Weems v. Association of Related Churches
Case Snapshot
Churches should be free to choose their leaders without being dragged into court. Yet a pastor sued a national church network and two of its leaders over his removal from his former church. He claimed they conspired with his former church to get him fired and to get his former church to stop supporting religious corporations that he had formed. Allowing courts to evaluate his claims would entangle the government in church leadership decisions. Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging an appeals court to recognize that the First Amendment barred his claims.
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Case Summary
A dispute between a pastor and his former church
Charles Stovall Weems founded Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, where he served as senior pastor for over two decades. Around 2018, after Weems said he saw a vision of Jesus Christ during a church service, he developed a new “Missions Plan” for the church. This involved creating several affiliated for-profit and nonprofit entities, which he controlled and which received funding from the church.
Over time, Celebration Church began to raise concerns about Weems’ spiritual leadership and the relationship between his new entities and the church— including questions about the alleged use of COVID relief funds, cryptocurrency transactions, and the purchase of a million-dollar home designated as a parsonage. The church initiated an investigation into those concerns and issued a report describing them in detail. But before the church could remove Weems, he resigned in 2022.
Judges and juries asked to referee a religious disagreement
Weems first sued Celebration Church directly in state court, claiming it forced him out and interfered with his business ventures, but that case was dismissed. Weems then filed a lawsuit against the Association of Related Churches (ARC), a national non-denominational church association that helps start churches. ARC had no governing authority over Celebration Church and no role in its internal corporate structure. But Weems claimed that ARC and its leadership had negatively influenced his continued leadership of Celebration Church’s and damaged his relationships with donors, partners, and the entities that Weems had created.
Weems claimed that ARC conspired to produce the report that raised concerns about Weems’s conduct, including allegations of spiritual abuse, unbiblical leadership, and financial misconduct, and to use it to force him out of leadership. The district court dismissed the case in December 2024, ruling that his claims could not proceed because they were fundamentally tied to church leadership decisions—issues that civil courts cannot referee.
Becket asks Court to protect churches’ freedom to select their leaders
Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief at the Eleventh Circuit supporting ARC. The brief defends the right of churches and religious organizations to make decisions about leadership and internal discipline free from court interference. It explains that the law protects not just hierarchical churches, but also networks, associations, and ministries that support and advise them. Allowing lawsuits like this to proceed would entangle courts in spiritual disputes, which the law squarely forbids.
Importance to Religious Liberty:
- Religious Communities: Churches and religious organizations have a right to live, teach, and govern in accordance with the tenets of their faith. When the government unjustly interferes in internal church affairs, the relationship between church and state is threatened. The First Amendment ensures a church’s right to self-definition and free association.