Hawaii Church Sees Courthouse as the Way to God’s House

The congregation of the Hale O Kaula church dreamed of bringing the Scriptures to life, of building an agricultural ministry on these sunny slopes and teaching their children to grow food nourished by prayer.

But when they applied to build a meeting hall on their land in this small rural community on Maui, the neighbors thought otherwise. One put up a sign at the top of the road, which appeared to be directed at the church. “Are you sure the road you’re on leads to my house? God,” it said.

“Jesus loves you,” said another sign, placed prominently on a mailbox. “Everyone else knows you’re an [expletive].”

The Maui County planning commission turned down the church’s permit request, citing state zoning laws, which prohibit churches on agricultural land except by special permit. But church members didn’t believe it was the building that the county and neighbors objected to. It was, they believed, the church itself the neighbors didn’t like.

That was how this stunning greenbelt in the South Pacific became a battleground over religious freedom. Last month, attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department joined a Washington-based public interest law firm, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, to help Hale O Kaula defend a 2-year-old federal law that provides protection for churches from prohibitive regulation under local zoning laws.

Hale O Kaula’s lawsuit against the county is one of a growing number across the country challenging how far counties can use zoning laws to prevent the construction of increasingly large, multiuse facilities in residential areas deemed inappropriate by neighbors--even as churches are being forced out of their traditional downtown homes because they do not provide sufficient tax revenue.

It is an area breaching the usual political divide. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act has rallied conservative church groups on the right and civil libertarians on the left; its sponsors included Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who normally would have trouble putting their names on the same grocery list.

The law says local governments cannot “substantially burden” the free exercise of religion through zoning laws unless they demonstrate that the zoning is the least restrictive means of advancing a “compelling government interest.”

Local government officials say the law often doesn’t take into account the myriad conceptions of religious facilities these days. Gone, they say, are the days when a church was a sanctuary used for Sunday services and Wednesday night prayer meetings. Increasingly, churches also are day-care centers, homeless shelters and health centers--or, in the case of the Hale O Kaula facility, a working farm and meeting center.

At least three cases involving the religious land-use law are pending in California, including one in Los Angeles, where neighbors have challenged the Missionaries of Charity Brothers’ homeless mission in a historic mansion near downtown, and in Cypress, where the city is trying to take over 18 acres of prime redevelopment property from a church and sell it to Costco. A hearing in that case is set for today in Santa Ana.

The 60 members of Hale O Kaula, or House of Prophets, are followers of the Joseph Ministry, which requires the church to “provide sustenance from a life-enriched environment that preserves God’s people alive and healthy.”

In their view, that mission includes food production, storage and distribution, along with organic farming practices to assure a healthful environment.

“In hard times or natural disasters, we want to make sure that we can get by and feed the people, but the real thing is our connection to the land. We’re stewards of the land, and while working the land, we teach our kids spiritual principles as well,” said David Jenkens, a housing designer who is pastor of the church.

The congregation has been meeting in a regular church in the town of Haiku, several miles away, but outgrew it and bought about six acres of farmland on a residential road in the town of Kula, a rural community of large homes and small family farms on the verdant slopes of Maui’s largest volcano. The plan was to grow food there, and hold worship services tied to planting and harvesting rituals.

Their initial application for an 8,500-square-foot facility, including a sanctuary, fellowship hall, restrooms, kitchen and offices, was denied, but the church reapplied for a much smaller expansion of its existing barn in 1999. The planning commission denied it, citing zoning laws that restrict the land to agricultural uses and problems with water service that could make it difficult to fight a fire.

Some of the half a dozen neighbors voiced concern about traffic on the unpaved private road that leads to the church property, and in public meetings also raised questions about the Hale O Kaula congregation, sometimes describing it as a cult.

“It’s not that we’re against the church. I love the idea of using [agricultural] land to grow things and teach the children how to farm. But it’s a half-mile private road, and they have to pass everybody else on that road. We don’t think that’s fair,” neighbor Frank Caravalho Jr. said.

“There are so many other places that are so much more suited for a church than this property,” added Jon Thuro, another neighbor. “I told ‘em, ‘Why do you guys want to be so hidden and away from everybody? Down a dead-end street? What do you have to hide?’ It just makes you feel strange.”

Questions about the nature of their religion, affiliated with the nondenominational Living Word Fellowship of Churches, are precisely the kinds of questions churches shouldn’t have to answer in zoning hearings, Becket Fund lawyers say.

The planning department reviewer told the church it was entitled to farm the property and even hold occasional gatherings there, said Derek L. Gaubatz, who appeared on behalf of the Becket Fund in a hearing on the case July 24 in Honolulu. “But he said as soon as they gather five people to pray before they plant a potato, that’s illegal.”

Church lawyers also presented evidence that a large private school lies on one edge of the property, and plans have been approved for a major commercial mixed-use development on the other side.

But James Takayesu, corporate counsel for Maui County who is defending the planning commission against the Hale O Kaula lawsuit, said neither of those adjacent projects are on agricultural land. He said the nature of the church was irrelevant to the zoning decision, which turned mainly on fire safety issues, and noted that the church could continue to worship at its existing chapel.

“I always thought we were pretty tolerant here. It’s always been kind of a hang-loose, whatever-you-want-to-do kind of place,” he said.

“We probably sell more crystals here than anywhere else, per capita.”