Commissioner Ken Wingate spoke at Erskine several weeks ago, and I found this gem of knowledge while researching this fiasco. This is a verbatim quote from our friend Wingate:
The point is that, the ARP Church owns and operates Erskine College and Seminary, and it said, the board needs to be downsized. The prior board agreed with that, except the prior board thought it should take six years, and the church thought it should happen sooner. So the church said, here are thirty people, you thirty go and change the bylaws.
This quote is enormously important for many reasons that I will discuss in the next few days (I have a TON of primary research material to digest before I can even start writing), but here’s a bonus: he said specifically that Synod owns Erskine!
This makes the third public example I have of a Commissioner explicitly stating Synod’s ownership of Erskine (the other two being the two Commission reports). How odd, then, that during the injunction hearing Mr. Wingate specifically said on the witness stand that Synod does not own Erskine, that in fact it is a “mother-child relationship.” I wrote about this issue at the time, bemoaning Wingate “selling us down the river.”
These are his thoughts…
TDG,
ReplyDeleteI think you may have inadvertently left off Wingate's emphasis in the quote that you first referenced in the previous post "Selling us down the River", and which you are referencing again now. The quote in question is:
“The ARP Church owns and operates Erskine College and Seminary through the trustees it appoints and therefore has an obligation to ensure that our directives are being followed and the missions of these institutions are being implemented.”
"...through the trustees it appoints..."
For whom do the "trustees" "hold Erskine in trust"?
If your answer is: "well,for Erskine, they hold Erskine in trust for Erskine!". Then one must ask, "Well then why is the General Synod the lone, sole, exclusive entity to EVER name trustees for Erskine from its first day of existence all the way up until now?" If the Synod is, as Erskine suggests, an unwelcomed third party to the educational enterprise in Due West, then why not boot them?
Mr. Wingate and the Commission have suggested what the Synod has always believed, understood and supported: that the trustees hold Erskine in trust for the General Synod; That Erskine College and Seminary is THE educational ministry of the ARP Synod, is THE college and seminary of the ARP Church, and exists to further the ARP Synod's cause for Christ and His Gospel in the world.
The trustees, then, are accountable to the General Synod for their work. Should any one individual of those trustees faulter and err in such a way that compromises their ability to serve on the Board, there is a system of accountability prescribed in the Bylaws for how to address/remove that individual.
But, what if the entire system of oversight proves broken and in need of correction? Is there a form of accountability prescribed in the bylaws to address the entire Board and the whole system of oversight? No. There is none. So, is the Board and system of governance free from accountability to the sponsoring member (ARP Synod), is the system of governance ree to continue uncorrected?
There's the real question at stake, I think. Perhaps SC State Law for non-profits like Erskine speaks to this matter and establishes precedent, as does Federal Law. Perhaps it doesn't. The judges will have to decide.
But, at present, I think that Neil Jones, the Erskine Grad, EBK Scholar, and attorney of law who is pro-Erskine, Anti-Synod has it right. This matter, legally speaking, is soon to be over. Whether by action of judges or by the highest court of the ARP Church:
http://erskineforeveryone.com/
Cheers,
RTR
Anonymity is acceptable; false impersonations are not. Why do you lie, sir?
ReplyDeleteErskine owns itself. Appointment of Trustees to the Board of Trustees may or may not be a power that the Synod continues to hold as it has so grossly abused that power in the last few months. Although the College and the Seminary recognized the ARP Church as the institution's moral leader in the past, the future is surely in jeopardy now as the reckless actions of the Moderator's Commission taken in blatant disregard of the rights of others force those who support reorganization at Erskine to recognize that all members of the Moderator's commission must be removed from power over Erskine if any hope of peace remains.
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