September 16 1996

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To stave off eviction, members of an Inglewood, California, church took to sleeping in the building and filing for bankruptcy protection in July as sheriff's marshals prepared to evict them. A structureless denomination is pitted against a small charismatic group in the battle for the $1.5 million property, the 14-year home of Lockhaven Christian Lighthouse Church.

"The specter of a secular government agency being employed to evict a congregation is a stench in God's nostrils," says Steven McFarland, director of the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "The heart of this seems to be dollars and cents, with a veneer of denominational principle." The congregation had previously been a part of the Churches of Christ (Campbellite) and in 1982 had borrowed $70,000 from the Christian Development Fund (CDF), a Church of Christ-affiliated lending association. Elders agreed to give CDF title to the property if the congregation strayed from Campbellite doctrine. A new, charismatic pastor, Anthony Sanders, arrived a month later. Sanders says Lockhaven has not changed its doctrines, and it paid off the loan in time.

Yet Brad Dupray, CDF executive vice president, says the loan payments are irrelevant. "We are prepared to go through with the eviction."

By Mark A. Kellner.