Congregation goes to court to get back into church

A congregation locked out of its church in an acrimonious dispute over the appointment of homosexual ministers has taken court action to get back into its place of worship.

About 200 families connected with the Otahuhu Tongan Methodist Congregation in Fairburn Rd, Otahuhu, dissociated themselves from the New Zealand Methodist Church in 1999 after the church hierarchy decided to allow practising homosexuals to become ministers.

As a result of the increasingly bitter argument, they found themselves locked out of the church they had helped to raise $900,000 to build.

Meanwhile, a small section of the congregation who did not go along with the dissenting majority was allowed to use the church.

In the High Court at Auckland yesterday, lawyer Rod Hooker asked Justice Mark O'Regan to let the majority congregation back into the church pending a full court hearing.

He said the Tongan Methodist Church community joined the NZ Methodist Church in 1983/84, although with some misgivings.

It is claimed that the Tongans were assured their churches would remain their property - something denied by the church's lawyer, David Smith.

Mr Hooker told the judge that at no stage in raising the money for the church in 1993 was it ever contemplated that the land and church property would be owned by the NZ Methodist Church.

He told the judge that his clients considered the decision to allow homosexuals to practise as ministers to be contrary to church doctrine and the teaching of the founder, John Wesley.

The Methodist Church had walked away from church doctrine, he said, but his clients were not going to let them walk away with their church and their property.

Mr Smith told the judge that there was no evidence as to who the two plaintiffs, Viliami Palu and Viliami 'Akau'olo, represented - although Justice O'Regan noted that the gallery was packed with 70 of their supporters.

Mr Smith said the plaintiffs did not claim that they and their supporters had put up all the money for the church.

He said that when the church was bought, the congregation was part of the Methodist Church of NZ.

The only possible expectation they could have had was that the church would be held in the name of the NZ Methodist Church for its uses. The claim that people were shocked to find that was so "cannot have any credence."

Asked by the judge why the church was taking such a hard-nosed attitude in locking out the congregation, Mr Smith said that there had been harmony and agreement with other congregations who wished to secede, and churches were even shared.

But the dispute over Fairburn Rd had been marked by "threats and bullying."

"The church has decided it must make a stand," he said.

Mr Smith said people who had left the church had lost their rights within it.

The church had an obligation to look after its own members, those who continued to worship at the church, he said.

John Wesley had never said anything about homosexuals being appointed to the ministry and there had been no breach or alteration of church doctrine.

Justice O'Regan reserved his decision.