Summary
holding that "church authorities and such tribunals as they may set up for themselves are supreme in such matters. Their decision is final as to who shall be the pastor and other officers. Such disputes are ecclesiastical in their nature and the courts have no control over them."
Summary of this case from Pilgrim Rest Missionary v. WallaceOpinion
No. 33675.
April 24, 1939.
1. RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
Whether pastor and deacons supporting him should be permitted the use of Baptist Church after they had been excluded at an election held by the membership was an "ecclesiastical question" and not one for the civil courts.
2. RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
The church authorities and such tribunals as they may set up for themselves are supreme in ecclesiastical matters.
APPEAL from the chancery court of Neshoba county; HON. T.P. GUYTON, Chancellor.
W.T. Weir, of Philadelphia, for appellants.
While it is true that the courts will not undertake to settle doctrinal or theological questions or articles of faith of a church, yet the courts do take cognizance of property rights of the members of the church and their rights to exercise this right of worship as laid down by the rules of the church.
We respectfully submit that inasmuch as the church government was through its conference, and that its regular conference dates had been of long standing as of the Saturday before the first Sunday in each month, and had never been changed, that the alleged conference of 5th Sunday of August and Sept. 18th was not authorized and, therefore, their acts were void and not binding on the church. If it was void, then the locking the door against the pastor and the other members was also void and unauthorized.
23 R.C.L., page 438, sec. 16; 34 Cyc., pages 1128 (c); Sec. 4168, Code of 1930.
Before a member can be excluded they ought to have notice and excluding them without notice is void.
20 Am. Eng. Encyc. of Law, page 789; 34 Cyc. 1190; 23 R.C.L. 434.
Inasmuch as the pastor and his followers were preaching and following the old original doctrine of the Missionary Baptist Church they certainly are entitled to the right to preach in the church building as much, if not more than the persons who followed the modernistic theories wherein certain parts of the Bible accounts were criticized.
Mt. Helm Baptist Church v. Jones, 79 Miss. 488, 30 So. 714.
I am not unmindful of the fact that civil courts do not settle ecclesiastical questions of a church except where property rights are in question, yet in this case the property rights are in question. Here is a preacher called as pastor of the church, and a number of the members of the church including the deacons and the clerk that are forbidden to even go into the building except for funeral purposes. Now who has the right to control the property if the deacons do not have this right? They were elected and ordained as such deacons. If they are not members of the church, when did they become non-members and why?
According to the defendant's testimony they were excluded by the aforesaid conference on September 18, which evidently met without authority. If they were legally constituted they should have given them notice. We respectfully submit that they could not have even held a legal conference without some kind of notice.
34 Cyc. 1190; West Koshkonong Cong. v. Ottesen, 80 Wis. 62, 49 N.W. 24.
J.B. Hillman, of Philadelphia, for appellees.
The courts have repeatedly held in this state that they will not interfere with any ecclesiastical difference in the churches and that the Missionary Baptist Church is an independent body and has full authority of the management of its church affairs.
Windham v. Ulmer, 59 So. 110; Allen v. Rory, 67 So. 899; State ex rel. Johnson v. Tulane Avenue Baptist Church, 144 So. 639.
I submit that the learned chancellor was correct in his findings and submit that this cause should be affirmed.
This litigation is between two factions of the Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Neshoba county. The question involved is the use of the church building and its records for religious worship. Appellant, the Reverend Grantham, was the pastor in charge, and the other appellants, Hall, Willis, and Thompson, were the deacons. The Reverend Grantham "went Fundamentalist." The opposing and controlling faction in the membership had a meeting at which they discharged the Reverend Grantham as pastor because of the new doctrine and also the deacons named, who were his adherents, and elected in their stead the Reverend N.B. Nicholson, and appellees, Humphries and Ellis, Deacons, and Friory, clerk. The opposing faction thereupon took charge of the keys to the church and its records, and excluded Reverend Grantham from preaching therein. By their bill, the excluded faction seeks by a mandatory injunction the use of the church, including the right of Reverend Grantham to hold services therein. The chancellor dismissed the bill. From that decree, this appeal is prosecuted.
We reach the same conclusion the chancellor did. The question involved is ecclesiastical and not one for the civil courts. The church authorities and such tribunals as they may set up for themselves are supreme in such matters. Their decision is final as to who shall be the pastor and other officers. Such disputes are ecclesiastical in their nature and the courts have no control over them. Windham et al. v. Ulmer et al., 102 Miss. 491, 59 So. 810; Allen v. Roby, 109 Miss. 107, 67 So. 899; Edwards v. De Vance, 138 Miss. 580, 103 So. 194.
Mount Helm Baptist Church v. Jones, 79 Miss. 488, 30 So. 714, relied on by appellants, is not in point. In that case the majority faction in the church by declarations on its minutes severed its connection with the denomination to which it belonged and organized a new church, with a new faith, and elected new officers. The court held that the majority faction could no longer claim to be the church, whose faith it had repudiated, and had no right to the property donated to the old organization. The court took the jurisdiction upon that ground alone. We have no such state of facts here, nor their equivalent.
Affirmed.