McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of the S. Baptist Convention, Inc.

980 F.3d 1066 (Mem)

Will MCRANEY, Plaintiff—Appellant,

v.The NORTH AMERICAN MISSION BOARD OF the SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION, INCORPORATED, Defendant—Appellee.

No. 19-60293

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

FILED November 25, 2020

William Harvey Barton, II, Trial Attorney, Barton Law Firm, P.L.L.C., Pascagoula, MS, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Matthew T. Martens, Esq., Attorney, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, L.L.P., Washington, DC, Joshua Jerome Wiener, Esq., Kathleen Ingram Carrington, Donna Brown Jacobs, Esq., Butler Snow, L.L.P., Ridgeland, MS, Justin E. Butterfield, Hiram Stanley Sasser, III, First Liberty Institute, Plano, TX, for Defendant-Appellee.

Natalie Deyo Thompson, Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Solicitor General, Austin, TX, for Amici Curiae State of Texas, State of Louisiana, and State of Mississippi.

Stephen M. Crampton, Esq., General Counsel, Thomas More Society, Chicago, IL, for Amici Curiae Thomas More Society and Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Before Clement, Higginson, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:

The court having been polled at the request of one of its members, and a majority of the judges who are in regular active service and not disqualified not having voted in favor ( Fed. R. App. P. 35 and 5^th Circ. R. 35 ), the petition for rehearing en banc is DENIED.

In the en banc poll, 8 judges voted in favor of rehearing (Judges Jones, Smith, Elrod, Willett, Ho, Duncan, Oldham, and Wilson), and 9 judges voted against rehearing (Chief Judge Owen and Judges Stewart, Dennis, Southwick, Haynes, Graves, Higginson, Costa, and Engelhardt).

James C. Ho, Circuit Judge, joined by Jones, Smith, Elrod, Willett, and Duncan, Circuit Judges, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc:

If religious liberty under our Constitution means anything, it surely means at least this much: that the government may not interfere in an internal dispute over who should lead a church—and especially not when the dispute is due to conflicting visions about the growth of the church. But it turns out that nothing is sacred, for that is precisely what we are doing here.

The First Amendment forbids government intrusion in "matters of church government." Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru , ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 2049, 2060, 207 L.Ed.2d 870 (2020). It secures church "autonomy with respect to internal management decisions that are essential to the institution's central mission." Id. "And a component of this autonomy is the selection of the individuals who play certain key roles." Id.

This case falls right in the heartland of the church autonomy doctrine. A former Southern Baptist minister brought this suit to protest his dismissal from church leadership. That fact alone should be enough to bar this suit. As the saying goes, personnel is policy.

Moreover, this case proves the truth of that old adage. The complaint acknowledges that the plaintiff was dismissed because he "consistently declined to accept" church policy regarding "the specific area of starting new churches, including the selection, assessing and training of church planters." He even admits that "this cause of action had its roots in Church policy." We should take him at his word. This case is a dispute over a church's vision for spreading "the gospel of Jesus Christ through evangelism and church planting"—a fundamental tenet of faith, not just for the defendant in this suit, but for hundreds of millions of evangelicals around the world. Put simply, this suit puts the church's evangelism on trial.

Not surprisingly, the district court dismissed this suit as barred by the First Amendment. We should have affirmed that decision. But the panel did the opposite. I respectfully dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc.

I.

The following facts are taken directly from Plaintiff's complaint and the strategic partnership agreement ("SPA") that gives rise to this dispute: The Baptist Convention for Maryland/Delaware ("Maryland/Delaware") is a state convention comprised of 560 Baptist churches that works in cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC"). The North American Mission Board ("North America") is a subdivision of the SBC that "exists to work with churches, associations and state conventions in mobilizing Southern Baptists as a missional force to impact North America with the gospel of Jesus Christ through evangelism and church planting." Its priorities include assisting churches in "planting healthy, multiplying, evangelistic SBC churches," "appointing, supporting, and assuring accountability for missionaries," and "providing missions education and coordinating volunteer missions opportunities for church members."

Maryland/Delaware and North America have worked together for some time under the terms of the SPA—a religious document whose stated purpose is "to define the relationships and responsibilities of [Maryland/Delaware] and [North America] in areas where the two partners jointly develop, administer and evaluate a strategic plan for penetrating lostness through church planting and evangelism."

Plaintiff Will McRaney is an ordained minister. As the former executive director of Maryland/Delaware, he guided the direction of the ministry and organization, as well as the screening and managing of all staff. He also served as Maryland/Delaware's designated representative in SPA negotiations with North America.

In 2014, North America drafted a new SPA that "gave [North America] more controls over the financial resources and the hiring, supervising and firing of staff positions of the state conventions." North America then began pressuring Maryland/Delaware—and McRaney in particular—to accept the new SPA. But McRaney "consistently declined to accept the newly written SPA." He "view[ed] the proposed SPA as a weakening of the autonomy of [Maryland/Delaware] and the relinquishment of all controls to [North America] in the specific area of starting new churches, including the selection, assessing and training of church planters."

In response, North America worked to oust McRaney from his church leadership position. It advised other Maryland/Delaware leaders that he had repeatedly refused to meet with North America's President. It also threatened to withhold all funding from Maryland/Delaware unless Maryland/Delaware dismissed McRaney and accepted the new SPA. As McRaney puts it, North America leaders "g[ave] a one-year notice of cancellation" of the previous SPA, and "set[ ] forth in [a] letter ... false and libelous accusations against [McRaney]"—all "[a]s a direct result of [his] refusal to accept the new SPA." After a series of meetings with North America, Maryland/Delaware terminated McRaney.

McRaney filed this suit alleging that North America interfered with his contract with Maryland/Delaware and caused his termination. He also claims that North America lobbied another religious group to disinvite him from speaking at a large mission symposium in Mississippi. Finally, he contends that North America defamed him and caused him emotional distress by posting a photo of him in its headquarters’ reception area that "communicate[d] he was not to be trusted and [was] public enemy #1."

The district court dismissed the suit under the First Amendment, reasoning that McRaney's claims would presumably require the court to determine whether North America had "valid religious reason[s]" for its actions. McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of the S. Baptist Convention , 2019 WL 1810991, at *3 (N.D. Miss. Apr. 24, 2019).

But a panel of this court reversed, holding that "[t]he district court's dismissal was premature" because it is "not certain that resolution of McRaney's claims will require the court to interfere" with "purely ecclesiastical questions"—"matters of church government, matters of faith, or matters of doctrine." McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of the S. Baptist Convention, Inc. , 966 F.3d 346, 350–51 (5th Cir. 2020).

II.

"The First Amendment protects the right of religious institutions ‘to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine’ "—as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, and reminded us again just this year. Guadalupe , 140 S. Ct. at 2055 (quoting Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in N. Am. , 344 U.S. 94, 116, 73 S.Ct. 143, 97 L.Ed. 120 (1952) ). See also Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC , 565 U.S. 171, 186, 132 S.Ct. 694, 181 L.Ed.2d 650 (2012) ; Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese for U.S. & Canada v. Milivojevich , 426 U.S. 696, 721–22, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976) ; Watson v. Jones , 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 733–34, 20 L.Ed. 666 (1871). The church autonomy doctrine "does not mean that religious institutions enjoy a general immunity from secular laws." Guadalupe , 140 S. Ct. at 2060. "[B]ut it does protect their autonomy with respect to internal management decisions that are essential to the institution's central mission." Id.

So the district court was right to dismiss this suit, because each of the three actions taken by the religious organizations that McRaney wishes to challenge here—decisions about whom to place in leadership, whom to host at a religious conference, and whom to exclude from one's headquarters—is an "internal management decision[ ] that [is] essential to the institution's central mission." Id. Each of these claims involves internal, "purely ecclesiastical" matters of church governance that federal courts have no business adjudicating. Watson , 80 U.S. at 733. See id. (describing certain matters as "strictly and purely ecclesiastical in ... character, ... over which the civil courts exercise no jurisdiction," including "matter[s] which concern[ ] theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government , or the conformity of the members of the church to the standard of morals required of them") (emphasis added).

For example, "the authority to select and...