Crowder v. Southern Baptist Convention

• Decision Date: 28 September 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-8386,86-8386
• Citation: 828 F.2d 718
• Parties: Robert S. CROWDER, Julia J. Crowder and Henry C. Cooper, Plaintiffs-Appellants, H. Allan McCartney, Intervenor, v. SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION and Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 718

828 F.2d 718

Robert S. CROWDER, Julia J. Crowder and Henry C. Cooper Plaintiffs-Appellants H. Allan McCartney, Intervenor, v. SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION and Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 86-8386.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Sept. 28, 1987.

Jane F. Vehko, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiffs-appellants.

James P. Guenther, Guenther & Jordan, Nashville, Tenn., Perry E. Pearce, King & Spalding, Griffin B. Bell, Richard A. Schneider, J. Warren Ott, Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before KRAVITCH and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges, and TUTTLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

Among the separation of church and state principles required by the establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment is that courts may not adjudicate ecclesiastical disputes. In this case, we examine the contours of this prohibition in deciding whether the district court erred in concluding that it could not, consistent with the first amendment, adjudicate a dispute concerning a parliamentary ruling at the 1985 Southern Baptist Convention.

I

In June 1985, more than 45,000 baptists who had been elected as "messengers" by their local congregations converged in Dallas, Texas, for the 1985 Southern Baptist Convention ¹ (1985 Convention). Among the business at the 1985 Convention was the election of members to the Committee on Boards, Commissions, and Standing Committees (Committee on Boards); the body responsible for nominating members to the various Southern Baptist Covention (SBC) institutions that administer the SBC's assets and annual budget.

In accordance with SBC bylaws, ² the SBC Committee on Committees submitted a slate of nominations for the Committee on Boards for consideration by the floor of the 1985 Convention. When SBC President and 1985 Convention Chairman Dr. Charles Stanley opened the floor for discussion of the nominations, Messenger Slatton moved to "amend" the Committee on Committees' slate of nominations by substituting a new slate of candidates. Chairman Stanley ruled that Messenger Slatton could not offer an entire slate of candidates at once and that he would have to move to amend the Committee's nominations one by one by referring to specific individuals. When he realized that this ruling would greatly impair his ability to present the reasons supporting the substitution of a new slate of candidates, ³ Messenger Slatton appealed the chair's ruling to the floor of the convention. The messengers voted to overrule the chair and allow the floor to vote for all of Messenger Slatton's nominees at one time. The 1985 Convention then adjourned until the evening session.

When the evening session convened, Chairman Stanley ruled that Messenger Slatton's motion was out of order because SBC bylaw sixteen states that members to the Committee on Boards "shall be nominated to the Convention by the Committee on Committees." The 1985 Convention parliamentarian explained that this bylaw does not permit any motion from the floor of the convention to amend the list of nominations received from the Committee on Committees because the word "shall" indicates that the Committee on Committees is exclusively responsible for such nominations. Chairman Stanley then refused to recognize several messengers attempting to raise points of order, and called for a vote on the Committee on Committees' nominations. The nominations were approved by a majority of messengers.

Appellants Robert S. Crowder, Sr., Julia J. Crowder, H. Allan McCartney and Henry C. Cooper were duly certified and registered messengers to the 1985 Convention. Appellants Robert and Julia Crowder petitioned the SBC Executive Committee both in writing and in person through counsel to urge the Executive Committee to use its "ad interim" authority ⁴ to correct Chairman Stanley's allegedly erroneous rulings and to take appropriate action with respect to the Committee on Boards. The Executive Committee considered appellants' petition and affirmed the election of the Committee on Boards because "[w]hatever mistakes might have occurred in Dallas with reference to interpretation of the bylaws is history. To seek to re-do or un-do an action of the Southern Baptist Convention will accomplish no positive good." The Executive Committee adopted the recommendations of the Executive Committee Bylaws Workgroup indicating, inter alia: (1) that messengers control the SBC within the SBC's procedures; (2) that the messengers at the 1985 Convention elected the nominees of the Committee on Committees; (3) that the Committee on Committee's nominees for the Committee on Boards would, in the opinion of the Executive Committee, have been elected even if the nominees offered from the floor had been voted upon; (4) that messengers to the 1986 Convention will have an opportunity to erase any influence of the Committee on Boards elected at the 1985 Convention by rejecting the committee's nominations from the floor of the 1986 Convention; and (5) that the polity of the SBC gives the Executive Committee the power to render moot any procedural defects in the election of the Committee on Boards at the 1985 Convention by affirming the election. ⁵

The Crowder appellants and appellant Cooper then brought this diversity action against appellees, ⁶ the Southern Baptist Convention and the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. Appellants sought a declaration as to the proper construction of the bylaws in question; ⁷ a declaration that Chairman Stanley's rulings were invalid; ⁸ and a declaration that the members of the Committee on Boards selected at the 1985 Convention were without authority to serve in that capacity. ⁹ In addition, appellants sought to enjoin appellees from violating the declaratory judgments and from permitting the members of the Committee on Boards elected at the 1985 Convention from serving in that capacity.

Appellees filed a motion to dismiss alleging that the federal court lacked jurisdiction due to insufficiency of the amount in controversy, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1332(a), and that the court's exercise of jurisdiction over the controversy would violate the First Amendment. ¹⁰ The district court converted appellees' motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment because appellees relied upon matters outside of the pleadings, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b); it denied appellees' motion for a stay of proceedings because the amount in controversy and first amendment issues were intertwined with the merits. Appellants then moved for summary judgment and responded to appellees' motion for summary judgment.

The district court granted summary judgment for appellees on first amendment grounds and denied all other pending motions as moot. The court reasoned that the preliminary consideration in determining whether judicial resolution of the controversy would violate the fundamental proposition of constitutional law that civil tribunals have no power to resolve disputes which are ecclesiastical in nature is to determine the exact nature of the dispute. Only then may a court decide whether the case may be resolved by resort to the "neutral principles of law" method described in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979). Applying this analysis, the court concluded that "[w]hether Reverend Dr. Stanley's rulings were correct or patently incorrect is irrelevant because a decision as to validity of his rulings would involve this court in the internal affairs of the Southern Baptist Convention, a position the court cannot assume."

II

The prohibition on judicial cognizance of ecclesiastical disputes is founded upon both establishment and free exercise clause concerns. By adjudicating religious disputes, civil courts risk affecting associational conduct and thereby chilling the free exercise of religious beliefs. Moreover, by entering into a religious controversy and putting the enforcement power of the state behind a particular religious faction, a civil court risks "establishing" a religion. The Supreme Court described the interplay of these establishment and free exercise concerns in School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 222, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 1571, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963):

The wholesome [government] "neutrality" of which this Court's cases speak ... stems from a recognition of the teachings of history that powerful sects or groups might bring about a fusion of governmental and religious functions or a concert or dependency of one upon the other to the end that official support of the State or Federal Government would be placed behind the tenets of one or of all orthodoxies. This the Establishment Clause prohibits. And a further reason for neutrality is found in the Free Exercise Clause, which recognizes ... the right of every person to freely choose his own course with reference thereto, free of any compulsion from the state. This the Free Exercise Clause guarantees.

Nevertheless, the Court has also rejected an absolute rule that civil courts are powerless to resolve any church property dispute. Bouldin v. Alexander, 82 U.S. (15 Wall.) 131, 21 L.Ed. 69 (1872); Presbyterian Church v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 89 S.Ct. 601, 21 L.Ed.2d 658 (1969); Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979). Thus, Supreme Court decisions have attempted to strike an appropriate balance between the establishment and free exercise concerns implicated when a court is asked to resolve an ecclesiastical dispute, and the interests of the state and the aggrieved party in resolution of the controversy by a court of law. A review of the Court's decisions articulating the factors to be considered in achieving this balance is therefore necessary to the resolution of this case.

The Court has recognized two primary first...