KANSAS CITY, Mo. (ABP) — The National Baptist Convention USA has settled one lawsuit with a disgraced former president who sued after losing a re-election bid in 2009, the convention's parliamentarian and general counsel told leaders attending the annual convention meeting in Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 6.
Wendell Griffen, a former judge on the Arkansas Court of Appeals and pastor of New Millennium Church, a year-old congregation dually aligned with NBCUSA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, informed the state presidents' board meeting that a judge in Washington had dismissed former president Henry Lyons' lawsuit alleging breach of contract and fiduciary duty claims and fraud in May. Another lawsuit is pending, according to a convention news release.
According to an online transcript of a May 13 hearing in the civil division of Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Associate Judge Judith Bartnoff said she was satisfied that Lyons believed his landslide loss at last year's convention wasn't conducted properly but that he faced "significant legal barriers" in seeking to have the vote invalidated.
"The first is the general First Amendment principle that courts don't get involved in the internal workings of religious societies," she opined.
Even more significant, the judge ruled, is a provision in the convention's constitution that says all disputes about leadership, rights and procedures of the body will be resolved by vote of the convention and not subject to litigation in civil courts.
The judge said courts normally don't get involved in internal governance of churches unless property rights are involved and that she didn't recall ever having seen a case where a religious body's constitution explicitly denied members the right to sue in secular courts.
Lyons, a former rising star in the denomination forced to resign in 1999 for admitted fiscal and moral improprieties, served nearly five years in prison for swindling nearly $5 million from the convention's corporate partners. After his release from prison in 2003, Lyons claimed to be a changed man and ran for the presidency a second time in 2009.
He sued unsuccessfully to block last year's election, claiming that changes to convention bylaws setting voting privileges violated the constitution. After gaining about 18 percent of the vote in his loss to current president Julius Scruggs, Lyons filed a second lawsuit claiming he was denied due process in appealing the vote.
Just prior to the 130th annual NBCUSA meeting of Sept. 6-10 at Kansas City's downtown convention center, Scruggs, pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., told the Kansas City Star that while the African-American church represents stability in the black community and has consistently helped people in need, it needs to do more.
"The church can do a great deal in helping with the violence, drugs and crime," he said. "But some of the reasons for these are systemic."
Scruggs said some churches "don't know how to minister" in their communities and would rather "stay inside the walls and praise God and take care of their own facilities."
"They don't see their responsibility as reaching out to the community economically to help the disadvantaged," he said.
Scruggs said one of the biggest challenges facing the nation's oldest and largest African-American denomination is reaching the estimated 6,000 of the convention's total 10,000 churches that are not active in denominational affairs.
He said he is most proud of the group's Haiti relief. So far National Baptists have donated $1.1 million to a Haiti relief fund, partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build 630 houses in Haiti and embarked on an unprecedented collaboration with four other major African-American Baptist groups for Haiti relief.
Highlights of this year's convention, expected to attract about 30,000 messengers and visitors, include a "Brush With Kindness" mission effort by laymen in partnership with Habitat for Humanity to help needy people with minor home repairs.
The group is also launching a "Gift of Life" blood-donation campaign with the American Red Cross. Kicked off Sept. 8, the program is intended to increase awareness of the need for "like" blood donors.
In particular, persons suffering from sickle-cell anemia, a genetic blood disorder that disproportionately affects African Americans, respond better when matched with a more compatible blood donor. Blood types O and B, the highest in demand and first to run out during a shortage, occur in high percentages of people of African-American, Asian and Hispanic descent.
About 70 percent of African Americans have either Type O or Type B blood, but rare blood types are also often found.
The blood drive is part of a joint national partnership formed last year to improve communities by emphasizing the importance of healthy lifestyles, volunteer service and disaster readiness and capacity building.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.