Will McRaney will file an appeal asking for a federal court’s review of a single judge’s dismissal of his defamation case against the Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board.
He and his wife, Sandy, announced the decision via a Facebook Live event Monday evening, Sept. 11. They said their lawyers will file the appeal on Tuesday, Sept. 12, with the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
That means the case that has been on again and off again for more than six years will be on again.
The McRaneys said they personally have spent more than $150,000 in legal fees to date but intend to garner support to keep the case alive. They are doing so, they said, because the case has become about Southern Baptist polity and not just about them.
The case was just 33 days away from trial when federal Judge Glen Davidson unilaterally dismissed it, saying it would be impossible to “adjudicate the plaintiff’s claims in this case without impermissibly delving into church matters in violation of the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine.”
The case was just 33 days away from trial when federal Judge Glen Davidson unilaterally dismissed it.
That legal doctrine says secular court cannot meddle in matters of internal church governance. McRaney contends this is not a matter of internal church governance because he was defamed by NAMB and its president, who had no direct supervision of his work as executive director of a state Baptist convention.
In historic Baptist polity, state conventions are autonomous from the national convention just as all churches are autonomous. Judge Davidson’s ruling has been interpreted by some as assuming all levels of Southern Baptist life constitute a single “church” in the same way The United Methodist Church or the Roman Catholic Church might be viewed.
Will McRaney
McRaney — and others — maintain that ruling not only is wrong but endangers every Southern Baptist church and all denominational entities at every level. He predicted the latest ruling has opened the door for others to sue the SBC for hundreds of millions of dollars now due to the implications of ascending liability.
The McRaneys spoke for about 25 minutes in the video feed from their Florida home. They quoted Bible verses and said this case never would have made it to court if NAMB President Kevin Ezell and trustees had taken him seriously at first. Even after Ezell allegedly demanded McRaney’s termination from the state convention leadership — a decision made by the state convention’s Executive Board — there was a way to resolve the conflict and move on, the couple said.
But instead, the McRaneys allege, Ezell sought to blackball Will McRaney from being hired to speak at conferences and from working as a consultant. Sandy McRaney said she concluded of Ezell, “he’s never going to leave us alone, and we have to do something to make him leave us alone.”
The couple alleges that once they dug deeper into what had happened to them and began legal inquiries, they discovered massive corruption in the leadership at NAMB. NAMB’s trustee leaders have repeatedly denied such allegations.
However, NAMB is the most secretive of all SBC entities, not even publishing a list of employees or saying how many employees or church planters it has across the country. Details of its financial operations are intentionally opaque, and its media spokesman routinely declines to speak to any issue raised by reporters.
Other Southern Baptists have made motions on the floor of the SBC annual meeting seeking to require greater accountability from NAMB, but those motions have been ruled out of order or referred to NAMB’s own trustees for study, where they die.
“We didn’t expect that we were going to discover the level of corruption that we believe exists.”
“We didn’t expect that we were going to discover the level of corruption that we believe exists,” Will McRaney said in the video. “We did not expect to discover the level of financial mismanagement and misuse of mission gifts. We didn’t expect … to see such failed strategies just get worse year after year after year. We did not expect to find the lack of transparency. … There’s just such lawlessness. We didn’t expect to find all this.”
The McRaneys called out Ezell and others by name who they say need a “heavy dose of repentance” for what they have done. They cited depositions taken in the recent runup to the trial that didn’t happen as evidence of Ezell and NAMB leaders telling demonstrable lies.
Will McRaney called himself a David against the Goliath of NAMB, which has hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal. He urged supporters to” help me put some stones in the sling and get this thing moving” by donating to his GoFundMe page.
And he called on Southern Baptist churches to reconsider whether they want to keep funding NAMB and its lack of transparency: “I would encourage you to consider whether you should continue to fund the nonsense that’s going on. Again, we’re not dealing with opinion; we’re dealing with factual documented evidence that they have put before the court in their own chosen words, not my words.”
So far, NAMB has shown no willingness to settle with McRaney and likely has spent far more on legal fees than a settlement would have cost. What level of involvement NAMB trustees have had with this matter is not clear, as no one on NAMB’s side has said much of anything about the case.
The appeals process could extend the case another year or two, McRaney noted, saying his goal is to get back to an actual trial in a district court where all the evidence will be made public.
Related articles:
U.S. district judge dismisses McRaney’s case against NAMB
Seven years later, Will McRaney might get his day in court against NAMB — maybe
Key witness offers damning testimony against Ezell as NAMB gets McRaney trial delayed two months
McRaney warns dismissal of his case against NAMB raises urgent threat to Baptist autonomy
NAMB’s lies are worse than McLaurin’s, Will McRaney charges