{"id":3859,"date":"2007-11-16T14:15:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-16T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html"},"modified":"2007-11-16T14:15:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-16T14:15:00","slug":"judge-determines-church-is-a-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html","title":{"rendered":"Judge determines church is a marital asset"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh. My. Heck! This<\/a> is all kinds of evil! That church belongs to the members of the church, it doesn’t belong to the pastor. I don’t care how much money he stole from the congregation:<\/p>\n

The estranged wife of a pastor claims her husband blended his professional and personal finances so thoroughly that his church should be counted as an asset in their divorce.
\nA judge agreed in a decision published this week to hear arguments on the claim, and he ordered a financial appraisal of the church. Lawyers said it could represent the first time anyone in New York state has tried to treat a religious institution as a marital asset.
\nThe wife argues that her husband of 31 years used his Brooklyn church as a “personal piggy bank,” setting his own income, spending the congregation’s tithes as he pleased and running a catering business from the building, according to the decision by state Supreme Court Judge Arthur M. Diamond. The couple’s names were redacted from the decision.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh. My. Heck! This is all kinds of evil! That church belongs to the members of the church, it doesn’t belong to the pastor. I don’t care how much money he stole from the congregation: The estranged wife of a pastor claims her husband blended his professional and personal finances so thoroughly that his church…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[419,182,94,11],"class_list":["post-3859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-under-the-sun","tag-christianity","tag-church-and-state","tag-human-depravity","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nJudge determines church is a marital asset - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Judge determines church is a marital asset - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oh. My. Heck! This is all kinds of evil! That church belongs to the members of the church, it doesn’t belong to the pastor. I don’t care how much money he stole from the congregation: The estranged wife of a pastor claims her husband blended his professional and personal finances so thoroughly that his church…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-16T14:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"michele\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Judge determines church is a marital asset - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Judge determines church is a marital asset - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","og_description":"Oh. My. Heck! This is all kinds of evil! That church belongs to the members of the church, it doesn’t belong to the pastor. I don’t care how much money he stole from the congregation: The estranged wife of a pastor claims her husband blended his professional and personal finances so thoroughly that his church…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html","og_site_name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","article_published_time":"2007-11-16T14:15:00+00:00","author":"michele","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html","name":"Judge determines church is a marital asset - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-11-16T14:15:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-11-16T14:15:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/8de1e1f06613d0c6f3bd8a276ac94ab0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/11\/judge-determines-church-is-a-m.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Judge determines church is a marital asset"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/","name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","description":"Politics and current events from a Reformed perspective, by Michele McGinty","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/8de1e1f06613d0c6f3bd8a276ac94ab0","name":"michele","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"michele"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/author\/michele"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}