United Methodist agency supports AME Zion Church in court case
8/3/2000 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. By Dean Snyder* WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- The United Methodist Church's chief administrative agency has joined with Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Catholics and other denominations to support the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church's claim to the property of a Maryland megachurch that has broken away from the AME Zion denomination.
An "amicus curiae" or "friend of the court" brief has been filed with the Maryland Court of Appeals by the United Methodist General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA) and other church groups. It urges the court to rule that assets of more than $40 million in property, bank accounts and a Lear jet belong to those Methodists who remain loyal to the AME Zion Church rather than to the Rev. John Cherry and his followers, who have pulled out of the denomination to form a non-denominational church in Temple Hill, Md.
The 37-page brief, written by Douglas Laycock, a professor at the University of Texas Law School, and Gene C. Schaerr, a Washington, D.C., lawyer, insists that more than property is at stake in the case, which will be heard by the Maryland Court of Appeals on Sept. 7.
The U.S. Constitution protects the right of religious organizations to define the nature of the relationship between individual congregations and denominations, according to Laycock and Schaerr. The AME Zion Book of Discipline clearly states that local congregations' properties are held in trust for the denomination, they say. Furthermore, when pastors and church members join an AME Zion church, they agree to this relationship, the lawyers say.
"The settled rule is that one who joins a church (like one who joins any other voluntary association) is deemed by that act alone to have consented to the requirements of the church's governing documents," the brief states.
The brief argues that, although Cherry and his followers are free to leave the denomination, they must honor the trust clause they agreed to as members of the AME Zion Church and not attempt to take the church's property with them.
Mary Logan, general counsel for GCFA, said her agency initiated the brief because "a significant First Amendment issue" is at stake in the Maryland case. "The Constitution prohibits courts from rewriting the polity and doctrine of a religious denomination," she said. "If the courts were to rule in favor of Cherry and his dissident group, that would be a serious rewriting of the AME Zion polity and doctrine."
Allowing secular courts to rewrite a denomination's rules could have disastrous results for all church groups, including United Methodists, Logan said. "At its worst, if you carried it to the extreme ... a court could say that a church is not allowed to have a cross in the sanctuary or put a Bible up in the chancel or follow the New Testament," she said.
The other denominations that joined in filing the original brief were the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., the Episcopal Dioceses of Washington and Easton, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Following the filing of the brief, the Washington Post said Cherry suggested in a sermon that race was a factor in the decision of the church groups to file the brief. According to the newspaper, Cherry said: "Not one of those churches are black denominations. ... The AME Zion Church calls itself the freedom church, but I haven't seen anything like this in 200 years when Africans sold us as slaves."
Since the brief was filed, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, two primarily black denominations, have asked to have their names added to the brief. The Maryland Catholic Conference, which comprises the dioceses of Washington, Baltimore and Wilmington, and the World Wide Church of God, headquartered in Pasadena, Calif., are also petitioning the court to become signatories to the brief.
GCFA invested $10,000 in legal fees, a fraction of such a brief's usual cost, to initiate the process, Logan said. "This is a fine example of the quiet ecumenical work that is done in the church on issues that are important to many denominations."
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*Snyder is director of communications for the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church.
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