Suit against SBC mission agency dismissed in case highlighting church authority, First Amendment

The Southern Baptist Convention's domestic mission agency prevailed in a lengthy and high-profile lawsuit from a former state-level executive whose grievances became a rallying cry for a group concerned about the SBC being too hierarchical.

Decided in the U.S. District Court of Northern Mississippi, Judge Glen H. Davidson dismissed the lawsuit alleging the SBC-affiliated North American Mission Board defamed Will McRaney and caused McRaney’s wrongful termination from a state Southern Baptist convention in 2015.

But the judge's reasoning for dismissing the case leaves major, unresolved disputes about the Nashville-based denomination’s system of self-governance. Citing a First Amendment legal framework called the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, Davidson said the court is unable to decide in a case that requires evaluating a religious organization’s values and policies.

“This lawsuit will clearly require the Court to inquire into religious matters and decision-making to a degree that is simply impermissible under the Constitution,” Davidson wrote in a memorandum on Tuesday. The ruling came a month before the case was set for trial.

McRaney, currently a pastor in Florida, served as executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware between 2013-2015. McRaney’s departure there followed disagreements over a contractual agreement outlining the terms of a partnership between the Maryland/Delaware convention and the mission board.

The agreement allows the North American Mission Board to provide state conventions with funding and other resources to help with administrative responsibilities and church planting initiatives. Based in Atlanta, the North American Mission Board handles all U.S.-based missions and church planting for the SBC.

In 2014, the board drafted a new agreement for its partnerships with state conventions. McRaney resisted the changes, citing concerns about the mission board having “more controls over the financial resources and the hiring…of the state conventions,” said McRaney’s initial complaint. The conflict paved the way for McRaney’s dismissal.

“Since the outset, NAMB has consistently held that the accusations against our ministry are unfounded,” North American Mission Board spokesperson Mike Ebert said in a statement on Tuesday’s ruling.

Originally filed in Mississippi state court in 2017, the case endured a dizzying back-and-forth to federal district court to the U.S. Court of Appeals and back to U.S. district court. At one point, NAMB petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm an initial ruling in 2019 to dismiss the suit but to no avail.

The decision on Tuesday seems to settle the dispute once and for all.

“We have also argued that, as Christian ministries, NAMB and others involved in this case should be protected by the First Amendment and should not be forced to endure scrutiny and intrusive examination from the courts,” Ebert said.

McRaney disputed the judge’s ruling in a statement on Wednesday evening and said he’s considering appealing the decision. “The litigating cost and risks to Baptists are high, but the cost to Baptists by doing nothing will be higher,” McRaney said in a statement.

McRaney has 30 days to make a decision and if he decides to appeal, it will be his second time challenging a ruling dismissing his suit on First Amendment grounds. “Unless this court’s ruling is challenged, the SBC, Baptist ministers, along with Baptist autonomy, cooperation, financial health, and missionaries will be under threat of loss and a form of hierarchy created," McRaney said.

Part of a larger debate over church autonomy

McRaney’s case was significant from the outset because it explored the SBC’s system of self-governance, a subject of passionate political debate in the SBC, the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

Rival factions in the SBC have long fought over the idea of church autonomy, a core Southern Baptist tenet that says each Southern Baptist church is autonomous and voluntarily cooperates with state conventions and the 12 national SBC-affiliated agencies. Unlike top-down denominations such as the Catholic Church, national SBC agencies don’t have the final say over churches and state conventions.

However, the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the SBC and calls for abuse reform have challenged Southern Baptists’ understanding of church autonomy. Mainstream conservatives in the SBC have supported reforms that require nationwide coordination, such as a database of ministers credibly accused of abuse, while opposition conservatives have pushed back and cited concerns about hindrances to church autonomy.

McRaney’s case arrived at an important moment in this debate. Though it deals with a different set of circumstances, McRaney’s suit raised questions about a national SBC agency exercising too much authority.

In 2014, after McRaney resisted the mission board's proposal for a revised agreement with the Maryland/Delaware convention, McRaney claims NAMB indirectly and allegedly directly threatened to withhold funding from the state convention to pressure its board to fire McRaney.

NAMB denied that it “tortiously interfered” with McRaney’s employment. “Nevertheless, NAMB had the legal ‘right to interfere’ to protect its own economic and other interests,” NAMB said in a December 2022 court filing.

NAMB said it walked a fine line between protecting its own interests while still respecting the state convention’s authority. At one point in NAMB’s drawn-out legal battle with McRaney, that defense was thrown for a loop after another SBC-affiliated agency, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, filed an amicus brief in support of NAMB.

The brief mistakenly referred to the SBC as a “hierarchy” and an “umbrella Southern Baptist governing body.”  The verbiage confused Southern Baptists and sparked a frenzy, requiring a full-scale response from SBC leaders and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission to withdraw the brief.

Ironically, abuse survivors suing the denomination have tried to argue the SBC is a hierarchy, meaning national SBC leaders are responsible for abuse at a certain church. So far, those arguments haven’t successfully persuaded a judge to rule against the SBC’s defense, which is that local church autonomy exempts national leaders from liability.

The same questions are central to an ongoing abuse-related case in Texas against Paul Pressler, a former prominent figure in the SBC, and the SBC. That case is expected to go to trial in the fall.

Other recent SBC news: Why Black churches in the SBC are questioning the future with new women pastor standards

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on Twitter and Threads @liamsadams.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Southern Baptist agency wins case dealing with denomination's governance