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News & Events
Coming soon! The Presbyterian Advocacy Coalition is hosting a podcast about the tragic and lost-lasting effects of wrongful excommunication of abuse victims. More details soon! Stay tuned!
To be posted shortly! More information on the meeting of the Presbytery of the Southeast from Feb 28-
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Meeting Report
The Presbytery of the Southeast of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church held a meeting on February 28, 2025, to deal with matters concerning allegations against Rev. Boyd Miller.
Advocate Noelle Wells attended the meeting with three of Miller’s victims and their relatives and friends. This is her summary of events.
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The meeting began with a presbyter making a motion to adopt a structure for the meeting. This presbyter suggested that the meeting begin with the Shepherding Committee giving a report, followed by a period of questions for the Shepherding Committee and Boyd. Afterwards the victims would be given up to 20 minutes each to give statements. Another presbyter made a motion to permit the husband of an anonymous victim permission to speak in the meeting on account of his ordination in the SBC. Both these things were approved without much controversy. The end goal of the meeting was to vote for the moderator to establish a committee of five presbyters to contemplate charges against Mr. Miller. This committee would complete their report for the stated meeting this coming April. Jim Channell made a motion to allow the five elder-elects from covenant to participate in the meeting. This motion was not successful on the premise that they were not yet officers. Jim Channell then asked if they could make statements.The ruling was made that Boyd could give them some of his time if they wanted to speak on his behalf.
The Shepherding Committee gave a brief update, mainly sharing the interactions that had happened since the abbreviated report was given to the presbytery. It was emphasized that the initial purpose of the committee was to pastor the session through this issue, not to be an investigative body. However, the members of the Shepherding Committee frequently used the language of investigation. Questions were asked regarding which report was given to which body. It was established that the congregation at Covenant and the presbytery were given identical reports that differed from the original. It seemed that the report in question was deemed to have too much info. Names were removed, and it was simplified. To what extent? I do not know. The rationale for this was that the report belonged to the session of Covenant.
The committee was then asked whether there was mention of witnesses and if so did the committee follow up with the witnesses? Nathan Trice answered ambiguously, saying they had no need to further corroborate what they already knew. It was then noted by one presbyter that it was shocking that a preliminary investigation was done and that their conclusion was that this was not serious enough to immediately include the presbytery at large. Hank Belfield defended this by saying that they did nothing because of the two year statute of limitations, and they did not deem any of the accusations serious enough for a judiciary.
