An Arkansas congregation is trying to fight back after it says its historic church was stolen from them by a “slum bishop.”
A more than 100-year-old church building in Crossett, Arkansas, is at the center of a fierce battle between two different congregations, with one saying the building was stolen from them by a preacher who took advantage of an elderly secretary, according to a report from KATV.
The church, built in 1915 and since the 1970s known as Allen Temple CME Church, has a new leader and a new name under Bishop Earnest Smith, though not everyone is happy about it.
The dispute began in 2019, when leader Allen Temple CME said the church had to close its doors for about a year while waiting for another minister.
That’s when Smith, who had just started his own ministry the year before, asked if he could rent out the building, according to CME leader Temple Allen.
But Bishop Smith has since refused to hand over the building despite pleas from his former congregation, even going so far as to change the locks.
Bishop Earnest Smith refused to hand over the building despite appeals from his former congregation. Earnest Smith / Facebook
“This is what you call mortgage burning,” Claudelle Smith, a trustee from Allen Temple CME Church, told KATV. “At the moment, we don’t have a key to enter it.”
The church, formerly owned by Allen Temple CME, now has a new sign out front and a new name, Temple of Faith Ministries, while former congregants are left to fight for a building they believe is theirs.
“It has been going on for too long. It was time for him to go. We have changed our keys many times, and he [comes] log back in and just [takes] finished. He said he won’t go. But you’re going, Earnest Smith,” Rekandria Leach, another Allen Temple CME member, told KATV.
Former congregants begged Smith to give up the building but he refused to do so. Earnest Smith / Facebook
Leach said the arrangement between Bishop Smith and Allen Temple CME is off to a good start.
However, when it came time for Smith to sign a new lease with the church, Leach said he refused.
“He rented it for $200 for a year, and after the year was up, we agreed, and he was supposed to pay $400 in rent. He didn’t want to sign another lease or anything,” Leach said.
The church now has a new name and is signed on the front called Temple of Faith Ministries. Google Street View
Reached for comment by Fox News Digital on the Temple of Faith Ministries Facebook page, a church representative said the allegations made by Allen Temple CME members were “lies.”
Asked to explain the situation, the church refused to comment further.
But speaking to KATV, Bishop Smith detailed a different version of events, telling the station that he “wouldn’t do that” and that he paid Allen Temple CME $200 a month for about three years.
He said the Allen Tempe CME Church secretary, Faye Pam, gave him the impression that the lease arrangement was temporary and that the building would eventually be given to his ministry.
An Allen Temple CME member said when it came time for Bishop Earnest Smith to sign a new lease with the church — he refused. Earnest Smith / Facebook
“He said, ‘We’ll probably give you the building because we’re not going to use it.’ He said, ‘Because I know you.’ I said, ‘OK.’ I said, ‘Thank you’ – very excited. We pay. We have never been squatters. We paid him all this money, and we have proof that we paid him that money,” Bishop Smith said.
“He said, ‘You guys can have it but let me talk to my people in Little Rock.’ He kept telling us about the people in Little Rock. I think the people in Little Rock are CME. He came to serve one Sunday. He went back to service the other Sunday, so I asked him, ‘Hey, Sister Pam, have you talked to your people?’ [and she said,] ‘Oh yes, we’re going, Pastor, don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.’ That’s what he said.”
Bishop Smith also disputed that the payments made to Allen Temple CME amounted to rent, arguing instead that they were made for an insurance policy to cover the building.
It was only last year that Pam contacted him about the lease agreement.
“I called him. I said, ‘We need a commercial lease with the right one [people’s] name on lease; not only you, not only you,’” Bishop Smith said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
