Ecclesiastical Abstention Principle

The First Amendment states, among other things, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free speech thereof.” In 1872, the U.S. Supreme Court explained that this means secular courts are to stay out of purely religious disputes: civil courts exercise no jurisdiction . . . where a subject-matter of dispute is strictly and purely ecclesiastical in character, [such as disputes] concerning theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government, or the conformity of the members of the church to the standard of morals required. Instead, civil courts are to accept “as final, and as binding on them” the decisions of an ecclesiastical institution on mush matters. It would be of vain consent if anyone aggrieved by one of an ecclesiastical institution’s decisions could appeal to the secular courts and have them reversed. It is of the essence of these religious unions, and of their right to establish tribunals for the decision of questions arising amongst themselves, that those decisions should be binding in all cases of ecclesiastical cognizance. In part, this is because ecclesiastical institutions are the best judges of what constitutes an offense against the word of God and of matters of faith, discipline and doctrine; and civil courts, if they should be so unwise to attempt to decide such matters, would only involve themselves in a sea of uncertainty and doubt.

Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 728-33 (1872) (as selectively quoted by the Third Court of Appeals).

So what does this mean, at least in terms of Texas employment law jurisprudence? It means that a church can make hiring and firing decisions which are protected from review by the secular courts, which have no subject matter jurisdiction to review those decisions, assuming they are ecclesiastical in nature. The doctrine applies not only to the church’s decision to fire clergy; it applies to the hiring or firing of anyone who serves in a ministerial capacity. This is the intended implication of separation of church and state - to protect the church from the state, not to protect the state from the church's influence.

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