Defendants in the lawsuit brought by disgruntled members of Second Baptist Church in Houston have asked the state district court to move the case to a special court that deals only in business matters.
On June 9, defendants of Second Baptist Church — Ben Young, Homer Edwin Young, Lee Maxcy and Dennis Brewer Jr. — petitioned for the case to be moved from the 55th District Court in Harris County, Texas, to the 11th Division of the Business Court of Texas.
This court division was created in 2024 by the Texas Legislature to provide a specialized venue for commercial disputes presided over by judges with a smaller docket and judicial or litigation experience in complex commercial matters.
The plaintiffs, organized into a nonprofit called Jeremiah Counsel, contend the church’s longtime pastor, H. Edwin Young, manipulated huge changes in church bylaws without proper notice. Those changes gave Young and his successors as senior pastor nearly total control over the church’s governance, assets and decision-making.
Using that power, Young named one of his sons, Ben Young, his successor without a church vote. But the lawsuit is about much more than pastoral succession; it is about who controls the assets of the church, which are said to be at least $1 billion.
The lawsuit was filed April 15. No further significant court actions have yet taken place.
Ben Young preaching at Second Baptist Houston
Ben Young responds
On April 27, Ben Young addressed the lawsuit in his Sunday morning sermon.
“The allegations concerning me and my family are simply not true,” Young said, according to the Houston Chronicle, which reviewed multiple audio and video recordings of the sermon.
The Chronicle stated: “Appearing to read from a script on the front stage podium, Young announced that the church has sought legal help from high-profile evangelical attorney Jay Sekulow, who personally represented President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial. (Sekulow now heads the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington, D.C.) Church members told the Chronicle that Sekulow has spoken at Second Baptist in the past,” the newspaper reported.”
Jay Sekulow
Sekulow is a high-profile lawyer serving the interests of conservative evangelicals nationwide. Sekulow himself has been accused of self-dealing in managing nonprofits that have paid him tens of millions of dollars in compensation.
The family intrigue in this megachurch succession story is complicated. H. Edwin Young, then age 87, announced his retirement last year and named his son, Ben Young, his successor. BNG previously reported on this.
However, BNG did not report one incredible claim from the lawsuit: That one day after being installed as senior pastor, Ben Young “ordered his father to vacate his office and cease his involvement in the church.”
According to the Chronicle, “that same day, the new church leader fired the headmaster of Second Baptist’s K-12 school along with the choir director. He then appointed Cliff Young (his older brother), Mac Richard (his cousin who leads Lake Hills Church in Austin) and Brewer, the attorney, to the Ministry Leadership Team. Brewer has served as general counsel and CFO of Edwin Barry Young’s Fellowship Church in North Texas.”
Ben Young told the Houston congregation all these changes are about moving forward.
“We as a church family here at Second are not going backward, but we are moving forward with all that God has in store for us to reach his next generation to Christ,” he said. “Our pastors, financial leaders, attorneys, laypeople and others who helped lead this church family will continue to do so with deep care, excellence and creativity as we seek to fulfill God’s call to worship, walk and win others to Christ.”
Ed Young preaching at the Woodway campus of Second Baptist Houston. (Screencap)
Biblical violation?
Leaders of Jeremiah Counsel report that H. Edwin Young has said recently the legal action taken by the upset church members is not biblical because it violates 1 Corinthians 6, which urges Christians not to take other Christians into secular courts.
“While we understand the weight of Scripture and the seriousness of legal conflict among believers, this accusation misrepresents both the context and the intent of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 6,” a statement from Jeremiah Counsel says.
“Let us be clear: 1 Corinthians 6 is about personal civil disputes between individual believers, primarily over material or financial issues, being taken into secular courts. Paul rebukes the Corinthians and urges them to resolve such personal matters internally with wisdom and humility. The core of Paul’s instruction is that Christians should not be suing one another over personal grievances for selfish gain or retaliation, especially when they have godly leadership capable of settling disputes within the church.
“The current Second Baptist lawsuit is not this!”
“Their takeover strategy was to stiff-arm any discussions until after the two-year statute of limitations expired.”
Jeremiah Counsel says its leaders followed another Scripture — Matthew 18:15–17 — by first seeking to address their concerns privately and individually but got nowhere.
“It became clear that the Young Group was unwilling to engage in any discussions to resolve the matter within the church, and their takeover strategy was to stiff-arm any discussions until after the two-year statute of limitations expired in May, which would make any protective measures impossible. That meant that the only option forced upon those who had been trying to protect the church’s legacy, and its $1 billion balance sheet, was to seek intervention in court.”
The group also asserts: “To claim that a lawsuit to protect the body from unbiblical deception violates 1 Corinthians 6 is to misapply Scripture in order to silence truth. The real violation is not the lawsuit, it is the manipulation of power to deceive the members of the church, the concealment of absolute authority, and the refusal to repent.
What the lawsuit is about
At the heart of Jeremiah Counsel’s lawsuit is the contention that the church’s bylaws were changed illegally, according to Texas statute. Therefore, the case is not so much about internal church doctrine as it is legal management of a Texas nonprofit.
Jeremiah Counsel claims:
- On Memorial Day weekend 2023, H. Edwin Young “sent a cryptic email to the membership. Buried near the end of that 2023 holiday weekend email, Dr. Ed Young announced a church business meeting for the following Wednesday, to ‘update our bylaws to protect our ability to continue operating as a biblical church.’”
- That email “disguised a campaign by church leadership to facilitate an illegitimate vote, by approximately 200 of the 90,000 members, to approve new bylaws ostensibly to ‘protect the church from the woke agenda,’ but which were actually intended to strip all members of their right to vote, forever, without them knowing what was happening.”
- Despite Ben Young’s claim that church trustees “unanimously approved the new bylaws,” trustees received the draft of the revised bylaws just 48 hours before the meeting, over Memorial Day weekend. They were never told the changes would eliminate member voting.”
- One trustee specifically asked for the May 31 meeting to be postponed so trustees would have more time to evaluate what was proposed in the new bylaws. His request was denied.
- “No one received the bylaws in writing and no mention was made that the vote would permanently strip member voting rights.”
- “The provision removing voting rights was a single sentence that was buried in a section on Marriage and Family, never disclosed to members, and never explained before the vote.”
- “Members can no longer see the financial audit, a right they had for decades. There is no independent board elected by the congregation.”
- Reading the current bylaws is allowed “by appointment only, under supervision, with no copies or photos allowed.”
- The new Ministry Leadership Team “is composed of family, paid staff and loyal affiliates, all handpicked by Pastor Young. Not only that, but the bylaws also give the senior pastor the ability to have two votes to break a tie.”
A suggested solution
Jeremiah Counsel has offered a solution that would cause them to drop the court case: “Call a meeting of the church membership to vote on the alleged new bylaws that you believe should govern the church. If the membership votes to support the proposed new bylaws, everyone will know that it was the will of the church body, with full disclosure and no deception.”
Such a redo of the bylaws vote would require at least 60 days’ notice to all members of Second Baptist, with a vote held at a centralized location for efficiency, the group says. And both electronic and physical copies of the new bylaws should be provided to all members at least 30 days in advance.
“If the membership votes to no longer be a member-led church, then everyone will know that is indeed their desire and the decision was made with full transparency,” the group asserts.
Related articles:
Houston lawsuit is a tale of pastoral succession, megachurch wealth and family dynasty
87-year-old Ed Young steps down at Second Baptist Houston, to be succeeded by his son
How to steal a Baptist church | Analysis by Rodney Kennedy