Kenesaw Free Baptist Church v. Lattimer

• Decision Date: 27 September 1919
• Docket Number: 20524
• Citation: 174 N.W. 296,103 Neb. 755
• Parties: KENESAW FREE BAPTIST CHURCH, APPELLEE, v. G. S. LATTIMER ET AL., APPELLANTS
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

174 N.W. 296

103 Neb. 755

KENESAW FREE BAPTIST CHURCH, APPELLEE, v. G. S. LATTIMER ET AL., APPELLANTS

No. 20524

Supreme Court of Nebraska

September 27, 1919

APPEAL from the district court for Adams county: WILLIAM C. DORSEY JUDGE. Affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

Hugh La Master, for appellants.

C. C Flansburg, contra.

CORNISH J. LETTON, J., not sitting.

OPINION

CORNISH, J.

Appeal by defendants from a decree quieting title in the plaintiff to certain church property held by them as trustees, and enjoining them from interference therewith.

In 1883, 1884, when funds were raised and the church building erected, the Freewill Baptist denomination at Kenesaw was an independent governing body, owing no obedience to any higher authority. Quarterly meetings, composed of delegates from two or more local churches, could admonish a church when, in its opinion, it became an alien to the faith and practices of the denomination. It could determine whether the church was worthy of its fellowship or not. A local church, being independent, had the right to withdraw from the quarterly meeting and to join another evangelical denomination. This body would send delegates to the yearly meeting, which body sustained about the same relation to the quarterly meeting that the quarterly meeting did to the local church. Still higher was the general conference, a national organization, which aimed to consolidate the body, harmonize its different parts, and produce unity of sentiment and discipline. Its powers, too, were only admonitory.

In the nine articles of the constitution of the local church it was provided that its trustees should provide for purchasing, selling, insuring, and caring for its property, and, amongst others, a provision as follows: "Other matters shall come under the rulings of general conference." In October, 1883, the general conference appropriated $ 200 for erecting a house of worship at Kenesaw. The remainder of the $ 1,503.18, required to erect the church, was pledged without condition for the building of the church by local contributions of the citizens of Kenesaw before the church was organized. At the time of the completion of the church $ 400 was owing, which the church assumed and paid.

At this time one Rev. A. D. Williams acted as church clerk, was its first pastor, and the active person in procuring the church fund. He was also chairman and one of the five members of the executive committee of the Nebraska Yearly Meeting, a corporation, to whom the property was deeded "in trust for the Freewill Baptist Church of Kenesaw, Nebraska." This executive committee was created "to be a board of missions and church extension, to secure, hold, use and convey funds, in money, houses or lands, for the propagation of the gospel." etc. It was named a "System of Co-operation." organized in part to hold title in trust "for the churches or purposes for which it was secured," in cases where it had afforded aid. It would seem that the fund raised was pledged before the creation of this executive committee and co-operative system, but from the time Mr. Williams became its chairman, January 21, 1884, the committee, through him, may be said to have given aid in the construction of the building. Later the congregation built and paid for a parsonage upon the church grounds.

Years afterwards, by concerted action of the national organizations of the Freewill and Missionary Baptists, it was determined that there was no such difference in their denominations as to require their continued separation, and a basis of union was agreed upon and approved by the general conference of Freewill Baptists. Twenty-eight constituent bodies of the general conference, representing 44,481 members, approved, and five bodies, representing 1,721, disapproved of the basis of union. Among those disapproving was the Nebraska Yearly Meeting. The plaintiff church, however, approved of the action taken. Afterwards the Nebraska Yearly Meeting organized another general conference, and in 1915 refused recognition of delegates from the plaintiff church, on the grounds that it had taken itself out of the denomination. It also refused to deed the church property to the plaintiff, and would seem to claim the right, if in its judgment it seems proper, to hold the property for the uses of another congregation, conforming to the present views of the Nebraska Yearly Meeting. It should be added that the plaintiff represents every member of the present congregation at Kenesaw, so that what might be considered as the individual right of a member of the church is not involved.

The question is whether the members...