Deference in the Judicial Resolution of Intrachurch Disputes: The Lesser of Two Constitutional Evils

Authors

Nathan C. Belzer, Locke, Liddell & Sapp LLP

First Page

109

Document Type

Article

Abstract

In the course of its century long struggle to balance the ideals of the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses with the need for judicial intervention in the resolution of intrachurch disputes, the Supreme Court has fashioned two jurisprudential approaches. The deference approach, first enunciated by the court in Watson v. Jones and given modern approval in Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, mandates that civil courts defer to the result reached by the highest authority within the church or religious association in which the dispute arose. 9 In contrast, the neutral principles approach, first suggested in Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church" and expressly approved in Jones v. Wolf, counsels the use of secular legal rules whose application to religious parties or disputes does not entail theological or doctrinal evaluations." Each approach purports to minimize interference with religious doctrine and polity. Both, however, are fraught with constitutional infirmities. Yet, the Supreme Court has not addressed this issue since the Wolf decision in 1979. State courts, therefore, have been the final arbiter of intrachurch dispute resolution during the course of the last eighteen years. This Comment explores the rationale behind each approach, the First Amendment problems they create, and their constitutional interaction in the laboratory of state courts. Part I examines the theories of the deference and neutral principles models through an analysis of the two cases that have given each approach modem approval. Part II contains constitutional critiques of the two approaches and identifies the First Amendment conflicts that each method encounters in application. Part III explores the interaction of the two approaches, and suggests that their coexistence actually works its own First Amendment violations. Accordingly, Part IV recommends that the Supreme Court reassert itself into this area of law and choose a single approach for the resolution of intrachurch disputes. It concludes that deference should be the Court's preferable method of adjudication: the lesser of two constitutional evils.

Recommended Citation

Nathan C. Belzer, Deference in the Judicial Resolution of Intrachurch Disputes: The Lesser of Two Constitutional Evils, 11 St. Thomas L. Rev. 109 (1998).
Available at: https://scholarship.stu.edu/stlr/vol11/iss1/9