Baptist Joint Committee Appoints New Executive Director

In a press release issued earlier this week, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty announced that it has chosen Amanda R. Tyler as its next executive director. She will replace Brent Walker who is retiring.  The Baptist Joint Committee is a D.C.-based advocacy group that promotes both religious liberty and separation of church and state.

Kansas City Sued Over Tourism Grant To Baptist Convention

A lawsuit was filed last week by the American Atheists challenging a grant that had been approved by the Kansas City, Missouri City Council to support the National Baptist Convention that will be hosted in Kansas City in September.  According to the complaint (full text) in American Atheists, Inc. v. City of Kansas City, Missouri, (WD MO, filed 7/22/2016), a grant of $65,000 from the city's Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund was to fund shuttle bus transportation for convention delegates from their hotels to convention site. The complaint alleges that the grant violates the Establishment Clause and equal protection clause of the federal Constitution as well as the "no aid" clause of the Missouri Constitution. Plaintiffs also filed a motion (full text) for a preliminary injunction. An American Atheist press release announced the lawsuit. Reuters reports on the suit.

Court Refuses To Apply Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine

In Jackson v. Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church Deacon Board, (IL App., June 30, 2016), an Illinois state appeals court refused to apply the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine in a breach of contract suit by a pastor who employment was terminated by his church.  The pastor contended that the church had agreed that his employment would be governed by the church's bylaws.  The court held:

[P]laintiff alleges that defendants failed to (1) provide a written notice of dissatisfaction; (2) hold a special meeting; (3) provide notice of a vote to the members; and (4) have a proper membership vote. To resolve this dispute, we need only look to the plain text of the church’s bylaws and the relevant facts to determine whether or not defendants breached their oral agreement by failing to comply with its bylaws. Since we need not inquire into any religious doctrines, and can address this issue employing neutral principles of civil law, we have jurisdiction to decide whether defendants breached their oral agreement with plaintiff.

The court went on to agree with the trial court's finding that defendants were completely compliant with the bylaws in dismissing the pastor.

In Liberia, Court Orders Sale of Seminary To Satisfy Amounts Owed To Fired President [UPDATED]

All Africa on Wednesday reported on the latest installment in the litigation in Liberia between Dr. Lincoln S. Brownell, the former president of Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Seminary.  Brownell was removed as president in 2007.  In 2013 he brought suit in Liberia's National Labour Court seeking damages for his removal, and the court awarded him $300,000 (US). In 2014, the Labour Court ordered the Seminary shut down, and now the Labour Court has issued a writ of execution on the property of the Seminary so Brownell can obtain the amounts due him under the court award. The writ calls for the sale of the real and personal property of the Seminary to realize the $300,000.  The writ calls for the arrest of the president of the Seminary if property cannot be found.

UPDATE: Front Page Africa (June 19) reported that Liberia's Supreme Court has issued a writ of prohibition preventing the sale of Seminary properties after evidence was introduced that the $300,000 had been paid.  The court immediately sent a team of sheriffs to reopen the Seminary.

Alabama Supreme Court Upholds Preliminary Injunction In Church Election Case

Ex parte Cornell L. Tatum, Sr.,  (AL Sup. Ct., July 10, 2015), is a mandamus action-- essentially an interlocutory appeal-- in a suit in which members of a Baptist Church sued seeking an order to require deacons of the church to abide by a vote of church members ousting them from their positions. The trial court issued a preliminary injunction barring the deacons from "undertaking any act as a member of [the board] of [the church] including any participation in Deacon
meetings or performing any duties or responsibilities of a deacon while this order is in effect." The deacons petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus ordering the trial court to vacate its order for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Alabama Supreme Court in a summary order denied the petition.

While there was no opinion for the court, Justice Parker wrote an opinion concurring specially, saying in part:

I write specially to emphasize that a circuit court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to apply judicial notions of due process to church proceedings when the highest adjudicatory body of a church decides a purely ecclesiastical matter.  Additionally, I write to note that a circuit court may recognize a decision by the highest adjudicatory body of a church concerning a purely ecclesiastical matter and, based on that decision, enjoin persons from taking unauthorized actions on behalf of the church....

Admittedly, however, it is unclear whether the April 20, 2014, vote constituted a decision by the highest adjudicatory body of the church. In a Baptist church, the majority of the congregation is the highest adjudicatory body, unless the church bylaws provide otherwise.... This lack of clarity, however, does not require that this Court grant the petitioners' petition..... The petitioners have not demonstrated that the April 20, 2014, meeting was not a decision by the highest adjudicatory body of the church. Accordingly, the petitioners have failed to demonstrate a clear legal right to the relief sought.

Chief Justice Moore filed a dissenting opinion, arguing in part that "any decision by the circuit court regarding the ability of the petitioners to serve as deacons in the church necessarily requires the court to resolve a number of antecedent issues that are inextricably intertwined with church governance." He added:

A court's involvement in a religious matter is not sanitized merely because the court purports to ratify, rather than annul, a church's decision. What violates church autonomy is not the substance of the court's ultimate determination, but the judiciary's very participation in the intra-church conflict.

Justice Murdock filed a brief dissent based on failure to join necessary parties. 

New Ukraine Acting President Turchynov Is Baptist Pastor

Christianity Today reports that Ukraine's new Acting President who took office on Sunday is not only a well-respected opposition politician, but is also a Baptist pastor. BBC reports that the interim President, Olexander Turchynov, was the top aide to former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko (who was imprisoned by the now ousted President Viktor Yanukovych). Turchynov preaches regularly at one of the Baptist churches in Kiev. In an article today, Religion News Service speculates:

Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov is neither Ukrainian Orthodox nor Eastern Rite Catholic, and that may be the key to his success at a time when fissures between East and West are threatening to split the country,