(RNS) — A New York State Supreme Court judge has ruled in favor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church in a lawsuit brought by current and former church members who challenged senior pastor the Rev. Kevin Johnson’s 2024 election and sought to remove him.

Johnson succeeded the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, who served as a minister at the historically Black church for 50 years and died in 2022. Johnson was installed in September 2024.

In their lawsuit filed in October 2024 in the Civil Branch of the New York Supreme Court, the plaintiffs — Kevin McGruder, Jasmine McFarlane-White, Clarence E. Ball III and Rev. C. Vernon Mason Sr. — claimed Johnson’s election as Abyssinian’s senior pastor didn’t comply with the church’s bylaws. The group sought to nullify his election and render him ineligible in future church elections. 

But Judge James G. Clynes sided with Johnson and his church in a Monday (Dec. 22) decision, denying the request and saying the plaintiffs incorrectly construed the bylaws’ statement that a senior pastor needs to be elected by “the majority vote of the members in good standing who are eligible to vote.” The members who filed suit had argued the election was invalid because of a low voter turnout. In total, 44% of registered church members voted in Johnson’s election. 

“The court disagrees with petitioners’ interpretation that the word ‘majority’ as used in the bylaws means anything other than a majority of the votes of the members who voted, not the majority of the members who were eligible to vote,” Clynes said. “As argued by respondents, any other interpretation of the term ‘majority’ in the bylaws would be unreasonable.”

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Clynes also found that the church demonstrated “that no fraud or wrongdoing occurred during the June 21-23, 2024 election process and that the petition should be dismissed as a matter of law.”

The church hailed the ruling.

“This has been a long journey, and we want to express our profound gratitude to our congregation and supporters for your trust, patience, and prayers throughout this process,” the church said in a memo to the congregation. “The court has now confirmed what we have known all along: the voice of the congregation was heard, and the will of the congregation was honored. We are ready to close this chapter and look forward with Rev. Dr. Kevin R. Johnson as the duly elected Senior Pastor.”

The four plaintiffs voiced their disappointment and defiance.

“Though the Court has declined to hear our claims, we remain steadfast in our commitment to integrity, to one another, and to the principles that first drew us to Abyssinian,” they wrote in a statement that appeared on a GoFundMe page they set up for their cause. “We will continue to speak the truth as we know it, to support others who feel silenced, and to seek paths toward healing, reform, and justice. And ultimately, we know that God will prevail.” McGruder added that they will determine their next steps after consulting a lawyer.

The decision settled a yearlong legal battle between the congregation and the church members who opposed Johnson’s election. 

Abyssinian has already faced another court challenge regarding the process that led to Johnson’s pastorate. The Rev. Eboni Marshall Turman, a candidate for the senior pastoral position and former assistant minister at the church, filed a gender discrimination lawsuit in 2023 after she didn’t get the job. The church asked a judge to dismiss the case on the grounds of “ministerial exception,” under which religious institutions are given more latitude in personnel and other matters. A federal district judge sided with the church in a March decision, and records show that a federal appeals court granted Marshall Turman’s request to voluntarily dismiss her appeal in June.

Marshall Turman supported the dissenting congregant group in the courtroom this summer. And, she reacted to the four plaintiffs’ statement posted on Facebook, saying, “Wickedness awhile may reign and Satan’s cause may seem to gain. BUT THERE IS A GOD…”

Last year, the church unsuccessfully tried to dismiss the lawsuit by the four plaintiffs, arguing the complaint was “nothing more than a scheme developed by Petitioners to remove the duly-elected pastor of a historic Baptist Church in Harlem, simply so they can propose a candidate whom they believe is more spiritually qualified for the position,” according to the motion.

A graduate of Morehouse College and Union Theological Seminary, Johnson first came to Abyssinian in the 1990s, serving as an assistant pastor to Butts. In 2014, he resigned from his position as senior pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia after the congregation disapproved of his handling of the church’s financial affairs and his plan to run for mayor of Philadelphia, which he eventually abandoned.

He then founded Dare to Imagine Church in Philadelphia, an interdenominational church affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. 

At Abyssinian, other prominent senior pastors preceded Johnson and Butts, including the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and the Rev. Samuel DeWitt Proctor. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, now a Georgia senator and the pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, served for a decade as a youth pastor and assistant minister under Butts’ leadership at Abyssinian.

Courts have previously considered whether they should play a role in church disputes. McGruder noted that in a 2021 case, Howard v. Heritage Fellowship Church, a Virginia court sided with five members of a nondenominational church in Reston in a comparable dispute.

“While courts are reluctant to involve themselves in matters of church governance because of freedom of religion First Amendment issues, there are cases similar to Abyssinian’s,” McGruder wrote in the March 25 posting of the GoFundMe page titled “Help Us To Restore Integrity at Abyssinian Baptist Church.”

In the Virginia case, the judge denied the church’s motion to dismiss the case, determining civil court action was needed to resolve a dispute over the church’s pastoral election process. The judge also ruled that a ministerial exception did not apply because those suing the church “merely seek judicial review of (the church’s) compliance with its own Constitution and Bylaws” over the election of its senior pastor.

Clynes, the New York judge, considered different cases as he reviewed the Abyssinian one, he wrote. While he agreed with Abyssinian that the election of a pastor is a church decision, he noted that “courts have jurisdiction to determine whether a church or congregation has complied with its own bylaws where it can decide the issue based on the bylaws alone, without reference to religious doctrine.”

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