Ellensburg, Washington, Church Uses Police to Bar Former Attendees, Couple Says

Ellensburg police delivered a trespass warning on Dec. 14 to Albert and Aimee Anderson, who attended the Ellensburg Christian & Missionary Alliance Church occasionally. According to a police report and the Andersons, the warning said church elders planned to have police escort them off church property if they set foot on it.

The Andersons said the matter could have been handled without police involvement. Albert Anderson, 72, a former pastor of the Ellensburg Assembly of God Church, and his wife, 66, said no legal statute had been violated. Albert said most churches seek a healthy separation of church and state and accused the CMA church of misusing civil authority. He also said the police should have stayed out of church affairs. “They used the police department to take care of internal affairs,” he said. “It’s an abuse of police power. Everyone in town could use a trespass warning to order everyone else off their property.”

Police Chief Bob Richey said his department delivered a standard trespass warning, which is part of a property owner’s right to control who enters, even when the owner is a church. He said police require a reasonable belief that the person receiving the warning will set foot on the property. In the Andersons’ case, he said, there was also a belief that their presence might cause a disruption among the congregation. “In handling these types of incidences, we seek voluntary compliance,” Richey said. He said officers would not arrest the Andersons if they walked on church land, and that the worst-case outcome would be a citation and release. “We recognize it is a sensitive issue and especially involving church and government,” he said. “We handled it like any other criminal trespass complaint.”

The Andersons said they did not receive a letter telling them to stop attending before the Dec. 14 police visit. A letter arrived on Dec. 18. It said church elders had informed them that they were not welcome in the church unless they confessed their “sin of rebellion” against the elders, their pastor Tim Owen, the Pacific Northwest District and the National Office of the CM&A. The letter also said they had attended the worship service the previous Sunday, Dec. 9, 2001, without having made that confession. Confession was set as the condition for their return, a matter of reconciliation at the center of the dispute (Romans 12:18).

The Andersons said they had also received an earlier letter in October. That letter said, “We consider you to be out of the fellowship. Though you attend occasionally, you have rebelled against the leadership of the church, namely the elders.” It did not specifically tell them to stop attending, but it did tell them to cease divisive actions. The October letter was written before a self-published book by the Andersons that made several accusations against the church’s leaders.

The Andersons say the conflict began with a rift between Owen and youth pastor George Travis. Travis was dismissed from the pastoral staff, and the Andersons and some others apparently befriended him. Aimee Anderson said that move drew Owen’s ire. The Andersons registered several complaints about the dismissal with the CMA hierarchy. In fall 2001 they self-published a book, “A Generation of Vipers,” about troubles in several Northwest churches, including the Ellensburg CMA Church. The references to the Ellensburg church make several accusations about Owen’s behavior.

Source: Read the original report