in a church court. In that case, the Rev. Steve Van Kuiken, the pastor of a gay-affirming church in Cincinnati, was found guilty of performing same-sex marriages. Van Kuiken was found not guilty of participating in the ordinations of deacons and elders in violation of section G-6.0106b of the Book of Order.

Jensen also represented the Akron, OH, church that filed charges against the denomination's moderator, the Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, for failing to call a special General Assembly to address what Jensen calls widespread defiance of the constitution. The PC(USA)'s Permanent Judicial Commission ruled that Abu-Akel's decision not to call a special Assembly was warranted, but that he should not have urged commissioners who had requested it to change their minds.

Defiance of the PC(USA) constitution is the issue over which Jensen believes Kirkpatrick ought to be removed from office. He argues that Kirkpatrick is obligated to act against defiant ministers, sessions and presbyteries. The Office of the General Assembly (OGA) maintains that the stated clerk has a duty to support presbytery and synod courts, but should not interfere in judicial processes. The Rev. Mark Tammen, an OGA spokesperson, said the clerk's job is "to resource presbyteries as they work through their processes."

Jensen told the Presbyterian News Service that he intends to continue working to have Kirkpatrick removed from office, if necessary by rallying opposition to a possible third four-year term for Kirkpatrick when his current term expires next spring. But he said he would like to see more immediate action, and hopes a commissioner to the upcoming General Assembly will file a resolution to declare the stated clerk's office vacant.

Jensen said he is determined to reverse a theological trend that he claims is turning the PC(USA) into a Universalist church.

"Like I told you before," he said, "I'm not going to stop. Sorry."

PCUSA News