The Virginia Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal from McLean Bible Church (MBC) that sought to end a lawsuit brought by longtime members over the church’s 2021 elder election and other concerns. In a brief ruling released Oct. 2, the state Supreme Court found that church leaders had not properly filed their appeal. The justices did not address the case's merits.
“Finding that the appeal was not perfected in the manner provided by law because the appellant failed to file the notice of appeal in the Court of Appeals, the Court dismisses the petition,” the court wrote.
Rick Boyer, an attorney with Integrity Law Firm who represents the plaintiffs, told The Christian Post on Monday that the dismissal allows his clients to “go back to the Fairfax County circuit court and engage in limited discovery to determine whether the ‘ecclesiastical abstention’ doctrine applies.” The ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, also called the church autonomy doctrine, holds that secular courts cannot intervene in disputes over a church's or sect's religious doctrines.
“The underlying dispute here is not a religious decision at all,” Boyer said, but rather “a pure contract dispute, centered around the fact that the church constitution permits all members 16 and older to vote in elections for the board of elders unless they are inactive.” “And the only way under that constitution that members can be placed in inactive status is if they miss eight consecutive worship services without reasonable excuse,” he added.
“As the Court of Appeals pointed out, the question of whether someone did or did not miss eight meetings in a row is a pure question of fact with no religious connotation whatsoever.” “So, if discovery shows, as we anticipate, that the [MBC Board of Elders] actually had no record at all that these members missed any worship