McRaney v. The North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention

A fellowship of churches rooted in faith for 180 years 

Founded in 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. It includes nearly 47,000 independent churches, with nearly 13 million members, who voluntarily cooperate to share the Christian faith, provide advanced Christian training at Baptist seminaries, and demonstrate the love of Christ through ministries to the most vulnerable. One of its key ministries is the North American Mission Board, which helps churches plant new congregations, supports evangelism, provides chaplaincy ministry, and serves communities by caring for refugees, providing disaster relief, and fighting human trafficking.  

The Mission Board pursues these ministry priorities through partnerships with 42 different state or regional conventions of Baptist churches. One of these is the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware (“Baptist Convention”), an organization of more than 500 Baptist churches in Maryland and Delaware. In 2012, the Mission Board and the Baptist Convention entered into a strategic partnership to coordinate ministry efforts. That same year, the Baptist Convention hired Will McRaney as its executive director to lead its role in the partnership. 

Private disagreements and a public lawsuit 

As the partnership progressed, the Mission Board and McRaney developed serious disagreements about how to carry out the ministry work—including missionary selection and funding, charitable giving, and requirements for how missionaries carried out their religious work. The Mission Board concluded that McRaney had shown “serious and persistent disregard” for the religious principles of the partnership and the Baptist Convention’s board ultimately voted unanimously to remove McRaney from his leadership role. 

In 2017, McRaney filed a lawsuit claiming that the Mission Board had defamed him and interfered with his employment. His allegations, however, were rooted in the same internal religious disagreements that had led to the end of the partnership. Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the Mission Board, explaining that forcing courts to referee such disputes would entangle judges in questions of religious leadership and mission—something the First Amendment squarely forbids. 

The court steps in to protect the freedom of the faithful 

After eight years in court, the Fifth Circuit ruled in September 2025 that civil courts may not meddle in disputes over internal religious leadership and ministry decisions. Judge Andrew Oldham, writing for the majority, made clear that the law shields churches and ministries from being pulled into court over spiritual disagreements: “the church autonomy doctrine prohibits any court from adjudicating McRaney’s claims.” 

The court emphasized that claims like defamation can’t be used to force religious groups to defend their internal decision-making in court. In making that point, the court cited Becket’s brief twice, noting that these protections apply broadly across different faith traditions and governance structures, including the non-hierarchal fellowships and associations like Baptists. 

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. 

 

 

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

A Decade-Long War 

In 2013, the Little Sisters of the Poor rose to national recognition when they won their first victory over the contraceptive mandate at the Supreme Court. But their fight to serve the elderly poor without compromising their religious convictions didn’t start or end there. States like California and New York, as well as the federal government, have been relentless, insisting for over a decade that nuns (and other religious nonprofits) must pay for abortifacient drugs in their health plans or pay tens of millions of dollars in crippling fines.  

Among the most ludicrous aspects of the Little Sisters’ fight is that in over a decade, their aggressors have not been able to identify a single woman who will lose contraceptive coverage if the Little Sisters don’t pay for it. These fights are not really fights over nuns and their healthcare plan but rather over expanding and solidifying abortion rights.  

A Consequential Decision 

When the Supreme Court decided the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade in 1973, it reached beyond the Constitution to establish a right to abortion. That decision has haunted many areas of the law, including the First Amendment where many cases arise because of abortion advocates seeking to expose and punish religious Americans with moral objections to abortion and contraceptive drugs. These proxy wars have been fought on at least four battlefields with direct implications for religious liberty: contraceptive and abortion mandates, pharmacist regulations, pregnancy center regulations, and restrictions on sidewalk counselors. 

That’s how the Little Sisters of the Poor, and numerous other Becket clients, including Eleanor McCullen, a sidewalk counselor who went to the Supreme Court to fight for her right to speak to share her message of hope with women going into the abortion clinic; family pharmacies operated by people of faith like the Stormans family in Washington state and Luke Vander Bleek and Glenn Kosirog in Illinois that were forced to choose between selling the morning-after and week-after pills at their family-run pharmacies or lose their licenses; and Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, which wanted to help vulnerable women without being forced to undermine its mission by displaying a sign that read “do not provide or make referrals for abortion or birth control services.” 

These are just a few examples of unnecessary and often painful battles waged in both the courtroom and in the court of public opinion from California to New York, in the hospice rooms of nuns caring for the elderly poor and on the campuses of Christian colleges that teach their students all human beings bear the image and likeness of God – the landscape of the fight has engulfed almost every sector of our society. 

It doesn’t have to be that way—other countries like France, England, and Germany—have experienced much less of this kind of abortion v. religious liberty conflict. But in the U.S., with abortion rights dictated by the Supreme Court, the conflicts have raged.

A Chance to end the unnecessary fights 

Next term, the Court can correct the damage done to religious liberty in a case with a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.  

In March of 2018, Mississippi passed the Gestational Age Act which restricts abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. In response, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization filed a lawsuit against the State of Mississippi arguing that the law violated its rights under Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. After the State of Mississippi lost the case at both the district court and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, it appealed to the Supreme Court which agreed to hear the case in May 2021.  

On July 27, 2021, Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Dobbs, arguing that the Court should replace the Roe framework, thereby relieving the heavy burden imposed on religious liberty by abortion proxy wars, and opening the door to more productive solutions to religious liberty conflicts related to abortion.  

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the state of Mississippi, overturning Roe v. Wade. The decision puts the abortion debate back into the hands of the voters, lessens the battles between religious freedom and abortion, and better ensures Americans the right to live in accordance with their faith. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

The legal framework of Roe has haunted religious Americans ever since it was issued by the Supreme Court in 1973.  Fewer national proxy wars over religious liberty and abortion will result from returning the abortion debate back to the states.