AME Zion Church gets support in legal dispute

Christian Century, August 2, 2000

Six major church groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in its lawsuit against a breakaway congregation in Temple Hills, Maryland. The case involves John A. Cherry and most of the 24,000 members of Full Gospel AME Zion Church, who left the parent denomination in July 1999 and formed From the Heart Church Ministries. When the congregation left, it took with it more than $40 million in assets, including sanctuaries, school buildings and a Learjet.

The breakaway congregation sued the AME Zion Church to try to control those assets and the denomination countersued, claiming that Cherry was trying to swindle it. The case is scheduled to be argued September 7 in Annapolis, Maryland.

Lawyers for the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Seventh-day Adventists and the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and Easton filed the supporting briefs in the Maryland Court of Appeals, the Washington Post reported. They contend that the suit could affect them in disputes with breakaway congregations.

In April the court's Chief Judge Robert M. Bell ruled that the assets could remain with From the Heart Ministries until a final decision is made in the dispute. Mary Logan, general counsel for the UMC'S General Council on Finance and Administration, said her denomination chose to join the brief because of the broad impact a court decision could have.

"The Constitution prohibits courts from rewriting the polity and doctrine of a religious denomination, and if the court in this case rules in favor of Rev. Cherry and his dissident group, that would be a serious rewriting of the AME Zion polity and doctrine in violation of the First Amendment," Logan said.

Cherry, in a July 9 sermon, charged AME Zion leaders with "sleeping with the enemy" and suggested that race was a factor in the other denominations getting involved. Bishop Milton A. Williams of the Mid-Atlantic II Episcopal District of the AME Zion Church rejected Cherry's accusation. "If we don't prevail, the mainline churches in America would be in serious trouble," Williams told the Post. --RNS