Montgomery County Circuit Judge Brooke Reid declined to intervene in a property dispute between three Alabama churches and the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) on Tuesday.
The Alabama Supreme Court unanimously upheld Reid’s dismissal of a lawsuit brought by 48 Methodist churches across Alabama against the UMC in May. Reid originally dismissed the lawsuit in November from churches seeking a vote to disaffiliate with the UMC and retain church property amid global turmoil within the denomination.
The case is one of many brought against the UMC recently after UMC’s Alabama West Florida Conference (AWF) changed the rules in its “Book of Discipline” in 2023, adding additional requirements for local congregations to vote to disaffiliate from the UMC while still retaining church property. The rule change came after a mass exodus of UMC churches over a shifting view within UMC leadership related to homosexuality and homosexual clergy. The Alabama Supreme Court upheld Reid’s dismissal in May because the lawsuit centers around “ecclesiastical questions.”
According to a filing last week by an attorney for the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the UMC, an attorney for three of the plaintiff churches notified the conference in August and September that First United Methodist Church in Greenville, Loachapoka United Methodist Church, and Epworth United Methodist Church had all disaffiliated from the UMC and that any “attempt to by the (Alabama-West Florida UMC) Conference to access Church property will result in a request for immediate departure, followed by removal by law enforcement for trespassing if necessary.”
“Furthermore, upon information and belief, the above-referenced Plaintiff churches have also, in violation of the Book of Discipline and despite seeking and being denied this relief in this case, taken it upon themselves to nonetheless change the deeds and/or real property records related to their church properties to remove their trust obligations owed to Defendants and UMC under the Book of Discipline. Each of these actions – i.e., declaring themselves to be “disaffiliated” from the UMC, altering the church deeds and property records, and banning the Conference from access to the churches’ property – fly in the face of the judgment entered in this case. Disaffiliation from the UMC and removal of their trust obligations to the UMC under the Book of Discipline were certainly the relief the Plaintiffs sought in this case, but they lost. The decision of certain of these Plaintiff churches and their counsel to ignore that ruling and nonetheless move forward by awarding themselves the very relief sought and denied, as if they had prevailed in this case, is mind-boggling,” Elizabeth Smithart, an attorney representing the Alabama-West Florida UMC Conference said in a filing last week.
3ddr4nwajck0jt0mjvkuch3y_b77c1410-d7d5-4bc7-851c-76f4ce5073c8 by Caleb Taylor on Scribd
Reid denied the UMC’s motion to “enforce judgment” on Monday.
“This Court’s Order of November 10, 2023 (subsequently affirmed by the Alabama Supreme Court) dismissed the instant action on the basis of lack of jurisdiction as the Plaintiffs’ claims as presented centered on ecclesiastical questions which would have required Court interference in matters of church autonomy. To enter the relief requested by Defendants would contravene that Order as this Court did not issue any judgment concerning the claims asserted, but rather, held that the Court is without jurisdiction to reach a decision on those claims,” Reid said.
3ddr4nwajck0jt0mjvkuch3y_d7a0c336-c4d6-4e07-b2c1-112e65d3e367 by Caleb Taylor on Scribd
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