Christ Church in Savannah has always been locally owned. The church has never received financial support from the national organization. Savannahians paid for the construction of the church and the payment of its clergy.<\/p>\n
A vote of the church membership – in the wake of serious doctrinal issues reaching even the unequivocal divinity of Christ – resulted in the separation of the local congregation from the national group.<\/p>\n
The Episcopal Church, with the help of Superior Court Judge Michael Karpf, has seized property it neither paid for nor maintained in more than 275 years.<\/p>\n
In any other circumstance, such an abrogation of the local congregation’s property rights would not be tolerated. That the seizure was carried out by religious leaders who have strayed from ironclad biblical teaching makes the heavy-handed action by both church and state that much harder to countenance.<\/p>\n