Can a court weigh in on a church elder election?

Last week, a Virginia appeals court judge gave new life to a long-running legal dispute between a prominent evangelical church and a group of former members. The nondenominational church, Vienna’s McLean Bible Church, where David Platt serves as lead pastor, has been in a five-year legal battle with former members who say the church tried to rig the results of an elder election in favor of the candidates.

The church has maintained no wrongdoing and points to numerous dismissals of the case in court. But last week’s ruling overturned a lower court order that had dismissed the case. However, experts warn that the judge’s opinion threatens to undercut the First Amendment right of church autonomy.

The conflict over the elder election began in June 2021, when the former members alleged that the church’s leadership board barred them from voting for three new elders. Five former members said the board claimed they had missed eight consecutive weeks of worship services, making them ineligible to vote in church elections. In a later lawsuit, they claimed the board designated several members as inactive on an “arbitrary basis” and said the multicampus church had no practical way to record their nonattendance.

After the elder candidates failed to receive enough votes, Platt suggested that activists had coordinated a campaign to vote down elders in order to seize control of the church.

Another election was held the following month, and the board barred members from casting secret ballots. The members protested that this violated the church’s constitution. Despite this, the elder candidates were successfully voted in.

The members later filed a lawsuit, arguing that both elections were a breach of contract. In response, the church adopted a lawsuit resolution plan and held another election in 2022, this time with secret ballots. Again, the three elders were voted in, as were three additional candidates.

The former members continued with the lawsuit, arguing the church should allow them to view church voting lists and member data to see whether members had been rightfully labeled as inactive. A Fairfax County circuit court dismissed the members’ lawsuit later that year. But in 2023, a state appeals court reversed that decision and reopened the lawsuit to look further into “disenfranchisement of members, transparency and notice, and the secret ballot dispute.” The same circuit court dismissed the lawsuit for a second time in 2024, finding that the discovery motion violated the First Amendment’s protection of church autonomy, also referred to as ecclesiastical abstention.

Last week, the appeals court found otherwise, saying the lower court erred by blocking the members’ request to view the data.

The church autonomy doctrine is the constitutional principle that civil courts can’t interfere in religious disputes, explained Lael Weinberger, a constitutional law expert at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. The doctrine, based on both the free exercise of religion and establishment clauses, says that courts can’t weigh in on matters of theology, church governance, and internal discipline.

The appeals court concluded that the members’ request was based on objective standards and did not involve McLean Bible Church’s internal affairs. Writing for the majority, Judge Frank Friedman said if it can be proved that the members missed eight weeks, then the case can easily be dismissed. Figuring this out can be determined with “numerical principles” and not theology, Friedman said.

“The number eight is neutral,” Friedman wrote. “This court, and all other courts in Virginia, are surely able to count to eight without entering a religious thicket.”

He noted that the court could interpret and apply the church’s constitution as long as it does so in “purely secular terms” and does not “rely on religious precepts.”

Friedman added that courts have more power to weigh in on disputes at congregational churches over hierarchical churches, such as Lutheran and Presbyterian houses of worship. Hierarchical churches can appeal to internal tribunals, but congregational churches lack this route, Friedman said.

The appeals court’s ruling sends the case back to the trial court, which will determine if the discovery motion violates First Amendment rights. If the trial court finds the motion constitutional, the church would be required to produce the requested information.

A lawyer representing the members said the plaintiffs’ praised God for the ruling. They are seeking to “fight for the religious freedoms and rights under the church constitution owed to all members of McLean Bible Church.”

WORLD reached out to McLean Bible Church for comment on this ruling but did not hear back prior to publication.

Weinberger said the opinion is troubling on several fronts. Although the former members lauded Friedman’s different treatment of hierarchical versus congregational churches, Weinberger criticized the judge’s view on that matter. “That certainly can’t be OK within the constitutional system,” Weinberger said. “The court here is troublingly quick in coming to this conclusion.”

The judge also concluded he can apply the church’s governing documents, like its constitution, neutrally to the membership attendance dispute. But the church has argued the eight weeks in question must be missed “without reasonable excuse,” which it says raises a theological and ecclesiastical question, not a neutral one.

Weinberger said the court is “willing to parse [the church constitution] fairly aggressively to say that ‘this section here might get into theological stuff, this section doesn’t.’”

The case joins a trend of courts testing the boundaries of church autonomy. Weinberger pointed to a lawsuit accusing a Roman Catholic church of fraudulently soliciting donations, which he said could allow courts to decide what is or isn’t considered a charitable contribution. Resolution of the issue will have to wait, as the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review the ruling.

In another recent case, a federal court in New York held that churches can’t be punished for exercising the right to choose their own clergy. That ruling, which has been appealed, came after a defrocked priest sued the Russian Orthodox Church.

In the McLean case and others, it’s difficult to balance protecting religious freedom and ensuring people don’t abuse these protections, Weinberger said. “I get the concern that the court may have, that if the church is abusing its rules … you don’t want churches to get away with that,” he said. “But on the other hand, you don’t want courts to be getting called in every time there’s an internal church dispute.”