Williams v. Jones

• Decision Date: 23 October 1952
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 313
• Citation: 258 Ala. 59,61 So.2d 101
• Parties: WILLIAMS et al. v. JONES et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 101

61 So.2d 101

258 Ala. 59

WILLIAMS et al. v. JONES et al.

6 Div. 313.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Oct. 23, 1952.

Ingram Beasley, Birmingham, for appellant.

Geo. Trawick, Birmingham, for appellees.

LAWSON, Justice.

This litigation grows out of a dispute in a colored Baptist church in Jefferson County, known as the Twenty-Second Avenue Baptist Church.

Before treating of the question at hand, we think it wise to refer to certain general principles established by our cases dealing with church matters.

It is firmly established that courts decline to assume any jurisdiction as regards the purely ecclesiastical or spiritual feature of the church. Hundley v. Collins, 131 Ala. 234, 32 So. 575; Gewin v. Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church, 166 Ala. 345, 51 So. 947; Mount Olive Primitive Baptist Church v. Patrick, 252 Ala. 672, 42 So.2d 617, 20 A.L.R.2d 417.

On the other hand, in many cases we have recognized the right and duty of civil courts to exercise jurisdiction to protect the temporalities of the church, such as where civil rights or rights of property are involved. Christian Church v. Sommer, 149 Ala. 145, 43 So. 8, 8 L.R.A.,N.S., 1031; Gewin v. Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church, supra; Barton v. Fitzpatrick, 187 Ala. 273, 65 So. 390; Morgan v. Gabard, 176 Ala. 568, 58 So. 902; Manning v. Yeager, 201 Ala. 599, 79 So. 19; Tucker v. Denson, 202 Ala. 308, 80 So. 373; Manning v. Yeager, 203 Ala. 185, 82 So. 435; Blount v. Sixteenth St. Baptist Church, 206 Ala. 423, 90 So. 602; Mitchell v. Church of Christ, 219 Ala. 322, 122 So. 341; Id., 221 Ala. 315, 128 So. 781, 70 A.L.R. 71; Guin v. Johnson, 230 Ala. 427, 161 So. 810; Bailey v. Washington, 236 Ala. 674, 185 So. 172; Caples v. Nazareth Church of Hopewell Ass'n, 245 Ala. 656, 18 So.2d 383; Odoms v. Woodall, 246 Ala. 427, 20 So.2d 849.

Wherever there is an incorporated church, there are two entities, the one the church as such, not owing its ecclesiastical or spiritual existence to the civil law, and the legal corporation, each separate though closely allied. The spiritual entity of a church made up of members belonging to it, existing without any special law to that effect, is a different and distinct body in the contemplation of the law from the same body when incorporated under statutes for the purpose--the two having different functions to perform, the one religious and the other civil. Under our statutes for the incorporation of churches, it is to be noted that the members of the church become incorporated, and not simply the trustees required to be elected preparatory to proceeding in the court of probate to obtain incorporation. Each member is an incorporator, recognized as a legal civil body, distinct from the church as a spiritual body, theretofore and thereafter continuously existing. §§ 124, 125, Title 10, Code 1940; Hundley v. Collins, supra; Dismukes v. State, 176 Ala. 616, 58 So. 195; Blount v. Sixteenth St. Baptist Church, supra.

It is, of course, recognized that a court of equity upon proper showing will enjoin strangers from interfering with the rightful use and possession of church property. Christian Church v. Sommer, supra; Ashworth v. Brown, 240 Ala. 164, 198 So. 135; Davis v. Ross, 255 Ala. 668, 53 So.2d 544.

In Harris v. Cosby, 173 Ala. 81, 55 So. 231, it is pointed out that courts, following the United States Supreme Court in Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 20 L.Ed. 666, have divided the questions which have come before them in regard to rights of property held by ecclesiastical bodies into three groups or categories.

First, where the property, by the express terms of the deed or will, is devoted to the teaching of some specific form of religious doctrine. As in all instances involving special trusts, the court will see that the property is not divested from the special purposes for which it has been conveyed.

Second, where the property is held by a religious congregation, which, by the power of its organization, is strictly independent of other ecclesiastical associations, and, so far as church government is concerned, owes no fealty to any higher authority. As to this type of religious congregation, if the principle of government be that the majority rules, then, generally speaking the majority of the members have the right to control the property. However, there is an exception to the general rule that the majority has the right to control the property. We will treat with the exception in detail later in this opinion.

Third, in instances where the property has been acquired for the general use of a religious congregation which is itself a part of a large and general organization of some religious denomination, with which it is more or less intimately connected by religious views and ecclesiastical government, the courts are bound to look at the fact that the local congregation is itself but a member of a much larger and more important religious organization, and is under its government and control, and is bound by the orders and judgments of the ecclesiastical courts where they have jurisdiction.

We are concerned in this appeal with those cases which deal with the second group, for we have had occasion in several cases to state, as from the temporal viewpoints, the nature of the constitution and government of Baptist churches. We will repeat to this extent: Each Baptist church is within itself a pure democracy; it is the right of the majority to rule; the will of the majority having been expressed, it becomes the minority to submit; church action is final. Gewin v. Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church, supra; Barton v. Fitzpatrick, supra; Manning v. Yeager, 201 Ala. 599, 79 So. 19; Tucker v. Denson, supra; Manning v. Yeager, 203 Ala. 185, 82 So. 435; Blount v. Sixteenth St. Baptist Church, supra; Guin v. Johnson, supra; Skyline Missionary Baptist Church v. Davis, 245 Ala. 455, 17 So.2d 533; Caples v. Nazareth Church of Hopewell Ass'n, supra; Mt. Olive Primitive Baptist Church v. Patrick, supra.

So in a Baptist church, as a general rule, the majority of the members of the church have the right to control the property of the church. But as before noted, there is an exception to this rule. The exception is that, as against a faithful minority, a majority of the members of the church may not divert the property of the church to another denomination, or to the support of doctrines radically and fundamentally opposed to the characteristic doctrine of the church, even though the property is not subject to an express trust. The civil courts may be resorted to in order to prevent such a diversion. Manning v. Yeager, 201 Ala. 599, 79 So. 19; Id., 203 Ala. 185, 82 So. 435; Mitchell v. Church of Christ, 221 Ala. 315, 128 So. 781, 70 A.L.R. 71; Guin v. Johnson, supra; Caples v. Nazareth Church, supra; Holt v. Scott, 252 Ala. 579, 42 So.2d 258. But to justify court interference it must be shown that the purpose of the majority is to make a gratuitous transfer of the property to another denomination, or to disavow and depart from the characteristic, distinctive doctrines and practices, and devote the use of the property to doctrines radically opposed to the distinctive doctrines and practices of the society. Such purpose must appear either from an open avowal on the part of the majority, or from its acts and conduct manifesting such purpose beyond all reasonable doubt. Mitchell v. Church of Christ, 221 Ala. 315, 128 So. 781, 70 A.L.R. 71. It is not enough that a schism or division has developed among the members on account of differences of opinion in the interpretation and application of the declared doctrines and practices of the society; such matters must be settled by the society for itself in its own way. Mitchell v. Church of Christ, 221 Ala. 315, 128 So. 781, 70 A.L.R. 71; Guin v. Johnson, supra; Bailey v. Washington, supra; Skyline Missionary Baptist Church v. Davis, supra; Mt. Olive Primitive Baptist Church v. Patrick, supra; Davis v. Ross, supra.

We have discussed above the rule of our cases where a minority group of a church governed as is a Baptist church invokes the jurisdiction of the civil courts to prevent a diversion of church property.

We will refer hereafter to other instances where the civil courts of this state have taken jurisdiction of disputes between factions of Baptist churches or of churches similarly governed on the ground that property or civil rights were involved.

For the reason that the majority of the members of a Baptist church have the right to control the property, no question of diversion as heretofore discussed being involved, we have held that a bill for injunction had equity which was filed by a majority of the members of the church against a minority group, which group the bill alleged unlawfully excluded the complainants from the church property, threatened them with violence, and which expressly averred that complainants did not seek to invoke the jurisdiction of the court as to any purely religious or ecclesiastical controversies, but merely that they be protected in their property rights in and to the church property. Manning v. Yeager, 201 Ala. 599, 79 So. 19. That the bill sought relief on the grounds above delineated, as well as on the ground of diversion, is clearly shown in the opinion of this court written on the second appeal, 203 Ala. 185, 82 So. 435, where it is said:

'* * * Complainants ask to be placed in possession and control of the church property on two grounds: (1) That defendants have wrongfully excluded them, and (2) that defendants by their departure from the faith and practice of the true Missionary Baptist church have forfeited all right to the possession and control of the church property, even though they constitute a majority of the congregation.'

In holding that complainants could have no relief on the first ground, we said:

'We find from the evidence noted in the record that before, at, and after the division in the church, defendants constituted a majority of the...