McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of S. Baptist Convention, Inc.

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit
• Writing for the Court: Andrew S. Oldham, Circuit Judge
• Citation: McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of S. Baptist Convention, Inc., 157 F.4th 627 (5th Cir. 2025)
• Docket Number: 23-60494
• Decision Date: 09 September 2025
• Parties: Will MCRANEY, Plaintiff—Appellant, v. The NORTH AMERICAN MISSION BOARD OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION, INCORPORATED, Defendant—Appellee.

157 F.4th 627

Will MCRANEY, Plaintiff—Appellant, v. The NORTH AMERICAN MISSION BOARD OF THE SOUTHERNBAPTIST CONVENTION, INCORPORATED, Defendant—Appellee.

No. 23-60494

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit

REVISED October 28, 2025

FILED September 9, 2025

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, USDC No. 1:17-CV-80, Glen H. Davidson, U.S. District Judge

Scott E. Gant (argued), Boies, Schiller & Flexner, L.L.P., Washington, DC, William Harvey Barton, II, Trial Attorney, Barton Law Firm, P.L.L.C., Pascagoula, MS, for Plaintiff—Appellant.

Matthew T. Martens (argued), Esq., Attorney, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, L.L.P., Washington, DC, Kathleen Ingram Carrington, Burr & Forman, L.L.P., Nashville, TN, Carly H. Chinn, Esq., Kyle Vernon Miller, Esq., Joshua Jerome Wiener, Esq., Butler Snow, L.L.P., Ridgeland, MS, David J. Hacker, Hiram Stanley Sasser, III, First Liberty Institute, Plano, TX, Timothy Jeffrey Perla, Senior Associate, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, L.L.P., Boston, MA, Joshua A. Vittor, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, L.L.P., Los Angeles, CA, for Defendant—Appellee.

Michelle Shamblin Stratton, Murphy Ball Stratton, L.L.P., Houston, TX, for Amicus Curiae Current and Former Baptist Leaders.

Daniel Howard Blomberg, Amanda Gray Dixon, Adele Keim, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Ryan Morio Dunbar, Horvitz & Levy, L.L.P., San Francisco, CA, for Amicus Curiae Church of Scientology International.

R. Shawn Gunnarson, Kirton McConkie, Salt Lake City, UT, for Amici Curiae Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, National Association of Evangelicals, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Catholic Diocese of Biloxi, Catholic Diocese of Jackson MS, Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team of the Religious Freedom Institute.

Before Richman, Oldham, and Ramirez, Circuit Judges.

Andrew S. Oldham, Circuit Judge:

On our own motion, we withdraw our prior opinion, McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of the S. Baptist Convention, 155 F.4th 415, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23281 (5th Cir. Sept. 9, 2025), and substitute the following:

Pastor Will McRaney brought employment-related claims against the North American Mission Board. But the church autonomy doctrine prohibits any court from adjudicating McRaney's claims. Therefore, the district court was correct to enter summary judgment for the Board.

I

We begin with background on (A) the religious institutions involved and (B) the procedural posture of this suit.

A

Baptist ecclesiology is non-hierarchical, and each Baptist church is autonomous. Nevertheless, Baptist churches have long voluntarily cooperated in fellowship with one another and pooled resources for missions, evangelism, and church planting. It is common for cooperating Baptist organizations to have a shared confession of faith and doctrinal commitments. Each Baptist association and convention is itself autonomous and exercises no control over cooperating congregations.

The Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC") is one such national organization. The SBC's confession of faith is the Baptist Faith & Message (2000). Defendant-Appellee, the North American Mission Board ("NAMB"), is one of 12 different constituent boards or agencies of the SBC. Its ministry priorities include assisting churches with evangelism and church planting, "providing missions education," "coordinating volunteer missions," and helping with "relief ministries to victims of disaster and other people in need." ROA. 1701. NAMB pursues these ministry priorities through cooperative partnerships with 42 different state or regional conventions of Baptist churches. One of these cooperative partners is the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware ("BCMD"), an organization of more than 500 autonomous Baptist churches in Maryland and Delaware.

In 2012, NAMB and BCMD entered into a Strategic Partnership Agreement ("SPA"). The SPA was a joint ministry agreement that memorialized "the relationships and responsibilities" of the two entities "in areas where the two partners jointly develop, administer and evaluate a strategic plan for" reaching nonbelievers "through church planting and evangelism." ROA.1702. As the district court recognized, the SPA is "steeped in religious doctrine," see McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of S. Baptist Convention, No. 17-CV-00080, 2023 WL 5266356, at *3 (N.D. Miss. Aug. 15, 2023), and it is "inexorably tied to Baptist faith," Red Br. at 4. The ultimate purpose of the partnership was to "accomplish the Great Commission as given to us by our Lord in Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 1:8." ROA.1702; see Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV) ("Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."). The partnership was "driven by shared values" including "Biblical Authority," "Kingdom Advancement," "Evangelism and Missions," and "Autonomy of Individual Baptist Entities." ROA.1702. And the agreement was designed to "be consistent with the most recently adopted version of the Southern Baptist Convention Baptist Faith and Message." ROA.1703.

Plaintiff Will McRaney is an ordained minister who was employed as BCMD's Executive Director and Executive Missional Strategist from September 2012 to June 2015. The position was a ministerial role in which McRaney sought to implement the SPA's evangelical objectives. His responsibilities included overseeing and directing efforts to reach nonbelievers through church planting and evangelism.

A schism developed between McRaney and NAMB about how best to carry out the SPA. NAMB was not satisfied with McRaney's "performance of the cooperative evangelistic mission," ROA.1835, and was concerned about his "serious and persistent disregard" of the SPA's principles, ROA.2232. Specifically, they disagreed about "missionary selection and funding, associational giving, and missionary work requirements." McRaney, 2023 WL 5266356, at *1. In December 2014, "[a]fter careful and prayerful consideration," NAMB tendered to BCMD its one-year notice of intent to terminate the SPA. ROA.2232.

In June 2015, BCMD's board unanimously voted, 37-0, to terminate McRaney as the Executive Director. In an email to another pastor, BCMD's president explained that "we fired Will because of his wretched leadership." ROA.2239. At his deposition, he explained that McRaney "betrayed a spirit of unwillingness to make the changes from his heart that needed to be made in his leadership" and "lack[ed] the humble spirit necessary" for his evangelical mission. ROA.1814. Board members complained that McRaney was "just not Joshua or Jeremiah"; that he was not "a good captain that can navigate tumultuous waters in a storm"; that "HE has to do Matthew 18"; that under McRaney's leadership "8 times to 2 it's [S]atan discussed over God"; and that "[i]f we pray, we check it off the list." ROA.4096-97.

Since then, McRaney has publicly campaigned against NAMB and its president for their perceived role in his termination from BCMD. In February 2016, he circulated a "Letter of Concern" accusing NAMB's president of "vindictive tactics." ROA.2270. That June, he sent another letter calling for "restoration and restitution for the damages caused by [NAMB's president] acting on behalf of NAMB." ROA. 2274. And he made numerous posts on Facebook and Twitter to criticize NAMB and its president. See ROA.2322-26.

In October 2016, a pastor saw McRaney's posts on Facebook "declaring war on the [NAMB]." ROA.2298. In response to those posts, the pastor disinvited McRaney from speaking at a conference in Mississippi because "significant numbers of our ministry partners were [NAMB] ministers." ROA.2298-99. In response to McRaney's public campaign, NAMB hired private security personnel and purchased a home security system for its president due to fear for his physical safety. NAMB also posted a no-entry photograph of McRaney behind the reception desk at its headquarters.

B

In 2017, McRaney sued NAMB in Mississippi state court. He alleged tortious interference with business relationships, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. NAMB removed the case to federal district court under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332, 1441(a)-(b).

NAMB then moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of S. Baptist Convention, No. 17-CV-00080, 2019 WL 1810991, at *1 (N.D. Miss. Apr. 24, 2019). In that motion, NAMB argued that McRaney's claims were barred by the church autonomy doctrine. See ibid. The district court denied the motion in material part. Ibid. NAMB reasserted its church autonomy defense at summary judgment. Ibid. The district court concluded that "under the First Amendment it lack[ed] subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate McRaney's disputes" and dismissed the case. Id. at *3-4.

On appeal, a panel of our court reversed. See McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of S. Baptist Convention, Inc., 966 F.3d 346, 351 (5th Cir. 2020). The panel reasoned that the early stage of the litigation made it "premature" to conclude that the church autonomy doctrine barred McRaney's claims, ibid., but clarified that the district court was "free to reconsider" dismissing "some or all of McRaney's claims" on remand, id. at 350. Our court denied rehearing en banc in a 9-8 vote. See McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of S. Baptist Convention, Inc., 980 F.3d 1066 (5th Cir. 2020); see also id. at 1075 (Oldham, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc).

On remand, the parties continued discovery. The parties deposed multiple pastors and many sensitive internal ministry records were produced. NAMB again moved for summary judgment on church autonomy grounds, among others. McRaney, 2023 WL 5266356, at *1. The district court granted the motion for...