“Our response? Spend millions of dollars and hours of work to decide who else we can exclude.”
It has been my sad experience in representing churches opting out of hierarchical denominations, that the denominations don’t really care since the assets of the churches belong to the denominations. They just sell the assets and fund the pensions of the “purple”.
Machen tried to fight off the liberals in the old PC US, didn’t work and the OPC was born. Only catch was they lost their grand old churches to the liberals.
Fast forward to the 1960s/70s and the PC US merged with the more conservative old Southern Presbyterians. The PCA was born out of that merger. PCA churches lost their buildings.
The PCA is set up so that the local congregation owns the building, not the denomination. I think that helps keep things in check.
You would think that the title would go to the people who paid off the mortgage. To me when a denomination makes the congregation responsible for purchasing and maintaining the property, that the title should inure to the purchaser. I think I learned something like that in law school. But the brain cells that held that information back then have left the building.