PicoBlog

On April 12, the Alabama Supreme Court rejected an appeal to dismiss a suit filed by Harvest Church in Dothan, AL against its annual conference and the General Council on Finance and Administration of The United Methodist Church.

The disaffiliation saga of The United Methodist Church has been taking place in earnest for the last couple of years. It is the latest in a series of mainline protestant denominations that has suffered a hostile takeover from religious leftists. It involves the enforcement of first amendment rights either for denominational entities or for local churches. It involves property law, neutral principles law, and the United Methodist Book of Discipline.

This is ground that is somewhat well-trod for PlainSpoken. I have covered legal developments in Oklahoma, Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California. While the National Center for Life and Liberty and Dan Dalton are the main lawyers litigating on behalf of churches, Lloyd Lunceford has been a mainstay in this area of law in America for some time. I would direct you to my interview with him to learn about the intricacies of this area of law. His is the primary firm recommended by the heads of conservative caucus groups in the UMC.

It just so happens that Lunceford’s firm is representing Harvest Church of Dothan, Alabama. It was roughly a year ago when the leadership of Harvest Church filed suit against the Alabama-West Florida Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church (AWFC). They sued for the issuance of a document renouncing all claim to ownership of the Harvest Church property. They also filed against the denomination’s General Council on Finance & Administration (GCFA), which has some potentially large implications.

In the landscape of American law, cases like this potentially overturn old legal precedent and establish new norms. Until now, different states have generally skewed in favor of denominations having power over unwilling local churches, especially when a trust clause is in place, as it is in The United Methodist Church. Even so, some states, like Texas, actually favor local churches, which is why the churches that the Rio Texas Annual Conference have been faring so well. My most comprehensive reporting has actually been on that conference, so you might consider my work on them for a better sense of depth here.

In general, the higher a case goes in the different state and federal levels, the more power it has to set new legal precedent. The Harvest Church case started in the Houston Circuit Court. According to the Supreme Court of Alabama’s documentation, Harvest Church, “sought a judgment declaring that the AWFC and the GCFA lack any legally cognizable interest in real or personal property held by Harvest ("the local church property") as well as injunctive relief preventing the AWFC and the GCFA from interfering with Harvest's use, ownership, or control of the local church property.” The conference and GCFA filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming they were protected by ecclesiastical abstention doctrine (see my interview with Lunsford with analysis of that issue). They also argued that GCFA should not be party to this suit. The trial court did not find the conference’s arguments compelling and denied their motions.

The presiding judge, Christopher K. Richardson, determined that the church had standing to file suit. Now that the Supreme Court has refused to intervene, the case reverts back to his trial court.

Unsatisfied with the ruling of the circuit court last year, AWFC and GCFA petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus, which I understand to be a higher court telling a lower court to do their job or, in this case, to stop interfering in religious freedom issues for a denomination. After consideration, all seven justices of the court ruled: “we conclude that the AWFC and the GCFA have not met their burden of demonstrating a clear legal right to have the complaint against them dismissed. Accordingly, we deny the petition."

So does the church have standing to file against the annual conference and the general council? Yes, according to the Alabama Supreme Court. The justices ruled unanimously, 7-0, that the case would not revert back to the county court. From the court document: “we express no view on the merits of Harvest's action. Instead, this action will continue in the trial court for further proceedings.” They will now be entering a period in which depositions can be held and motions for discovery can be filed.

You may or may not know that I am a big fan of the discovery process. United Methodist bishops and conference staff are widely known to be quite unprofessional, and often unholy, in their private conduct. Annual conferences are very often negligent in their financial practices and reporting. It is only in the discovery process that these things, otherwise kept in darkness, can be exposed to the light. One of the most upsetting things is when courts rule that things exposed in discovery are to be kept confidential, as in the case of Georgia, when discovery yielded shameful behavior on the part of Sue Haupert-Johnson and her staff. Though the particulars remain concealed in that case, more was revealed about Haupert-Johnson and her staff in the 200 pages of transcript from the 2023 Cobb County case that resulted in the conference being forced to abide by ¶2553.

One might also recall that the Alabama-West Florida Annual Conference has been unfair in its treatment of unhappy churches who waited too long to disaffiliate. The first rounds of disaffiliations went through, but when it became clear that more were wanting to leave than was anticipated, the exit doors were effectively shut. As it stands, half the conference was still able to get out. Bishop David Graves, the head of the conference, promised more than once that he would help churches get where they needed to go. It remains a mystery how it is that his promises have not been fulfilled. Rather, at this point, the hope of many hinges upon the success of Harvest Church in court. If they prevail against AWFC, this could potentially provide exit options to those dozens or hundreds of churches that are currently trapped.

As it stands, the case is now being sent back to the Houston Circuit Court, where both AWFC and GCFA will go through a period of depositions and discovery. Harvest Church and their head pastor, Rev. Ralph Sigler, are optimistic about the likelihood of a favorable outcome for them and, by extension, other churches that will be seeking exit from The United Methodist Church.

For its part, the United Methodist denomination has closed the doors for all exits. Its only provision for disaffiliation, ¶2553, expired at the end of 2023. Central Conferences can disaffiliate as a whole, but there are no provisions for individual church disaffiliations at this point. A few annual conferences have utilized ¶2549, which closes churches and sells them to someone else, as a workaround. It is uncertain if this provision will continue to be used in this way. The UMC’s General Conference, meeting this week, could hypothetically approve a new provision for disaffiliation. Antipathy towards churches that want to disaffiliate, however, is high. Many in authority seem to be of the mind that those who are unhappy in the fold of the UMC should walk away without their buildings or assets. The declining denomination seems bent on slowly liquidating its assets to stay afloat, rather than allowing their assets to depart with unhappy congregations.

I am no legal expert, so I cannot speak to the merits of the case. I have spoken to the moral nature of this conflict, the implications of an institution being willing to coercively restrict local churches. I think the soul of the UMC is very sick as it considers depriving congregations of their assets. It does seem worthy of note that when Harvest Church was formed, they intentionally did not adopt the trust clause of the UMC. Thus far, the UMC has been able to successfully argue in court that the language of the trust clause doesn’t need to actually be in the the real estate documents of local churches in order to be in effect: that the mere membership of a local church in a UM annual conference is sufficient to establish the dynamic of a trust. It would seem that particular argument is what may be reexamined and overturned.

The naming of GCFA, the denomination’s finance agency, in this suit also seems significant to me. The denomination has been set up in such a way that denominational entities can have maximum power and minimum accountability. The setup is supposed to be that the highest a suit can climb will be an individual annual conference. When a general agency is implicated in a legal action, the wellbeing of the whole denomination is at stake. GCFA has argued in the trial court that they are not a proper party to the action. The trial court disagreed. The writ of mandamus was partly an attempt from GCFA and AWFC to compel the trial court to dismiss GCFA as a party in the suit. The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the trial court’s inclusion of GCFA. This could bode badly for the agency.

“We’re very happy with the unanimous State Supreme Court ruling, and look forward to continuing the case,” said Harvest Church founding Pastor Ralph Sigler in an email to AL.com. “We look forward to demonstrating that Harvest Church property belongs to Harvest church without any hindrance.”

By continuing to use coercive force against local churches, utilizing the musculature of denominational infrastructure and assets built by generations of faithful believers against their modern day descendants, the current leadership of The United Methodist Church is gambling with the long term and short term viability of the denomination. Had the UMC chosen to more graciously allow for local churches to leave, they would not be looking at all of these lawsuits that risk the financial and legal wellbeing of the denomination.

Unless a new provision is adopted to replace ¶2553, which expired at the end of 2023, there will be many more lawsuits following this one. My prayers today are that God makes a way for peaceful hearts and a rebuke of worldly coercion in the UMC. I think anything else will result in a great deal more suffering.

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