Congregation Will Vote on Limiting Terms for Elders

Instead of praying to God for help, leaders at the Bethel Korean Church have turned to the courts.

Alleging that senior pastor Peter Sohn and “his collaborators” are trying to usurp their powers, church elders last month sued to remove the pastor temporarily.

The congregation today is going to vote whether to impose term limits on the elders, which could effectively oust them. It is the second vote in as many months.

“This is really a power struggle within the church whereby the elders are at odds with the balance of the congregation,” said Mike Fitzgerald, a lawyer representing Sohn. It’s “a classic example of the situation where the state . . . should not intervene in church affairs.”

The elders and their lawyers could not be reached for comment last week.

The Orange County Superior Court has scheduled a June 4 hearing to decide whether to uphold today’s vote.

Lawyers for the elders contend the court’s intervention is necessary. Lawyers for Sohn and the 3,000-member church, which has one of the largest Korean congregations in Orange County, counter that the conflicts are internal and should be settled within the church.

The controversy occurred April 6, Fitzgerald said, when 919 members of the congregation voted to amend Bethel’s constitution and to limit the elders to two three-year terms.

Forty-two members voted against the changes, he said.

The elders responded by suspending Sohn and by filing the lawsuit, asking the court to keep Sohn away from the church during the suspension.

Sohn and his supporters, they alleged, amended the church’s constitution and bylaws without the required approval of two-thirds of the six-member governing board, which includes the senior pastor.

Further, the lawsuit contends, one purpose of the amendments was to “seek to personally oust these elders.”

The court originally granted the temporary restraining order to keep Sohn out of the church, but later reversed the decision, ruling that the matter should be settled internally.

In hearings since the April 6 vote, dozens of church members have been lining the courtroom to show their support for Sohn, according to the Korea Times newspaper.

Fitzgerald said the pastor had initially planned to resign, believing it would help maintain peace within the church. After 1,300 members signed a petition asking him to stay, he changed his mind.

“His supporters in the congregation told him that this controversy will continue regardless of his presence,” Fitzgerald said.

The term-limit referendum was led by the church deacons who felt the elders had been in power too long, Fitzgerald said.

Deacons are responsible for the administration of the church, while elders are similar to a board of directors.

Under the old constitution, elders can serve an indefinite number of terms. The constitution also stated that the number of elders should increase as the congregation grows.

However, even as the congregation increased from 200 members in the 1980s to the current 3,000, the number of elders remained at five.

“They never increased their number [because they wanted] to preserve their control within the church,” Fitzgerald alleged.