Why you should care about the Second Baptist Houston lawsuit

A Houston megachurch has been in the news due to member concerns about the ways its bylaws were amended and governance was effectively removed from the congregation and entrusted to a small group handpicked by the senior pastor.

While this may seem like a distant and difficult thing to connect with your own church, the lessons here are shockingly relevant to all Baptist churches.

I’m neither a lawyer nor the son of a lawyer, but I have been a church executive pastor and immediately spotted red flags when reading the recent court ruling dismissing all charges against the Second Baptist leadership team.

“What happened at Second Baptist Houston — which is about as un-Baptist as you get — could happen at your church too.”

In short, what happened at Second Baptist Houston — which is about as un-Baptist as you get — could happen at your church too.

Trustees and revisions

While most Baptist churches exercise a pure form of congregational governance — all significant business matters must be voted on by the congregation at large — more than a few entrust some decision making to a smaller group elected by the church. These are sometimes called trustees, sometimes called a church council or sometimes called a board of deacons.

That distinction matters hugely in the Second Baptist Houston case because some level of power was entrusted to a small group of trustees, which was easier to take over than the entire congregation.

A second factor in Houston is the distinction between a church’s articles of incorporation and bylaws. These are two separate legal documents — and please for the love of all that’s holy make sure your church is incorporated.

The Texas court made clear that legally the articles of incorporation supersede the bylaws, which is most relevant if the articles outline how the bylaws may be amended or trustees elected.

Ecclesial abstention — once again

The disgruntled members at Second Baptist thought they had a compelling case because church leaders did not follow Texas law on managing a nonprofit corporation. And they were right about that, but it didn’t matter for two reasons: The wording of the articles of incorporation and the existence of a legal idea known as the ecclesial abstention doctrine.

The latter idea is that the First Amendment prevents secular courts from intervening in internal church disputes that are “ecclesial” or doctrinal in nature. And in this case, the court gave wide berth to that doctrine, in part because church leaders claimed to make the governance changes they pushed in order to be a “biblical church.”

No secular court in America is going to take side on defining what is a “biblical church” even though what happened in Houston should in no way be construed as representing a Baptist church.

To define a “biblical church” requires reading and interpreting Scripture, which is fraught enough for theologians, much less judges.

“What was surprising to me in the court’s ruling is how extensively it relied on the ecclesial abstention doctrine to reject ruling on any part of the case.”

What was surprising to me in the court’s ruling is how extensively it relied on the ecclesial abstention doctrine to reject ruling on any part of the case. I thought the challenging church members — organized under the name Jeremiah Counsel — might have some leverage on the purely secular act of calling a meeting and amending bylaws.

Key facts of the case

The court summarized the main question as this: “Did defendants validly amend the church’s governing documents to remove the members’ historic right to vote for the senior pastor and board members of their choice?”

Here are the basic facts of the case, as described by the court:

“Second Baptist Church was founded in 1928 as a Texas nonprofit corporation. For several decades, the church operated under the 1928 Articles of Incorporation that created a Board of Trustees and, since at least 2005, it has adopted bylaws pursuant to the Articles.”
“The Articles were amended once, in 1978, and until the 2023 vote was held, it was these amended articles that constituted the church’s certificate of formation.”
“It is undisputed that, under this framework, the church operated with a representative governance structure that vested significant voting rights in the individual church members, including the right to approve or reject material changes to the corporate bylaws.”
“Sometime in early 2023, the individual defendants initiated a process to amend the church’s governing documents. (Jeremiah Counsel) alleges this move was a departure from decades of selfless leadership designed to consolidate power within a specific group — namely, the defendants — in a manner plaintiff believes to be detrimental to the congregation’s historical oversight role.”
“This process culminated in late May 2023. On May 30, the church Board of Trustees met and voted unanimously to approve amendments to the Articles of Incorporation and the First Amended and Restated Bylaws of Second Baptist Church and to recommend their adoption to the congregation.”
“On the evening of May 31, 2023, the church called a ‘church business meeting’ to vote on these amendments. Defendants had previously provided notice of this meeting on four occasions: twice in the weekly church newsletter circulated via email on May 19 and 26, and by oral announcement made during regularly scheduled weekend worship services on May 21 and 28, at each of the church’s six locations. The meeting notice stated: ‘We have a meeting Wednesday night, May 31, at 6 p.m. in the Woodway Fellowship Hall. The church will have a call (sic) church business meeting to update our bylaws, to protect our ability to continue operating as a biblical church.”
“Defendants contend that a ‘clear’ and ‘overwhelming’ majority voted by a show of hands to approve both the amended articles and bylaws. The votes tallied 315-2 in favor of approving both sets of amendments.”

“Please note that in a church with a reported membership of 94,000, only 317 people voted at the called church conference.”

Please note that in a church with a reported membership of 94,000, only 317 people voted at the called church conference. This lack of interest in attending to the business of the church is one of the reasons authoritarian pastors can so easily take control.

Key changes made

Among the changes made by then-Pastor Ed Young and his closely held group of trustees were removing all member voting rights to elect the senior pastor, board members, officers and committee members and the right to vote on amendments to governing documents, approve expenditures and certain business dealing

The changes to governing documents created a self-perpetuating board called the Ministry Leadership Team that is made up of the senior pastor and a few others chosen by the senior pastor.

And this line, shocking as it may sound to Baptist ears, comes straight from the court record: “The right to elect the senior pastor belongs solely to the senior pastor; and the MLT’s ability to remove the senior pastor is circumscribed.”

In short, the changes abolished congregational votes on anything of importance, abolished the role of trustees and granted all decision-making and budgetary decisions to the senior pastor.

Anyone with a sense of Baptist history can understand why some church members sued to stop the pastoral takeover. But they failed in their lawsuit, and that’s why this case matters to every other Baptist church that values congregational governance.

Lessons for others

There’s a lot of legal language in the court’s full ruling, and anyone who wants may go read that. One of the key lessons is that the articles of incorporation at Second Baptist Houston were not as specific as they should have been, particularly about how trustees were to be elected.

As nonprofit corporations, churches must abide by their governing documents, to the extent those governing documents do not require theological interpretation. Thus, it is wise to draft documents that are explicit in their terms and that do not include theological language.

All governing documents of a church should be explicit in outlining the process required to change those documents. That is the bedrock lesson here.

What has transpired at Second Baptist Houston is not unique. In fact, it was taken from a playbook published by Edwin Young’s other son, also named Ed Young, and his Dallas megachurch. You can buy and download this blueprint for gaining full pastoral control.

If the right people have not reviewed your church’s articles of incorporation and bylaws lately, now is a good time for a check-up. Look into what happened at Second Baptist Houston and reverse engineer it to protect congregational governance.