Mount Olive
Primitive Baptist Church v. Patrick et al
252 Ala. 672
(1949)
[*673] SIMPSON, Justice.
This case involves a factional dispute in the congregation
of the Mount Olive Primitive Baptist Church, an unincorporated association,
wherein appellants R. F. Copeland and J. P. Copeland were ousted from
membership without notice and the latter Copeland [***3] deposed from official connection in the
church. These two appellants and the other dissident members named as parties
plaintiff sought by the bill of complaint (filed against defendants, as
officers and pastor of the church) relief against such action and to have
themselves reinstated as members or as officers of the church and to have
restored to them the church property under the averment that they were the true
doctrinaires of the Primitive Baptist faith. No other rights are claimed.
The schism was initiated by the exclusion of R. F. Copeland,
all other contended irregularities having had their roots in this alleged
misconduct, and decision turns there. The basis on which relief is sought is
the contention that the fundamental tenets of Primitive Baptists were violated
(1) in thus exscinding R. F. Copeland and (2) in discharging J. P. Copeland and
in receiving new members into the congregation when the church was allegedly in
"confusion," meaning having been thrown into disorder by this
expulsion of R. F. Copeland, thereby rendering it unlawful under the doctrines
and practices of the church to transact any business until the church should be
again "in peace," namely, expurgated [***4] of the alleged unlawful conduct by resorting
to proper church procedure.
The guiding rule is that courts will not interfere with
factional differences arising in an ecclesiastical body unless it clearly
appears "that the purpose of the majority or governing body is to make a
gratuitous transfer of the property of the society to another denomination, or
to disavow and depart from the characteristic, distinctive doctrines and
practices, and devote [*674] the use of the property to doctrines radically
opposed to the distinctive doctrines and practices of the society." Mitchell
v. Church of Christ, 221 Ala. 315, 318, 128 So. 781, 783, 70 A.L.R. 71; Caples
v. Nazareth Church, 245 Ala. 656, 659, 18 So. 2d 383.
A corollary to this general rule is that the civil courts
will not interfere in case of a division in a religious society unless property
rights are affected, nor even then if the basis of the schism is due merely to
a disparate interpretation of doctrine. Such matters must be settled by the society
itself. Gewin v. Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church,
166 Ala. 345, syl. 3, 4, 51 So. 947, 139 Am. St. Rep. 41.
So, we will not undertake to [***5] rationalize the claimed fundamental
differences which gave rise to the disaffection in the Mount Olive congregation.
It is sufficient to say that the court, if it would,
could not determine with the slightest degree of accuracy that the method of
exclusion of Copeland from membership was that radical departure of doctrine to
justify court action. In the first place, the evidence is uncontradicted that
for some offenses a member may be excluded without notice and it is not made
too clear just whether or not the offense for which
Copeland was excluded was that character of offense. And in the second place,
it is established in this jurisdiction, and we think generally, that the courts
will not intervene to settle a dispute regarding the right of membership.
A case bearing much similarity is the Caples case, supra,
which, in reaffirming the long-established rule enunciated in Bouldin v.
Alexander, 15 Wall. 131, 82 U.S. 131, 21 L. Ed. 69, quoted the following
from that case: "* * * we [the courts] have no power to revise or question
ordinary acts of church discipline, or of excision from membership. We have
only to do with rights of property. * * * We cannot decide who ought [***6] to be members of
the church nor whether the excommunicated have been regularly or irregularly
cut off. We must take the fact of excommunication as conclusive proof that the
persons exscinded are not members * * *. In a congregational church, the
majority, if they adhere to the organization and to the doctrines, represent
the church." 245 Ala. 656 at 660, [**619] 18 So. 2d 383 at 386. See also Gewin v. Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church, supra; Hundley
v. Collins, 131 Ala. 234, 32 So. 575, 90 Am. St. Rep. 33; Tucker v.
Denson, 202 Ala. 308, 80 So. 373; Mitchell v. Church of Christ, supra.
As regards this precise question, it was said in Gewin v. Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church, supra,
166 Ala. 349, 51 So. 947: HN3 "* * * the courts have no power to revise
ordinary acts of church discipline or pass upon controverted rights of
membership. Hundley v. Collins, 131 Ala. 234, 32 So. 575, 90 Am. St.
Rep. 33."
We think the court would be treading on most dangerous
ground and invading a sanctuary not set apart for its jurisdiction if it should
permit dissident minorities, believing themselves to have been improperly
excluded because of the procedure [***7]
by which they were exscinded, to invoke its power to determine such a
factional dispute. Much the same was the holding in Hundley v. Collins,
supra, 131 Ala. 243, 32 So. 578, where it was said:
"Admitting, therefore, * * * that petitioner had no
notice of this proceeding [wherein he was expelled], and that it was irregular
according to common usage, the church being independent, and not subject to
higher powers, and being a law unto itself for its own procedure in religious
matters what it did towards the expulsion of petitioner was not unlawful, even
if it was not politic and wise.
* * * *
"'It is of the essence of these religious unions, and
of their right to establish tribunals for the decisions of questions arising
among themselves, that those decisions should be binding in all cases of
ecclesiastical cognizance, subject only to such appeal as the organism itself
provides for. * * * In this class of cases we think the rule of action which
should govern the civil courts, founded in a broad and sound view of the
relations of church and state under our system of laws, and supported by a
preponderating weight of judicial authority is, that HN4 whenever the questions
of [***8] discipline or of faith, or
ecclesiastical [*675] rule, custom, or law have been decided by the
highest of these church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the
legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them, in
their application to the case before them.'"
In the instant case the church, through its congregation,
was the final arbiter, no action by a higher body having been taken. The lower
court therefore correctly held that the matters complained of were not of that
character which allowed court intervention.
Affirmed.
BROWN, FOSTER, and LAWSON, JJ., concur.