TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (ABP) – An appeals court has refused to nullify a Florida Baptist church’s decision to switch from congregational to elder rule, saying courts can resolve disputes over church property but not matters of church governance.
Several former members of First Baptist Church of Micanopy, Fla., claimed in a lawsuit that leaders of the congregation violated articles of incorporation filed with the Secretary of State when it terminated membership of members who opposed views of two pastors that congregation-led church governance is unbiblical. Later the church amended those documents to assign governance to a three-member board of elders.
The lawsuit claimed breach of “fiduciary duty,” arguing that as an incorporated non-profit entity the church was required to take corporate action in accordance with its articles of incorporation or bylaws.
A circuit court sided with the church, saying it lacked jurisdiction over what it deemed to be an “ecclesiastical dispute.” Florida’s First District Court of Appeal upheld the lower-court’s ruling Sept. 16.
Unlike other cases involving disputes over corporate assets, the appellate court said the controversy is “solely over how the church should govern itself — an essentially religious matter” and that exercising jurisdiction would be tantamount to “intervening on behalf of a group espousing particular doctrinal beliefs.”
A statement of faith on the First Baptist Church website includes teachings that “from all eternity God decreed all that should happen in time, and this He did freely and unalterably, consulting only His own wise and holy will.”
It says “God’s decree is not based upon His foreknowledge that, under certain conditions, certain happenings will take place, but is independent of all such foreknowledge.”
It continues that “By His decree, and for the manifestation of His glory, God has predestinated (or foreordained) certain men and angels to eternal life through Jesus Christ, thus revealing His grace. Others, whom He has left to perish in their sins, show the terrors of His justice.”
It describes a local church as consisting of officers and members. “By Christ's appointment the officers to be chosen and set apart by the church as called and gathered, are elders and deacons,” the statement says. “It is their special responsibility to arrange for the carrying out of what the Lord has ordained, and to use the powers entrusted to them for the execution of their duties.”
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.