Marian Guinn vs Church of Christ Collinsville

The Marian Guinn case in 1984 was a key precedent for the Hancock case. The case involved a nurse who started dating Pat Sharp, the Mayor of Collinsville. Because he was divorced on unbiblical grounds the Church of Christ forbid Marian from seeing him. She continued to see him and more confrontations insured. She in confidence admitted to having a sexual relations. A church discipline case was started, Marian quit the church. The church rejected the withdrawal, excommunicated her and then advised all the churches in the neighborhood of her actions. Marion sued and the case became a major precedent.

This case presents a wealth of topics. First off, the Oklahoma court found against Marian regarding the issue of internal confidentiality. Again churches are not required to maintain confidences there is no expectation of privacy (see Penley v. Westbrook for a modern example). This is something that comes up again and again in discussions regarding church discipline so its worth commenting here, that a member that talks within a church to another member has no legal rights of confidentiality. Readers here should note that if they want to maintain their legal rights, they should not discuss things in church or in a church capacity!

Second, the court again affirmed a high bar for oversight of those actions that occurred while she was a member of the church. A church can do whatever it wants without any legal oversight unless such actions endanger peace, safety or public order.

The third point though is one many conservative churches most certainly went against the notion of church covenant. The court held that binding commitments to a church had no effect in law. Quite simply after withdrawing a church court was just another entity:

Engel [ed: school led prayer is illegal] is supported by historical fact; many who left England and its governmentally established church for America did so in pursuit of religious freedom. The First Amendment of the United States [775 P.2d 777] Constitution was designed to preserve freedom of worship by prohibiting the establishment or endorsement of any official religion. One of the fundamental purposes of the First Amendment is to protect the people's right to worship as they choose. Implicit in the right to choose freely one's own form of worship is the right of unhindered and unimpeded withdrawal from the chosen form of worship. In Engel it was the government that, by advocating one particular form of religious worship, threatened to limit freedom of choice; here, it is the Collinsville Church of Christ that, by denying Parishioner's right to disassociate herself from a particular form of religious belief, is threatening to curtail her freedom of worship according to her choice. Unless Parishioner waived the constitutional right to withdraw her initial consent to be bound by the Church of Christ discipline and its governing Elders, her resignation was a constitutionally protected right....

By voluntarily uniting with the church, she impliedly consented to submitting to its form of religious government, but did not thereby consent to relinquishing a right which the civil law guarantees her as its constitutionally protected value. The intentional and voluntary relinquishment of a known right required for a finding of an effective waiver was never established. On the record before us Parishioner - a sui juris person - removed herself from the Church of Christ congregation rolls the moment she communicated to the Elders that she was withdrawing from membership.

WHEN PARISHIONER WITHDREW HER MEMBERSHIP FROM THE CHURCH OF CHRIST AND THEREBY WITHDREW HER CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN A SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP IN WHICH SHE HAD IMPLICITLY AGREED TO SUBMIT TO ECCLESIASTICAL SUPERVISION, THOSE DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS THEREAFTER TAKEN BY THE ELDERS AGAINST PARISHIONER, WHICH ACTIVELY INVOLVED HER IN THE CHURCH'S WILL AND COMMAND, WERE OUTSIDE THE PURVIEW OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT [775 P.2d 778] PROTECTION AND WERE THE PROPER SUBJECT OF STATE REGULATION.

While the First Amendment requires that citizens be tolerant of religious views different from and offensive to their own, it surely does not require that those like Parishioner, who choose not to submit to the authority of any religious association, be tolerant of that group's attempts to govern them. Only those "who unite themselves" in a religious association impliedly consent to its authority over them and are "bound to submit to it." Parishioner voluntarily joined the Church of Christ and by so doing consented to submit to its tenets. When she later removed herself from membership, Parishioner withdrew her consent, depriving the Church of the power actively to monitor her spiritual life through overt disciplinary acts. No real freedom to choose religion would exist in this land if under the shield of the First Amendment religious institutions could impose their will on the unwilling and claim immunity from secular judicature for their tortious acts.

This bears repeating. Once a withdraw has occurred the first amendment protections don't belong to the church, rather they belong to the individual. All religious activity in the United States is consensual, a person who publically claims not to be a member of a church is legally not a member of that church and church discipline cannot continue without consent. A church attempting to discipline a person that has withdrawn can be found to be engaging in a form of harassment.

The original judgment against Church of Christ was for $390,000 which was six times the annual budget of the church. The court did reverse the damages since the original court had failed to separate which tortuous acts had before and after her withdraw.

See Also

• This blog maintains a list of legal cases which influence church discipline
• The full ruling from the Supreme Court of Oklahoma
• Time Magazine article on the case

Peggy Penley and Buddy Westbrook (followup)

This article is a follow up to the article 6 weeks ago about the Peggy Penley and Buddy Westbrook case. The Supreme court of Texas has rendered its decision in this case. All filing can be found at their website.

The court in my opinion accurately captured the key point of dispute:

Westbrook contends Penley’s suit encroaches upon the autonomy of churches to decide matters of internal church discipline and governance. He acknowledges that there are exceptions to the concept of church autonomy, but claims they should be narrowly drawn by allowing judicial interference in church disciplinary matters only when a claim arises from a purely secular act. Westbrook describes actions that are purely secular in nature as those that are clearly nonreligious in motivation, like intentional torts or sexual misconduct. According to Westbrook, if there is any doubt as to the secular or religious nature of a particular action, courts should proceed no further. Any less deferential standard, Westbrook claims, would require a case-by-case analysis that would in itself excessively entangle the courts with religion and infringe upon the church’s authority. In this case, Westbrook asserts, once Penley admitted that she looked to him as both a counselor and a pastor, the trial court was precluded from adjudicating her claim. The rationale, Westbrook explains, is to avoid courts having to determine which acts are done in a secular role and which are done in an ecclesiastical capacity, particularly when there is such a blend of roles, as here, that makes it impossible to perceive where one ends and the other begins.

The court first noted that Westbrook was a licensed counselor. They did hold that Westbrook did violate ethical standards of conduct but that the courts should impose no liability. In their explanation latter in the case, they argued that the state does have a compelling interest in preserving counselor patient confidentiality but that those interest do not trump the interest in protecting the first amendment. They explicitly drew the analogy to employment discrimination cases. The court felt that deciding this the other way would have in essence been back door judicial oversight of church discipline,

"In sum, while the elements of Penley’s professional-negligence claim can be defined by neutral principles without regard to religion, the application of those principles to impose civil tort liability on Westbrook would impinge upon CrossLand’s ability to manage its internal affairs and hinder adherence to the church disciplinary process that its constitution requires. See Idleman, 75 Ind. L.J. at 254 n.96."

Or from earlier in the document

For purposes of our review, we presume the counseling at issue was purely secular in nature as Penley claims. Even so, we cannot ignore Westbrook’s role as Penley’s pastor. In his dual capacity, Westbrook owed Penley conflicting duties; as Penley’s counselor he owed her a duty of confidentiality, and as her pastor he owed Penley and the church an obligation to disclose her conduct. We conclude that parsing those roles for purposes of determining civil liability in this case, where health or safety are not at issue, would unconstitutionally entangle the court in matters of church governance and impinge on the core religious function of church discipline. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals’ judgment and dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.

The biggest weakness however in the Penley case was an inconsistency. All claims but the professional misconduct ones had been dismissed by the first court. That is the court explicitly held ecclesiastical functions were not subject to judicial review. Penley had argued that her suit was regarding Westbrook's disclosure to the elders and not the elders disclosure to the church; because the later had first amendment issues. The court essentially dismissed this since the damages were as a result of the second not the first disclosure; that is the defamation came from the church hearing about her "inappropriate relationship".

The court made a few interesting observation. Penley had paid for counseling in 1998 but for the group sessions she did not pay, further evidence that strengthens Westbrook's claim that she wasn't engaged in secular counseling.

The court also noted that the church constitution regarding discipline was very explicit and Penley agreed to the constitution. Further the letter sent to the was not explicit and contained minimal information. Further it explained this was a member's only issue. While not stated explicitly the point of these statement was to establish that the church had met the informed consent burden.

As an editorial aside I think the Texas court decided wisely. I also believe the court may have wanted to have been a bit more specific. Clearly the first amendment issues are real had the Penley case been decided the other way. Moreover in the court did establish a fairly high burdon in that they noted:

1. non payment for the sessions in which the adultery was revealed.
   
2. that Westbrook was her pastor and not just another church member
3. That Westbrook took minimal action

However the court failed to address what would have been their ruling if any of the above had not been true. The initial and final statements are much stronger than the body of the decision and I believe that the possibilities for extension left open are quite large. For example what about disclosure between a catholic and his catholic criminal lawyer?



This case is likely to be big news so we will add other interesting commentary as we find them.

• Vision forum (reformed fundamentalist baptist, with a record of controversial discipline) wrote a commentary expounding on the two spheres position.
  

Peggy Penley and Buddy Westbrook

Buddy Westbrook is pastor for Crossland Community Bible Church. He had a member Peggy Penley who decided to start an adulterous relationship and then divorce her husband. Westbrook provided marital counseling and then used this information as part of a discipline case.

What's interesting on this case is the issue of standards. In the secular world people are very careful about confidentiality issues and conflicts of interest. It would be obvious to any counselor thinking secularly that Westbrook would need to get either a general waiver or specific permission to act in a pastoral manner based on information provided in counseling. In fact the commentary on CBNNews.com was that this was a good example of why pastors should not get secular counseling licenses. Liberty Legal which is council for Westbrook sees this as a simple first amendment issue.

What's not mentioned in the story though is that the suit is for violation of the Texas Licensed Professional Counselor Act. She dropped the church and its elders as defendants. Source: Texas Council on Family Violence .

What could make for interesting discussion is the obligations regarding Christians who come into possession or understanding of knowledge through other roles. What should be the process for incorporating that knowledge into discipline related issues?

There is an updated version of this article with the court's ruling

Disqualified forever

A blogger dealing with church discipline (interesting read). He castigates the church for not having it. He brings up a case of a guy had 17 affairs in 7 years. He is something of a leader and the blogger develops a 4 point plan.

1. Confess and ask forgiveness from his wife;
2. Confess and ask forgiveness from each of his families;
3. Confess to the Sunday School class that he had started and to step down from any future leadership position for due to his lifestyle he was disqualified forever in serving in any kind of local church leadership role, and
4. Go with an elder of the church to every one of these seventeen women in the Nashville area and ask for forgiveness as well.

Now I'm a little curious about disqualified forever. Paul was in the business of killing Christians and yet he wasn't disqualified forever. The idea of a church discipline that offers no chance of full reinstatement is worth discussing. I hope Steve responds either here or on his blog.

Watermark Community Church

Here is an interesting case. We have a guy who decides to have an affair. The "other woman" is not part of the church, yet the discipline process is applied to her. They have a very well written 6 page document regarding discipline

Religion News Blog

Moreover the news stories the church actually wanted to go the wider world even after the person tried to quit. I decided to debate this one. Its also being debated at worldmagblog.

The policy as written
1) doesn't give them the ability to go after 3rd parties
2) It doesn't give the ability to disclose counseling details to the broader community
3) And the policy is vague about people who "run away from this community to avoid care and correction" (fugitives from discipline)

The church deserves to lose this lawsuit.