Suit Challenges Church's Attempt To Reform Sinners

Today's Dallas (Texas) Morning News reports on a fascinating suit winding it way through Texas state courts. Two individuals, identified only as John Doe and Jane Roe, told the pastor of Dallas' Watermark Community Church about certain sins they had committed, thinking the conversation was confidential. However church officials began a process of "care and correction" that they say is outlined in the Biblical book of Matthew. The process involves confronting the person one to one, and then increasingly going more public with the person's behavior until the person changes his or her conduct. Here Doe refused the private interventions and resigned from the church, but Watermark's bylaws say a member "may not resign from membership in an attempt to avoid such care and correction." As the church was about to send more than a dozen letters to people inside and outside the church who know "John Doe", Doe filed suit for an injunction to prevent the release of private information. At first the court granted a temporary restraining order, but it was dissolved when the church argued that the TRO violated its free exercise rights. Now the case is on appeal.