In a rare decision, the church’s highest court has excommunicated a minister, declaring that he cannot be a member of the church or function as a minister until he repents of “his numerous offences” and is formally restored to the denomination.
Peikang Dai, a Chinese-born minister, received the church’s harshest censure after several years of battling the Presbyterian Church on issues of authority and submission to presbytery and other courts and making unfounded allegations of racism against the church and several individual clergy.
The decision was rendered by a special commission – a tribunal acting on behalf of and with the authority of General Assembly – after hearings in December, 2010. The decision cannot be appealed.
“It was a very difficult decision that the commission had to make, bringing the best possible solution to a very difficult issue,” said Rev. Wally Hong, convener of the commission which was appointed by the 2010 General Assembly. Hong’s commission was tasked with reviewing Dai’s appeal of a decision in 2009, where a synod commission found Dai guilty of conduct unbecoming of a minster, and deposed him, stripping him of his status as a minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church.
The GA commission “respectfully disagrees” with the lower court’s sentence, saying it had erred in applying deposition, which is only for heresy and gross moral misconduct, and stated that excommunication was the only proper censure available in the circumstances.
“The job of the commission was not only to look after the interest of the gospel and the church as a whole, but to protect the appellant’s interest as well,” stressed Hong. “The purpose of adjudicating is not necessarily to punish, but to bring all parties to a state of forgiveness and reconciliation.”
Dai was removed from the church for engaging “in a consistent pattern of refusing to submit to the lawful oversight of the courts of the Presbyterian Church in Canada,” following “a consistent pattern of divisive and disruptive conduct unbecoming a minister of word and sacrament.”
“The appellant’s actions showed him to be impenitent and contemptuously resistant to correcting his actions and attitudes,” the commission said. “As a result, the special commission sadly concluded that the only correct censure for Mr. Dai is excommunication, the denomination’s highest censure … The censure, which casts Mr. Dai out of the communion of the church, is imposed with the prayer that Mr. Dai will repent of his ways, and that restoration will yet follow.”
“He labours under utter torture and arrogance,” said Rev. Daniel Cho, convener of the synod commission that dealt with Dai’s first complaint of racism. “All along the way, the church has been patient and kind, and has given him the fullest degree of pastoral care … But all along, he has shown an utter disrespect to people and the courts, and that was deeply offensive to us … [The church] has been open to listening to him again and again, and he hasn’t made his case to us, to synod, to presbytery and even to the human rights tribunal.
“It’s not about racism. It’s about him. And he refuses to acknowledge it.”
Dai filed several complaints of racial discrimination against various branches and members of the Presbyterian Church with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. All charges have been dismissed. (See timeline on pg. 10.)
“It’s really tragic,” said Rev. Tim Purvis, minister at Westview, Toronto, and the one who laid formal complaints against Dai with the Presbytery of East Toronto. “So many people have tried to work reasonably and be pastoral in dealing with Mr. Dai, but he has resisted every effort. This was a last resort because we tried everything else.”
“I still hope this will be resolved through the international Christian community,” Dai told the Record. “But if it is not resolved, it will force me to go back to the human rights tribunal. I will persevere, and will be persistent to see systemic discrimination addressed in our denomination.”
“We always hope and pray that the end result of any discipline within the church will be reconciliation and ultimately a return to the church family and the restoration to wholeness of the Body of Christ,” said Rev. Stephen Kendall, the church’s principal clerk.
