LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A suggestion that conservative churches withhold funds from the denomination has led to a Presbyterian activist being stripped of his ministry.

According to the Washington Post, a Presbyterian Church USA task force recommended the Rev. Parker T. Williamson be placed on "inactive status" by the Western North Carolina Presbytery.

Williamson is executive director of the Lenoir, N.C.-based Presbyterian Lay Committee and editor of its newspaper, The Layman.

On Oct. 18, the Lay Committee adopted a "Declaration of Conscience" urging churches to "prayerfully consider" withholding contributions because of denomination policies on homosexuality and theological divisions, the newspaper reported.

Presbytery officials said they were concerned about the Lay Committee, not Williamson specifically.

"It isn't Parker. It is the ministry in which he is engaged," Mary Atkinson, who chaired the task force, told the Presbyterian News Service.

If the presbytery's Committee on Ministry and the full presbytery agree when they meet Jan. 31, the Post reported, Williamson would become an inactive member and would lose his "rights of voice and vote at presbytery meetings."

He would be stripped of his ordination and his name deleted from presbytery rolls if he remains inactive for three years.

"Presbyterians who care more about institutional preservation than constitutional integrity have won a short-term skirmish in a battle that is wider than they can imagine," said Williamson, who did not attend the meeting.