Law Meets Gospel

Here’s the Reuters story: Banks foreclosing on churches in record numbers

Slate magazine has a thoughtful story about a former member of Seattle megachurch Mars Hill who instead of submitting to church discipline left. Church discipline, including shunning, is commonly litigated in the courts through defamation and similar claims. It is also an important issue for church leaders to deal with apart from the legal implications. This story gives a window into how Mars Hill handles these issues.
Read the story here: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2012/02/mars_hill_pastor_mark_driscoll_faces_backlash_over_church_discipline_case_.single.html

Leaders of the Roman Catholic church have taken a very strong stance against a rule written under the new Affordable Car Act, including recently reading a letter in many congregations. The rule requires all employers, including religiously run hospitals, to provide insurance for contraception. The rule’s exemption for religious employers does not apply if the organization employs a certain number of people of different faiths. Continue reading “Catholic Bishops Speak up against Healthcare Law” →

Here is an excerpt from the official syllabus: Because Perich was a minister within the meaning of the ministerial exception, the First Amendment requires dismissal of this employment discrimination suit against her religious employer.
Here is the link to the opinion: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-553.pdf

Most churches nowadays have a website if not a Facebook page. Many congregations want to give outsiders a window into church life, and one way they attempt to do that is by posting photographs of church events on the Internet. There are many questions that arise when someone wants to post an individual’s picture, especially when that individual is a minor. Continue reading “Photographs and the Internet” →

For my first substantive post, I’m going to focus on resources for religious leaders who face legal issues. Some of these resources are specific to churches, even specific denominations, but others are more general and can help anyone with legal questions, including those faced by churches. Continue reading “Legal Resources for Church Leaders” →

I’m a lawyer with a graduate-level theological education. Naturally, people come to me with questions about how the law affects their faith communities. In talking to many different people, including recent seminary graduates, I realized many church leaders I know could use a place to go to where they could find basic information—even just the questions they need to be asking—about the legal issues that face churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious organizations. Too often these leaders wait too long to think about potential legal issues until they are pressing legal issues.

My practice does not currently include a whole heckuva lot of churches as clients. But I do some work for religious organizations, and I expect to do more in the future. More importantly, as I was earning my two graduate degrees—a law degree and a master’s of divinity—I was constantly thinking about how the law treat religious organizations and how religious organizations should navigate the legal waters in which they find themselves.

I intend this blog to be a resource for clergy, lay leaders, and anyone curious about these topics. I will aim to stay true to this purpose. I expect to link to resources and highlight important lessons from them and news stories and other interesting bits from the Internet. I anticipate posting something at least once a week, but only time will tell.

Starting this week, I will start a series of posts pointing to resources on the Internet for church leaders to start when they have legal questions.