Key points:
- After the season of disaffiliation, United Methodists are still seeing disputes land in civil court.
- The Baltimore-Washington Conference filed a federal lawsuit to defend the denomination’s trust clause.
- At the same time, Highland Park United Methodist has filed its response to the Horizon Texas Conference lawsuit.
As a matter of United Methodist church law, the season of church disaffiliations is over. However, legal disputes related to church property and other aspects of The United Methodist Church’s governance persist in civil courts across the U.S.
The most recent development is Baltimore-Washington Conference’s Sept. 20 announcement that it has filed a lawsuit in federal court against a church that removed its United Methodist identity. The conference says its goal is to uphold the centuries-old trust clause, established by Methodism founder John Wesley, that says church property is held in trust for the benefit of the denomination.
Meanwhile, Highland Park United Methodist Church has filed its answer to the Horizon Texas Conference’s lawsuit in Dallas County Court, seeking the case’s dismissal. Horizon Texas’ suit challenges changes to that church’s legal documents that, among other things, shorten its name from United Methodist to Methodist.
“This is a severe test of the ability of the United Methodist connection to remain connected, and I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” said the Rev. William B. Lawrence. He is professor emeritus of American church history and former dean at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology in Dallas. Lawrence is also a former president of the Judicial Council, The United Methodist Church’s top court.
What happens when a church dispute reaches a civil court can be unpredictable, especially with judges unfamiliar with the denomination’s connectional church governance.
Lawrence said he is particularly concerned that the case involving Highland Park United Methodist, the Dallas megachurch, could have far-reaching consequences.
The most recent litigation comes after The United Methodist Church saw more than 7,600 U.S. churches withdraw under a temporary denominational policy that allowed churches to leave with property — for “reasons of conscience” related to homosexuality — if they met certain procedural and financial conditions.
That limited release from the trust clause, enacted in 2019 amid intensifying denominational debate around LGBTQ inclusion, expired Dec. 31, 2023. The next year, the denomination’s General Conference took the additional step of removing it entirely from the Book of Discipline, the denomination’s policy book. The United Methodist Judicial Council subsequently declared the trust clause is now back in full force.
That same 2024 General Conference also ended denomination-wide bans on same-sex marriage and gay clergy.
While the denomination’s debate about LGBTQ people has largely subsided, litigation stemming from the disaffiliation policy and other matters of church governance continues to work its way through civil courts both in the U.S. and other countries.
Baltimore-Washington lawsuit
Baltimore-Washington Conference’s lawsuit against Calvary United Methodist Church in Martinsburg, West Virginia, emerges out of one of these ongoing cases.
Calvary is part of a group of churches that sued the conference in 2023 in a Maryland county court seeking to leave with church property while bypassing the requirements of the temporary disaffiliation policy. The churches argue that they should be entitled to retain property free of the denomination’s trust clause.
State of the trust clause
No question, the lengthy and adversarial legal process is generally not the best way to resolve church disagreements. U.S. judges often steer clear of anything that could be deemed an ecclesiastical dispute because of First Amendment concerns.
However, in 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court in Jones v. Wolf established that state courts can use neutral principles of law in settling church-property cases. What that means is judges can take into consideration deeds, state property laws and denominational governing documents without getting into the weeds of church doctrine.
In that ruling, the late Justice Harry Blackmun — a United Methodist himself —even cites a Georgia Supreme Court decision based on The United Methodist Church’s trust provision as an example of applying neutral principles.
“Trust clauses are well within what the court had in mind with neutral principles of law,” said Whittney Barth, executive director of Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion in Atlanta. “Even non-religious groups have trust clauses.”
In general, she added, “trust clauses tend to be upheld as valid.” In recent years, The United Methodist Church has seen courts in Alabama, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania uphold its trust clause.
Courts also use neutral principles in other church disputes beyond those dealing with property.
At this point, the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled specifically on The United Methodist Church’s trust provision or any other church-governance matter.
The Anne Arundel County Circuit Court dismissed the lawsuit. But 37 of the churches — including Calvary — have since appealed to the Appellate Court of Maryland, where the case is still pending.
In the meantime, the Calvary congregation in March filed documents in West Virginia to incorporate as Calvary Methodist Church, Inc. Congregants also filed a “quitclaim deed” that purported to transfer Calvary United Methodist property to the new corporation.
On March 30, the law firm representing Calvary in the Maryland suit sent a letter to the Baltimore-Washington Conference chancellor saying that the church has separated from the conference and denomination. The law firm’s letter, according to the conference, further said that any “attempt by the Conference to access Church property will result in a request for immediate departure, followed by removal by law enforcement for trespassing if necessary.”
Bishop LaTrelle Miller Easterling, who leads both the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware conferences, announced “with regret” that the conference has found it necessary to file the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the West Virginia Northern District to preserve the trust clause.
“It grieves my heart that we have arrived at a place where the Conference has no viable alternative but to pursue relief in our civil courts,” she wrote in the announcement. “It is always my preference to work collaboratively with congregations in a spirit of prayer, mutual respect and holy conferencing to discern a faithful and viable path forward.”
She said the regret is especially profound given the church’s nearly 250-year history in Methodism. The church has roots in a Methodist circuit established in 1778, the first such circuit west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Today, the church has more than 200 members, according to data submitted to the denomination’s General Council on Finance and Administration.
Nevertheless, Easterling said she and conference leaders also need to take steps to protect The United Methodist Church’s interests. That includes defending the denomination’s trust provision. She described the policy as rooted in principles established by John Wesley and “vital to ensuring that property entrusted to the Church remains dedicated to its shared mission and ministry.”
The Calvary congregation did not respond to UM News’ request for comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
This is at least the second time in the past month a dispute over the denomination’s trust clause has landed in a U.S. federal court. In August, the 25-member Queen Memorial Church in Kimmel Township, Pennsylvania, sued the Susquehanna Conference in Western Pennsylvania’s U.S. District Court, urging the federal court to overturn the trust clause altogether.
On Sept. 2, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines directed the church and conference to confer with each other in “good faith” before either side files a motion to dismiss the case.
The Susquehanna Conference said in a statement that it is “committed to following both the Book of Discipline, which establishes the governing framework of The United Methodist Church, and the United States Constitution, which establishes the governing framework of our country.”
Horizon Texas lawsuit
Horizon Texas Conference’s lawsuit against Highland Park United Methodist Church does not directly involve the trust clause.
In its first court response to the suit, filed Sept. 21, the Dallas church’s leadership rebukes the conference’s claims that it was trying to quietly sever its denominational ties and asks for the suit’s dismissal.
“This case is about corporate governance,” the court response says. “The Conference’s Petition dresses up a dispute over a nonprofit’s articles of incorporation and bylaws in ecclesiastical garb, but the actual issues it raises are entirely secular and fully resolvable under neutral principles of Texas law.”
Nevertheless, the case has the potential to influence litigation involving church exits and other church-governance issues for years to come.
Lawrence, who attended Highland Park United Methodist while Perkins dean, finds fault with both conference and church leadership in their handling of the situation.
However, he also sees “the makings of a catastrophe” if Highland Park’s arguments prevail.
“If Highland Park achieves what it claims it has the legal right to achieve,” he said, “any United Methodist congregation could simply secede from the denomination, by signing a document that says we have transferred all governing authority to our church council.”
At issue are changes Highland Park’s church council made in 2022 to the congregation’s bylaws and corporate documents filed with the Texas Secretary of State.
The revised bylaws strip away earlier references to the denomination’s Book of Discipline, and the legal documents now list the church’s official name as “Highland Park Methodist Church.” The congregation’s business name remains “Highland Park United Methodist Church.”
The Horizon Texas Conference also says the changes empower Highland Park’s church council at the expense of denominational and congregational oversight in violation of the denomination’s Book of Discipline.
The church’s court response details that the church council made the changes because it was trying to shield the megachurch and its ministries from the turmoil facing the denomination amid disaffiliations.
“The Church Council knew, as good stewards of a historic congregation, that it needed to ensure that if the Church maintained its ecclesiastical connection with the UMC, it was legally insulated from the ecclesiastical and doctrinal strife within UMC,” the court filing said.
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The court filing also notes that the resolution to change the documents came amid a lawsuit between its neighbor Southern Methodist University and The United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdictional Conference. At the time, SMU was trying to sever ties with The United Methodist Church, citing the university’s desire to continue welcoming LGBTQ students and faculty. That lawsuit was resolved earlier this year with SMU reasserting its United Methodist ties.
Citing emails, the court filing also insists that conference leaders knew in 2022 of the changes the church council was making to the corporate documents, and any intimations otherwise “are false.”
At the time, the conference was under the leadership of a different bishop.
For its part, the conference said in a statement that when and how it became aware of the changes “does not determine whether those changes comply with United Methodist governance requirements and the Book of Discipline.”
For now, the Horizon Texas Conference said in a statement that leaders are reviewing Highland Park’s court filing.
“Our underlying concern remains the same: restoring Highland Park UMC’s governance to United Methodist order, protecting the voice and safeguards of the congregation and continuing to seek a faithful path toward resolution,” the conference said.
Ahead of the Sept. 21 court filing, Horizon Texas Conference’s current Bishop Rubén Saenz Jr, sent a letter to Highland Park congregants intended to make clear the conference’s objections are to the corporate changes not to them or their ministry.
He added that he sees room within the United Methodist governance to accommodate a church of the size and complexity of Highland Park, which has more than 15,000 members.
“I understand that certain events of the past led many to question the future of The United Methodist Church,” Saenz wrote. “However, the Conference and Highland Park United Methodist Church have the opportunity to show, publicly, that as Methodists, we can envision a way out of dissension or disagreement and move forward in harmony by returning to the covenants that we hold in common as United Methodists.”
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
