Church and State

In 1984, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that a church's "absolute privilege" to discipline members ended when that member left the church.

Here is an interesting passage:

¶16 While the Court in Watson unequivocally banned judicial scrutiny of purely ecclesiastical decisions,20 it has since discussed the possibility of "marginal civil court review" of these disputes. In Gonzalez v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila21 the Court stated:

"In the absence of fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness, the decisions of the proper church tribunals on matters purely ecclesiastical, although affecting civil rights, are accepted in litigation before the secular courts as conclusive, because the parties in interest made them so by contract or otherwise. Under like circumstances, effect is given in the courts to the determinations of the judicatory bodies established by clubs and civil associations."

In a later case, Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese, Etc. v. Milivojevich,22 the Court announced that its Gonzalez "fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness" exception was dictum only, concluding that:

"whether or not there is room for `marginal civil court review' under the narrow rubrics of `fraud' or `collusion' when church tribunals act in bad faith for secular purposes, no `arbitrariness' exception - in the sense of an inquiry whether the decisions of the highest ecclesiastical tribunal of a hierarchical church complied with church laws and regulations - is consistent with the constitutional mandate that civil courts are bound to accept the decisions of the highest judicatories of a religious organization of a hierarchical polity on matters of discipline, faith, internal organization, or ecclesiastical [775 P.2d 773] rule, custom, or law."23

In Serbian the Court held that:

"the First and Fourteenth Amendments permit hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters. When this choice is exercised and ecclesiastical tribunals are created to decide disputes over the government and direction of subordinate bodies, the Constitution requires that civil courts accept their decisions as binding upon them."24

Although the Court has explicitly eliminated an "arbitrariness" exception to the rule that civil courts are prohibited from adjudicating religious disputes, whether these tribunals are still constitutionally permitted to review final ecclesiastical decisions for "fraud" or "collusion" has not recently been revisited.

And:

31 By voluntarily uniting with the church, she impliedly consented to submitting to its form of religious government, but did not thereby consent to relinquishing a right which the civil law guarantees her as its constitutionally protected value. The intentional and voluntary relinquishment of a known right required for a finding of an effective waiver was never established. On the record before us Parishioner - a sui juris person - removed herself from the Church of Christ congregation rolls the moment she communicated to the Elders that she was withdrawing from membership.43

Also see the Church Discipline blog.