In Suit’s Wake : Church’s Counseling Policy Intact

On the morning after the dismissal of a landmark “clergy malpractice” lawsuit against Sun Valley’s Grace Community Church, its senior pastor said the case would not significantly alter the church’s counseling of congregants.

The Rev. John MacArthur told reporters Friday that church counselors would be directed to be as sensitive as possible to the problems of people like Kenneth Nally, whose parents brought the $1-million suit against the church, alleging that incompetent counseling by ministers contributed to the 24-year-old’s suicide in 1979.

But MacArthur emphasized the church’s fundamentalist commitment to the Bible as a guide in helping people with emotional problems.

The Nally case, MacArthur said during a press conference at the church, “will change our counseling in that it makes us more sensitive, but it reaffirmed our right to counsel biblically. . . . We will continue to do biblical counseling the way we always have.”

Same Policy, MacArthur Says

MacArthur said troubled church members will be encouraged to seek the advice of outside professionals when they want it, but he said that was the same policy the church followed toward Kenneth Nally. The church will stress the importance of seeking help from professionals who share the church’s fundamentalist views, he said.

Walter and Maria Nally of Tujunga alleged in their suit that the counseling by four ministers had burdened their son with guilt by attributing his emotional problems to sin. They said that, when the pastors realized their son was suicidal, the church should have insisted that he get psychiatric help.

The church maintained that Kenneth Nally was seen by no fewer than eight physicians and mental health professionals in the last two months of his life.

Although the trial focused on the church’s counseling methods, it was resolved on a constitutional issue. Glendale Superior Court Judge Joseph R. Kalin on Thursday granted the church’s mid-trial motion for dismissal, ruling that any judicial effort to set standards for pastoral counseling would violate the separation of church and state under the First Amendment.

Church Attorney’s Comment

At Friday’s press conference, Grace Community Church’s attorney, Samuel Ericsson, said Kalin’s decision “prevents a legal wedge from being placed” between clergymen and those they counsel.

MacArthur, under the glare of television lights, said he looks forward to a “reunion” with Kenneth Nally in heaven. He also said he hoped the Nally family would “find peace as a result of the resolution of this case.”

But Walter Nally said Friday that he had doubts about whether MacArthur would go to heaven, and that he has no sense of resolution.

“I hope that God judges with mercy John MacArthur’s soul just as I hope he judges the souls of all other men,” Walter Nally said. “I hope my dead son found peace. They can’t hurt him anymore.”

Walter Nally said he had not decided whether to appeal the case. He recalled his son, a student at UCLA who also studied at the Grace seminary, as “a sick boy suffering from deep depression” because of family and personal problems.

Golf Outing

Friday morning, the elder Nally went golfing with his surviving son, Walter Jr., 24. “It was just for my boy and I to get my mind off it for several hours. It relaxed me,” he said.

Except for the press conference, Grace Community Church did not seem to be much affected by the conclusion of the nationally publicized trial. Children attending its school played outside, and church members came and went. Sunday services were listed on a sign outside, with MacArthur scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Resurrection of Christ.”