By Greg Garrison

Bishop David Graves, head of the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, breaks bread during a communion service during the annual meeting held June 11-14, 2023.

The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled against 44 congregations in south Alabama and the Florida panhandle that filed a lawsuit against United Methodist Bishop David Graves and the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church because they were not allowed to disaffiliate from the denomination.

The appeal was filed Nov. 13, after Montgomery Circuit Judge Brooke E. Reid dismissed the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order, saying it was an internal church matter and the court did not have jurisdiction.

The state Supreme Court, in a ruling released May 31, agreed with Reid and said the churches must pursue the matter through the denomination’s own judicial system.

The churches argued that it was a matter of property issues and that a civil court could intervene.

The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 31 in Montgomery County Circuit Court by 42 churches and joined by two others.

The suit claimed Graves and his cabinet tried to “run out the clock” by not letting the churches leave the denomination and take their property with them as allowed by church law by Dec. 31.

The lawsuit claimed Graves delayed the disaffiliation process and wouldn’t let the churches leave the denomination by the end of 2023.

In June 2023, the Alabama-West Florida Conference called for loyalty from leaders and tightened the requirements for disaffiliation.

Judge Reid’s ruling on Nov. 10 said, “The Court is without jurisdiction to rule on such issues because the relief sought by Plaintiffs would require the Court to interpret a provision of the Book of Discipline intertwined with church doctrine.”

The Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

After Judge Reid’s ruling, the Alabama-West Florida Conference said it was a correct interpretation and that civil courts had no authority on the matter.

“In their complaint, the plaintiffs asked the Montgomery County Circuit Court to decide matters that would have required it to interpret the United Methodist Book of Discipline and church doctrine,” the conference said.

“Relying upon principles enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and long standing rulings of law by the United States Supreme Court and Supreme Court of Alabama, the Court held that it lacked jurisdiction to interpret church doctrine, and it dismissed the case.”

Among the churches named in the lawsuit as seeking to leave were Aldersgate of Montgomery, Armstrong of Auburn, Black Creek, Blountstown, Spanish Fort, Shalimar, Loachapoka, Flomaton, Crawford, Cypress, Daleville, Elmore, Elba, Epworth, Demopolis, Cottage Hill in Cantonment, Gulfview in Panama City, First United Methodist Church of Greenville, First Church of Mexico Beach, First Church of Fort Walton, Gulfview and Theodore.

The most recent disaffiliation vote was held on Nov. 12, when eight churches including one of Mobile’s largest, the 4,936-member Christ Church, disaffiliated.

In 2022, what had been the state’s largest United Methodist church, the 7,000-member Frazer Memorial in Montgomery, disaffiliated and joined a more theologically conservative denomination, the Free Methodist Church.

The churches that disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church had opposed same-sex marriage and ordination of LBBTQ clergy, which the United Methodist Church now supports after successful votes to update its policies on those issues at the most recent General Conference in Charlotte, N.C.

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