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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, April 18, 1980
Page 10
THE WASHINGTON POST. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1980
A19
'FdlianiRaspberry
An Assault
On the Church
TheattorneygeneralofCaliforniabasbis
own
ideasaboutchurclHtateseparation:
Church property la public property.
Church mooey ii publie money. Contribu
tionsto chmchea
are.
In fact, contributions
to the"people of thestate ofCalifornia."
The attorney general isperfectly willing to
let church officialsrun their religious organi•
zations, but if they should mess up, then he
has no choice but to move in to enforce the
rtghts of"thepeople."
And none of thishas anythingto do with
tbeFirstArneodmentguarantee of religious
freedom.
"I don't see bow else we can make sure
theyarewhat they say theyare and that they
are notmisusing the charitable funds," said
the top deputy to state Attorney General
GeorgeDeukmejian.
He wasexplaining why, In January 1979.
tbestate of Californiasent an armedraiding
partytotake over the Pasadenaoffices of the
Worldwide Church of God.confiscate its rec
ords, replace its top officers with a court-ap
polnted receiver (paid out of churchfunds)
&Del firemembers of the church staff.
Itseems that some half-dozen membersof
the 100,000.member church had complained
that the church leadership, including Her·
bertW.Armstrong, the founder, and hisseo
Glldmeommand,StanleyRader, wereusing
church money for theirpersonalenricJI.
ment.
What Istheevidence to back upthemm
plaint? Apparently the authorities are still
searching for it. What th.ey have come up
withso far is evidence ofsumptuous living, in
cluding a gooddeal of international travel (of.
ficials call it missionary work) on the part of
some of the church's leaders, and some unu
sually high salaries. The �year-0ld Arm
strong wasmaking areported$200,ID>a year.
But the membershipknew about thelavish
living, the travel and th'
e high pay. In what
way did it constitute fraud?And withoutevi
dence of fraud-or even with it-on what
authority did the state move totakeover the
church?
Back to the attorney general's theory. As
he reads the California statutes, f!!Yery chari
table organization in the state is a public
trust. Every church Is a charitable organtza.
tion. Ergo, every ch\U'Ch tr. the state ill a pub
lic trust, whoseassets-Including buildings
and money-are held in trust for the benefit
of the generalpublic.
It's an easy path from that audacious 1Je.
ginning to the conclusion that church offi
cers are In fact public trustees, subject to
oversight and removal by the state.
Fortunately, if belatedly, a number1>lreli
gious. and civil liberties organizations have
decided to oppose the attorney general's
reading of the Constitution.
Among those seeking leave to file nmicus
briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court are the
National Council of Churches of Christ, the
Synagogue Council of America, the Baptist
Joint Committee for Public Affairs, the Na·
tional Association of Evangelists, the Lu·
theran Church in America, the United Pres
byterian Church and others ranging from
theAmerican CivilLibertiesUnion of South
ern California to the Unification Church
(Moonies). The maJn petition was drafted by
Prof. LaurenceH. Tribe of the Harvard Law
School
The petitioners are uniformly alarmed at
the attorney general's disregard of the wall
between church and state and at his notion
that churches are somehow answerable to a
nonchurchpublic.
As one of them put it, the attorney gener
al's public-trust theory is "a throwback to the
Middle Ages which could well lead to the im
position of state-dictated standards and con
trol of church operations and practices."
You don't have to subscribe to the doc
trines and practices of the Worldwide
Church of God to see that Deukmejian's
theory, if allowed to stand, could render
meaningless the whole notion of religious
freedom.
Copyright 1980 The Washington Post Company
Reprinted by Permission