Court’s judicial process outcome concedes its delinquency to previously redress instigatory issues that caused more problems
“Dealing with conflict is the daily work of the pastor. God has called us as undershepherds of His flock to care for His sheep, and that often means caring for them through conflict, even when we as pastors may be the cause of the conflict. Conflict in the church is why people sometimes leave a church …”
— “Conflict and Peace,” Tabletalk, March 2022, Vol. 46, No. 3, Burk Parsons, senior pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel
“For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.”
— Malachi 2:7
The outcome of a monthslong judicial process ending in the conviction of Teaching Elder Burk Hiram Parsons, senior pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel (PCA), alludes to a violation by the minister that is demonstrably connected to a 2022 whistleblower-retaliation scandal which diverged from the Presbytery to St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, a nearby sister church of Saint Andrew’s.
Had the appropriate committee of Central Florida Presbytery attended to that violation formally brought to its attention six years earlier, it would have precluded a church member’s defection from Saint Andrew’s to St. Paul’s, then a scandal stemming from its leadership’s unlawful disciplinary reprisals against the church member, a subsequent cover-up by the higher Church Courts, continuation of the original teaching elder’s alleged violations, and the eventual formalization of censure against the minister anyway.
In its recent findings, the assize appointed to adjudicate on behalf of the Central Florida Presbytery recounts,
“In July of 2024, the Central Florida Presbytery (CFP)’s Minister and His Work Committee (MHWC) received a report from a member of Saint Andrew’s Chapel (SAC) alleging that Teaching Elder (TE) Burk Parsons had violated his ministerial vows through harsh leadership, unkind treatment of others, and neglect of pastoral duties. Following interviews with multiple witnesses and review of written complaints, the MHWC found a strong presumption of guilt and recommended formal judicial process. …
TE Parsons pled not guilty to all six charges.
The specifications under the charges fell into the following general categories: …
– Being inhospitable and inaccessible to the flock.
… The Commission voted unanimously to indefinitely suspend TE Parsons from office … During this time TE Parsons cannot participate in the duties of an elder, including preaching, teaching, administering the sacraments, and participating in church courts. The suspension remains in effect until satisfactory evidence of repentance is provided …
TE Parsons had previously pled guilty to similar charges in 2019 and received admonition at that time. This, along with subsequent reports of relational harm and unhealthy leadership environment, taking place both before and since the 2019 event, indicate an unresolved pattern, and thus led to the Commission to discern that indefinite suspension was the appropriate censure.”
Peter Benyola, a member of Saint Andrew’s Chapel from 2013 to 2019, concerned about a pattern of suspected and unredressed violations, several times throughout the year 2019 requested meetings with TE Burk Parsons as well as the other teaching elders, who then were laboring out-of-bounds in administration of the church which at that time was not a congregation of the PCA. After the teaching elders denied or ignored those requests to meet, Benyola engaged key members of Presbytery — on the Minister and His Work Committee — for them to facilitate a meeting with the PCA’s ministers assigned to Saint Andrew’s. Presbytery’s elders did not oblige such a meeting, rather tried to discourage Benyola from further inquiring about the issues. Though many of those elders were on the Session of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Benyola nonetheless after a period of months attending St. Paul’s, (rather naïvely) chose to seek “refuge” in an ostensibly legitimate Presbyterian church by transferring membership from Saint Andrew’s to St. Paul’s.
An episodic article — part of Benyola’s chronicle of the entire five-year enterprise — recounts the coinciding date of Presbytery’s tardy specification:
“07/17/2019: Knowing that it is not the ruling elders but the teaching elders who have taken vows to uphold the form of government and discipline of the PCA, Benyola emails the teaching elders’ administrative assistant requesting an in-person meeting to ask questions and to reconcile, asking to meet with all three, within about two weeks. Their admin acknowledges the email two weeks later to the day, claiming that ‘the teaching elders have to bring this request to the Session,’ but a meeting is never permitted with any of the teaching elders. Why do PCA teaching elders need to clear it with their entire unchecked Session before meeting with a member to answer questions?
Alleged violations (errors and/or delinquencies) by the Saint Andrew’s Chapel Senior Pastor, et al.
Primary standards: Deuteronomy 10:16, Joshua 20:4, Proverbs 3:27, 22:22, 31:23, Zechariah 8:16, Malachi 2:7, Matthew 3:8, 18:15, Luke 17:3-4, Acts 20:27-28, I Corinthians 1:10-11, 13:6, II Corinthians 6:3-8, I Timothy 3:2,15, Titus 1:5-7, Hebrews 12:15, I Peter 2:1, 5:1-4
Secondary standards: BCO 8-1,-2,-3; 13-7; 21-5.2,3; 34-3
Tertiary standards: Saint Andrew’s Chapel Bylaws, Rev 2.00, Article IV— Elders (The Session), Section 4.17: Duties of Elders”
The instigating issues at Saint Andrew’s — i.e., its Presbyterian pastors having compelled their congregation to vote away the right to vote for all their church officers, and repeatedly excommunicating members of the local church outside the PCA system who lack basic appellate rights — were not primarily why Benyola transferred from the church. The ultimate reason Benyola left then-unpresbyterated Saint Andrew’s is because after months of trying, he could not even get a meeting with his pastors.
Hence, “inaccessibility” — Presbytery’s very own specification.
The chain reaction that ensued Benyola’s transfer into the PCA was his necessary pursuit of redress as a Church member using the formal mechanisms of the denomination’s Book of Discipline; eventually, the St. Paul’s Session, without jurisdiction, retaliated against Benyola with illicit claims of “censure,” and concurrently, the Presbytery dismissed Benyola’s March 2022 charges against Saint Andrew’s’ ministers brevi manu — out of hand. Benyola, then residing 500 miles away from Central Florida, exercised his ecclesiastical and civil legal prerogative — the PCA Constitution as well as the Florida Statutes — to conscientiously, rightfully resign his membership from St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church of Orlando (PCA), Inc. Later, in July 2023, the Presbytery’s policy change compelled Saint Andrew’s’ teaching elders to recommend to the congregation that the church unite with the denomination, which resulted in Saint Andrew’s’ domestication as part of the Presbyterian fold — four years later than might have been accomplished.
Better late than never?
Though the Lord ultimately superintended every detail, that entire fractal, deltoidal, fissiparous, gratuitous, unnecessary, disgraceful, and spectacular sequence could have been obviated in the first place had the Presbytery in 2019, after creating the conditions for the original problem beginning in 1997, seized the opportunity for remedy providentially set before it on a proverbial silver platter in 2019. Instead, equally providentially, (Romans 7:11) “sin seized its opportunity.”
And as the Southern novelist William Faulkner quipped, there are times and there are places that will not allow to be forgotten because “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
“Shepherding the Whistleblower
Unfortunately, organizations in need of a whistleblower are those most likely to suppress, reject, banish, or destroy messengers. Loyalty to an organization tends to supersede truth. Whistleblowers, like prophets, call their audience to recognize evil and purge it. Reliable, confidential, and anonymous reporting systems capable of instituting intervention are critical.”
“Were I to follow out all the flagitious corruptions of ecclesiastical government, I should enter an interminable forest. Of the lives of the priests, for many reasons, I at present decline to speak; but there are three vices of an intolerable description, on which each individual may reflect for himself: First, Disregarding the character of a holy vocation, clerical offices are everywhere acquired either by violence or by simony, or by other dishonest and impious arts: Secondly, The rulers of the Church, in so far as regards the performance of their duties, are more like empty shadows or lifeless images than true ministers; and, Thirdly, When they ought to govern consciences in accordance with the Word of God, they oppress them with an iniquitous tyranny, and hold them in bondage by the fetters of many impious laws. Is it true, that, not only in contempt of the laws of God and man, but in the absence of everything like a sense of shame, foul disorder reigns in the appointment of Bishops and Presbyters? that caprice assumes the place of justice, simony is seldom absent, and, as if these were evils of no consequence, the correction of them is deferred to a future age?”
— The Necessity of Reforming the Church, To The Most Invincible Emperor Charles V., And The Most Illustrious Princes And Other Orders, Now Holding A Diet Of The Empire At Spires, John Calvin
“Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: ‘Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned. And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, ‘Thus says the LORD, You have burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cut off from it man and beast?’ Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the people of Judah all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, but they would not hear.’’
Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them.”
— Jeremiah 36:27-32
“Ezekiel 39:21
In this extended address to Gog (chapters 38-39) Ezekiel described the movements of nations and the activities of world powers. While it appears that the kings of the earth run things, in 39:21 the reader discovers that there is a Power behind all powers. The fact that the Sovereign God is always in control is a crucial perspective for all leaders to embrace. …
Jeremiah 36:1-32
Jehoiakim didn’t want to hear bad news, so he burned the scroll that contained the news. He himself refused to learn the truth and change his ways, but the foolishness of the act also led to the destruction of his nation. Jehoiakim chose to ‘protect’ himself from information that was vital to his success as a leader. Some of the most important organizational – and personal – changes are made only when leaders are willing to process bad news. …
Ezekiel 7:27
… ‘I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them.’ For these people, that meant mourning, despair and trembling! If God were to deal with every leader by the standards that leader uses to deal with others, how would you fare? …
Joel 1:1-3:21
Where are the leaders when you need them? Joel refers to elders, priests, drunkards, farmers and the young in this short book. But throughout all the turmoil and devastation he describes, the prophet never once mentions leaders or kings as even possible sources of help. A leader who is an irrelevant presence is worse than no leader at all. …
Jeremiah 44:29-30
The Jewish exiles in Egypt refused to stop worshiping idols. Their idolatry led to Pharaoh’s defeat. Two seemingly isolated events – the Jews’ idolatry and Egypt’s defeat – are intricately connected. The systems thinker is constantly asking how parts of the organization are affecting each other. Like a virus in a human body, an ‘insignificant’ problem in a remote part of the system cannot be ignored.”
— Handbook to Leadership: Leadership in the Image of God, Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell and Bill Perkins, pp. 570, 588, 629, 635, 642
“Confrontation is rarely, if ever, pleasant, but it is often needful. In 1 Corinthians 11:18–19, the Apostle Paul finds it most needful to confront the Corinthian church about the divisions and factions that are running rampant among them:
For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.
When sin is confronted and conflict results, there is opportunity for repentance and reconciliation. When sin goes unchecked because conflict is avoided, sin and unbelief are allowed to endanger the church. …
Over and over again, throughout the history of the church, needful conflicts have served the purpose of preserving the purity of the gospel. In the first century, needful conflict confronted the Judaizers and preserved the gospel of God’s redeeming grace from the error of works-righteousness. In the early fourth century, needful conflict confronted the errors of the Arians and the doctrine of Christ’s full divinity was preserved. In the early fifth century, needful conflict preserved the sovereign nature of God’s grace as Augustine confronted Pelagius. In the Reformation, needful conflict confronted many errors that had crept into the life of the church during the Middle Ages, including the corruption of worship, the sacraments, the role of the clergy, and the gospel itself.
These errors had to be confronted, and as a result, major conflicts erupted in the church. Many godly men lost their lives. Yet these conflicts were most needful to restore the church to spiritual health and vitality. As these errors were confronted and as godly men pressed through the conflicts, the true church was preserved, and those who were not genuine believers were exposed.
Conflicts may be unpleasant, but they are needful if we are to be faithful to Christ and seek to preserve the purity of His church. May God give us wisdom that we may discern when confrontation is needed and how to navigate the resulting conflicts in such a way that Christ is honored and His church preserved.”
— “Needful Conflict,” Tabletalk, March 2022, Vol. 46, No. 3, Roland S. Barnes
“Is God a God of infinite knowledge? Then there is comfort …
Comfort to the church of God in general. If God be a God of knowledge, he sees all the plots of the enemies against Zion, and can make them prove abortive. The wicked are subtile, having borrowed their skill from the old serpent; they dig deep, to hide their counsels from God, but he sees them, and can easily counterwork them. The dragon is described with seven heads in Rev xxii 3, to show how he plots against the church; but God is described with seven eyes in Zech iii 9, to show that he sees all the plots and stratagems of the enemies; and when they deal proudly, he can be above them. Come, says Pharaoh, ‘let us deal wisely,’ Exod i 10; but he never played the fool more than when he thought to deal wisely. Exod xiv 24. ‘In the morning watch the Lord looked to the host of the Egyptians by the pillar of fire, and troubled the host.’ How may this, like sap in the vine, comfort the church of God in her militant state! The Lord has an eye in all the councils and combinations of the enemy; he sees them in their train, and can blow them up in their own mine.”
— A Body of Divinity, Contained in Sermons upon the Westminster Assembly’s Catechism, on WSC Q.4, pp. 59-60