Pastor, Church & Law

Church Property Disputes—Supreme Court Rulings

§ 7.02

1. WATSON V. JONES (1871)

A study of the law of church property disputes must begin with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Watson v. Jones,¹for the methodology outlined in Watson has served as the basic framework for resolving such disputes for nearly a century and a half, and continues to exert considerable influence. In Watson, the Court was faced with the problem of determining which of two factions in the Third or Walnut Street Presbyterian Church of Louisville, Kentucky, which had split in 1863 over the slavery controversy, was entitled to ownership of the church property. The Court began its analysis by observing: “The questions which have come before the civil courts concerning the rights of property held by ecclesiastical bodies, may, so far as we have been able to examine them, be profitably classified under three general heads. …”²

The first of these is when the property which is the subject of controversy has been, by the deed or will of the donor, or other instrument by which the property is held, by the express terms of the instrument devoted to the teaching, support, or spread of some specific form of religious doctrine or belief.
The second is when the property is held by a religious congregation which, by the nature of its organization, is strictly independent of other ecclesiastical associations, and so far as church government is concerned, owes no fealty or obligation to any higher authority.
The third is where the religious congregation or ecclesiastical body holding the property is but a subordinate member of some general church organization in which there are superior ecclesiastical tribunals with a general and ultimate power of control more or less complete, in some supreme judicatory over the whole membership of that general organization.³

As to the first type of case, the Court concluded that “it would seem … to be the obvious duty of the Court … to see that the property so dedicated is not diverted from the trust which is thus attached to its use,”⁴and

[t]hough the task may be a delicate one and a difficult one, it will be the duty of the court in such cases, when the doctrine to be taught or the form of worship to be used is definitely and clearly laid down, to inquire whether the party accused of violating the trust is holding or teaching a different doctrine, or using a form of worship which is so far variant as to defeat the declared objects of the trust.⁵

As to the second type of case, the Court concluded:

In such cases where there is a schism which leads to a separation into distinct and conflicting bodies, the rights of such bodies to the use of the property must be determined by the ordinary principles which govern voluntary associations. If the principle of government in such cases is that the majority rules, then the numerical majority of members must control the right to the use of the property.⁶

The Court went on to observe:

This ruling admits of no inquiry into the existing religious opinions of those who comprise the legal or regular organization; for, if such were permitted, a very small minority, without any officers of the church among them, might be found to be the only faithful supporters of the religious dogmas of the founders of the church. There being no such trust imposed upon the property when purchased or given, the Court will not imply one for the purpose of expelling from its use those who by regular succession and order constitute the church, because they may have changed in some respect their views of religious truth.⁷

In summary, Watson held that property disputes in a purely “congregational” church (i.e., “a religious congregation which, by the nature of its organization, is strictly independent of other ecclesiastical associations”) are to be decided by majority rule, and that this rule would apply even if the majority had defected from the faith of the church’s founders.

As to the third type of case, the Court concluded:

In this class of cases we think the rule of action which should govern civil courts … is, that, whenever the questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have been decided by the highest of these church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them, in their application to the case before them. … All who unite themselves to such a body do so with an implied consent to this government, and are bound to submit to it. But it would be a vain consent and would lead to the total subversion of such religious bodies, if anyone aggrieved by one of their 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 among themselves that those decisions should be binding in all cases of ecclesiastical cognizance, subject only to such appeals as the organism itself provides for.⁸

This third holding of Watson became known as the compulsory deference rule—courts must defer to the determinations of church tribunals with respect to “questions of discipline or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law,” and, by implication, to any decision of a church tribunal. This holding applies generally to hierarchical churches, which the Court defined as churches that are “subordinate members of some general church organization in which there are superior ecclesiastical tribunals with a general and ultimate power of control more or less complete, in some supreme judicatory over the whole membership of that general organization.” Some churches are independent of denominational control for some purposes, but not for others. In other words, they may be “hierarchical” only for some purposes. The analysis for hierarchical churches articulated in Watson would apply to such churches only if they are hierarchical with respect to the ownership or control of church property.

Civil courts generally have followed the Supreme Court’s classification of churches into two categories—congregational and hierarchical. A few courts and legal commentators have divided churches into three categories. To illustrate, one commentator has observed:

At least three kinds of internal structure, or “polity,” may be discerned: congregational, presbyterial, and episcopal. In the congregational form each local congregation is self-governing. The presbyterial polities are representative, authority being exercised by laymen and ministers organized in an ascending succession of judicatories—presbytery over the session of the local church, synod over the presbytery, and general assembly over all. In the episcopal form power reposes in clerical superiors, such as bishops. Roughly, presbyterial and episcopal polities may be considered hierarchical, as opposed to congregational polities, in which the autonomy of the local congregation is the central principle.⁹

In the years following Watson, nearly every court that decided a church property dispute cited Watson and claimed to be following its methodology. In cases involving express trusts and hierarchical churches (the first and third “general heads”), the professed adherence to Watson was largely real.

But soon after Watson was decided, cases involving the ownership of property in divided congregational churches (the second “general head”) began to deviate from the rule enunciated in Watson—that the majority in such congregations should dictate the ownership of church property whether or not that majority remained faithful to the doctrine of the church’s founders. The seeming inequity of this rule prompted many courts to disregard Watson. Many courts adopted the implied trust doctrine, under which church properties were deemed to be held in trust for the benefit of those members adhering to the original doctrines of the church.¹⁰Under this doctrine, the property of congregational churches following a church split went to the faction adhering to the original doctrines of the church, whether it represented a majority or a minority of the church membership. This obviously was contrary to the spirit if not the letter of Watson, wherein the Court had observed: “There being no such trust imposed upon the property when purchased or given, the Court will not imply one for the purpose of expelling from its use those who by regular succession and order constitute the church, because they may have changed in some respect their views of religious truth.”¹¹

Several other courts held that if a majority of the members of a congregational church voted to change the denominational ties of the congregation, church property would be vested in the minority desiring to remain faithful to the original denomination.¹²Some courts applied the law of corporations to vest ownership of property in a minority faction of a congregational church where the majority had voted to deviate from the original doctrines. To illustrate, one court observed:

It is the law of all corporations that a mere majority of its members cannot divert the corporate property to uses foreign to the purposes for which the corporation was formed. There is no difference between the church and other corporations in this regard. Where a church corporation is formed for the purpose of promoting certain defined doctrines of religious faith, which are set forth in its articles of incorporation, any church property which it acquires is impressed with a trust to carry out such purpose, and a majority of the congregation cannot divert the property to other inconsistent religious uses against the protest of a minority, however small. The matter of use of the property of the church corporation, within the range of its corporate powers, may be determined by the majority of the congregation, but no majority, even though it embrace all members but one, can use the corporate property for the advancement of a faith antagonistic to that for which the church was established and the corporation formed.¹³

Some courts remained true to the ruling in Watson and awarded title to congregational church property to the majority faction without any consideration of church doctrine.¹⁴

2. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES V. MARY ELIZABETH BLUE HULL MEMORIAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (1969)

The wholesale disregard of Watson’s holding with respect to congregational churches was reformed by the United States Supreme Court nearly a century after Watson in the landmark decision of Presbyterian Church in the United States v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church.¹⁵The question presented in Hull was whether a local Presbyterian church could retain title to its property after disassociating itself from the Presbyterian Church in the United States. In 1966, the membership of the Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church of Savannah, Georgia, voted to withdraw from the parent body on the grounds that it had so departed from the original tenets of the Presbyterian faith that it could no longer be considered the true Presbyterian Church. Specifically, the Hull church majority contended that the parent body had departed from Presbyterianism in “making pronouncements and recommendations concerning civil, economic, social and political matters, giving support to the removal of Bible reading and prayer by children in the public schools, … causing all members to remain in the National Council of Churches of Christ and willingly accepting its leadership which advocated … the subverting of all parental authority, civil disobedience and intermeddling in civil affairs,” and also in “disseminating publications denying the Holy Trinity and violating the moral and ethical standards of faith.” Accordingly, the local church argued that it had not disaffiliated itself from Presbyterianism, but rather that the Presbyterian Church in the United States had disassociated itself from Presbyterianism, and hence the parent denomination had no right to claim an interest in the property of the local church.

A state trial court ruled that the parent body had indeed abandoned Presbyterianism, and thus the Hull church was entitled to retain title to its property. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed. However, the United States Supreme Court reversed both rulings, concluding that

the First Amendment severely circumscribes the role that civil courts may play in resolving church property disputes. It is obvious, however, that not every civil court decision as to property claimed by a religious organization jeopardizes values protected by the First Amendment. Civil courts do not inhibit free exercise of religion merely by opening their doors to disputes involving church property. And there are neutral principles of law, developed for use in all property disputes, which can be applied without “establishing” churches to which property is awarded. But First Amendment values are plainly jeopardized when church property litigation is made to turn on the resolution by civil courts of controversies over religious doctrine and practice. If civil courts undertake to resolve such controversies in order to adjudicate the property dispute, the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern. Because of these hazards, the First Amendment enjoins the employment of organs of government for essentially religious purposes … ; the amendment therefore commands civil courts to decide church property disputes without resolving underlying controversies over religious doctrine. Hence, States, religious organizations, and individuals must structure relationships involving church property so as not to require the civil courts to resolve ecclesiastical questions.¹⁶

Hull thus may be reduced to the following two principles:

Civil courts are forbidden by the First Amendment to decide church property disputes if the resolution of such disputes is dependent upon the interpretation of religious doctrine.
Civil courts can decide church property disputes consistently with the First Amendment if they do so on the basis of principles involving no analysis of religious doctrine. Illustratively, the Court observed that there are “neutral principles of law developed for use in all property disputes, which can be applied without ‘establishing’ churches to which property is awarded.” Unfortunately, the Court neither described what it meant by “neutral principles of law,” nor mentioned other doctrinally neutral and hence acceptable grounds for resolving church property disputes.

In effect, Hull wiped away much of the gloss that had been judicially applied to circumvent the second holding of Watson: that the majority faction in a congregational church has the right to all church property whether or not it supports or deviates from the original doctrines of the church. No longer could civil courts award congregational church property to a minority faction as a result of a judicial interpretation of religious doctrine. The first ruling in Watson—that property received by a church in an instrument expressly limiting the use of such property to the adherents of a particular religious doctrine or belief—was invalidated by Hull to the extent that civil courts are called upon to interpret religious doctrine. In many cases, of course, the civil courts could determine the ownership of property conveyed to a church subject to an express trust, for no interpretation of religious doctrine would be involved. Thus, Justice Harlan, concurring in Hull, noted:

I do not … read the Court’s opinion to … hold that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids civilian courts from enforcing a deed or will which expressly and clearly lays down conditions limiting a religious organization’s use of the property which is granted. If, for example, the donor expressly gives his church some money on the condition that the church never ordain a woman as a minister or elder … or never amend certain specified articles of the Confession of Faith, he is entitled to his money back if the condition is not fulfilled. In such a case, the church should not be permitted to keep the property simply because church authorities have determined that the doctrinal innovation is justified by the faith’s basic principles.¹⁷

The Supreme Court failed to discuss the effect of its decision on the third ruling of Watson—that the decision of an ecclesiastical judicatory is binding upon a local church in a hierarchical denomination. This omission was unfortunate and gave rise to much confusion.

In summary, the Supreme Court’s decision in Hull was deficient in three respects: (1) it sanctioned a “neutral principles of law” approach to resolving church property disputes, but failed to describe what it meant by this new term; (2) it implied that the neutral principles of law approach was one of many acceptable methods of resolving church property disputes, but it failed to describe any other methods; and (3) it failed to explain the relationship between a neutral principles of law approach and the compulsory deference approach (i.e., civil courts are compelled to defer to the rulings of church tribunals) of Watson.

3. MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA ELDERSHIP OF THE CHURCHES OF GOD V. CHURCH OF GOD (1970)

Subsequent cases have provided further clarification. In Maryland and Virginia Eldership of the Churches of God v. Church of God,¹⁸the United States Supreme Court was asked to review the constitutionality of the methodology employed by the courts of Maryland in resolving church property disputes. The Maryland approach involved the inspection by the courts of nondoctrinal provisions in (1) state statutes governing the holding of property by religious corporations; (2) language in the deeds conveying the properties in question to the local church corporations; (3) the terms of the charters of the corporations; and (4) provisions in the constitution of a parent denomination relating to the ownership and control of church property. Maryland courts awarded title to disputed church property according to the wording and effect of such documents, provided that this could be done without any inquiries into religious doctrine. The Supreme Court, in a per curiam opinion, summarily approved of the Maryland approach to the resolution of church property disputes.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Brennan, who had written the Court’s opinion in Hull, attempted to resolve some of the questions raised by the Hull decision. First, Justice Brennan attempted to define the term neutral principles of law:

[C]ivil courts can determine ownership by studying deeds, reverter clauses and general state corporation laws. Again, however, general principles of property law may not be relied upon if their application requires civil courts to resolve doctrinal issues. For example, provisions in deeds or in a denomination’s constitution for the reversion of local church property to the general church, if conditioned upon a finding of departure from doctrine, could not be civilly enforced.¹⁹

Next, Justice Brennan suggested two other acceptable means of resolving church property disputes:

[T]he States may adopt the approach of Watson v. Jones and enforce the property decisions made within a church of congregational polity “by a majority of its members or by such other local organism as it may have instituted for the purpose of ecclesiastical government,” and within a church of hierarchical polity by the highest authority that has ruled on the dispute at issue, unless express terms in the instrument by which the property is held condition the property’s use or control in a specified manner. … [Another] approach is the passage of special statutes governing church property arrangements in a manner that precludes state interference in doctrine. Such statutes must be carefully drawn to leave control of ecclesiastical polity, as well as doctrine, to church governing bodies.²⁰

Finally, Justice Brennan emphasized that “a state may adopt any one of various approaches for settling church property disputes so long as it involves no consideration of doctrinal matters, whether the ritual and liturgy of worship or the tenets of faith.”²¹

Thus, a court can properly resolve a church property dispute if it can do so solely on the basis of nondoctrinal language in deeds, state corporation laws, constitutions and bylaws of local churches or of parent ecclesiastical bodies, or state statutes pertaining to church property arrangements. Accordingly, a court could not intervene in a church property dispute involving a deed containing a reverter clause specifying that title to church property reverts to the parent ecclesiastical body if the local church deviates from the doctrine of the parent body, since the court would necessarily become involved in an interpretation of religious doctrine. But a reverter clause conditioned on a disaffiliation of a local church could be enforced by the courts, since enforcement would involve the nondoctrinal determination of whether or not a disaffiliation had occurred.

Further, a minority faction in a congregational church remaining faithful to the original doctrines of the church can no longer contend that the state law of corporations is violated when a majority votes to divert corporate property to uses foreign to the purposes for which the corporation was formed, since this obviously will necessitate interpretation of religious doctrine. If the constitution and bylaws of a parent ecclesiastical body provide for the reversion of local church property to the parent body itself in the event of a disaffiliation by a local church, the civil courts will intervene and enforce such a provision since it would not involve a question of religious doctrine. However, if the reverter clause conditioned reversion upon a departure or deviation from the doctrines of the parent body, an interpretation of religious doctrine would become necessary and accordingly such a clause would not be judicially enforceable.

The Court in Maryland & Virginia Eldership commented that civil courts can examine the ecclesiastical rulings of church judicatories in church property disputes to ensure that such rulings are not the product of “fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness.”²²

4. SERBIAN EASTERN ORTHODOX DIOCESE V. MILIVOJEVICH (1976)

In Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich,²³the Supreme Court strongly affirmed Watson’s compulsory deference approach to resolving church property disputes:

In short, the first and Fourteenth Amendments permit hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters. When this choice is exercised and ecclesiastical tribunals are created to decide disputes over the government and direction of subordinate bodies, the Constitution requires that civil courts accept their decisions as binding upon them.²⁴

The Court also held that civil courts could not review the rulings of church tribunals for arbitrariness, although it did imply that courts could review such rulings for fraud or collusion.

The Court’s emphatic endorsement of the compulsory deference rule in Serbian caused considerable confusion about the continuing validity of the neutral principles of law approach. What, for example, would be the effect of a church tribunal’s ruling in a church property dispute in a jurisdiction that followed the neutral principles of law approach? Would neutral principles supersede the church tribunal’s ruling? Once again, the need for clarification was evident.

5. JONES V. WOLF (1979)

In Jones v. Wolf,²⁵which was decided in 1979, the Supreme Court issued its most recent ruling addressing church property disputes. Before analyzing Jones, it would be helpful to summarize the law of church property disputes as it existed prior to that decision:

1. Express trusts. When property is conveyed to a local church by an instrument that contains an express provision restricting the use of such property, such a restriction will be recognized by the civil courts if this can be done without any consideration of religious doctrine. If a consideration of religious doctrine would be necessary, then the courts will not be able to resolve the question of ownership on the basis of the restrictive provision.²⁶

2. Congregational churches. When a split occurs in a local congregational church, and a dispute arises as to the ownership of such property, courts may resolve the dispute in any of the following four ways:

Method 1. Civil courts may resolve the dispute on the basis of neutral principles of law, provided that this can be done without inquiries into religious doctrine. Neutral principles of law include nondoctrinal language in the following types of documents:

a. deeds²⁷

b. local church charters[28] Id.

c. constitution and bylaws of local church, and of parent ecclesiastical body²⁹

Method 2. Civil courts may resolve the dispute on the basis of state statutes governing the holding of property by religious corporations, provided that application of such statutes involves no inquiries into religious doctrine.³⁰

Method 3. Civil courts may resolve the dispute on the basis of the Watson rule of deference to the will of a majority of the members of a congregational church.³¹Ordinarily, this method is used only if method 1 and method 2 do not resolve the question of property ownership.

Method 4. Civil courts may resolve the dispute on the basis of any other methodology that they may devise “so long as it involves no consideration of doctrinal matters, whether the ritual and liturgy of worship or the tenets of faith.”³²

Hierarchical churches

When a split occurs in a local hierarchical church, and a dispute arises as to the ownership of church property, courts may resolve the dispute in any of the following four ways:

a. deeds ³³

b. local church charter ³⁴

c. constitution and bylaws of local church, and of parent ecclesiastical body³⁵

Method 3. Civil courts may resolve the dispute on the basis of the Watson compulsory deference rule, under which courts defer to the rulings of church tribunals in all church property disputes, whether or not questions of religious doctrine and polity are involved.³⁶

Method 4. Civil courts may resolve the dispute on the basis of any other methodology that they may devise “so long as it involves no consideration of doctrinal matters, whether, the ritual and liturgy of worship or the tenets of faith.”³⁷

In Jones,³⁸the United State Supreme Court was confronted with a dispute over the ownership of property following a schism in a local church affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). The church had been organized in 1904, and had always been affiliated with the PCUS (a hierarchical denomination). In 1973, the church membership voted (164 to 94) to separate from the PCUS. The majority informed the PCUS of its decision, and then united with another denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. The PCUS appointed a commission to investigate the dispute. The commission ultimately issued a ruling declaring the minority faction to be the “true congregation” and withdrawing from the majority faction “all authority” to continue to hold services at the church. The majority took no part in the commission’s inquiry, and did not appeal the ruling to a higher PCUS tribunal.

The minority faction brought suit against the majority, after it became obvious that the majority was not going to honor the commission’s ruling. The Georgia courts held that there was no neutral principle of law vesting any interest in the church property in the PCUS, and that as a result the local congregation itself had to determine the disposition of the property. On the ground that religious associations are generally governed by majority rule, the Georgia Supreme Court ultimately awarded the property to the majority faction that wanted to disaffiliate. The minority appealed the matter directly to the United States Supreme Court. The Court accordingly was confronted with a situation in which a church tribunal’s decision in a property dispute conflicted with the decision reached by the courts. The Court characterized the issue as “whether civil courts … may resolve the dispute on the basis of ‘neutral principles of law,’ or whether they must defer to the resolution of an authoritative tribunal of the hierarchical church.”

The Supreme Court began its opinion by reiterating the principles enunciated in Hull and Watson that “the First Amendment prohibits civil courts from resolving church property disputes on the basis of religious doctrine and practice,”³⁹and that civil courts must “defer to the resolution of issues of religious doctrine or polity by the highest court of a hierarchical church organization.”⁴⁰

The Court also prefaced its decision by observing that a hierarchical church was involved, that the controversy was intimately connected with Georgia law, and that “a State may adopt any one of various approaches for settling church property disputes so long as it involves no consideration of doctrinal matters. …”

Having established these general guidelines, the Court proceeded with an analysis of the methodology applied by the Georgia courts in resolving church property disputes. In essence, the Georgia methodology involved a two-step process. First, the courts determined whether neutral principles of law imposed a trust upon local church property in favor of a parent denomination. If such a trust existed, and its validity was not dependent upon any analysis of religious doctrine or polity, then the courts would give the property in dispute to the parent denomination. If neutral principles of law did not impose such a trust, then the property was subject to control by the local congregation, at least if title to the church property was vested in the local church or church trustees. The second step of the Georgia methodology, employed when neutral principles of law did not impose a trust and the local congregation was divided, permitted courts to award disputed church property to the majority of the church members provided that this presumptive rule of majority representation was not overcome by a showing that neutral principles of law dictated another result.

The Supreme Court approved of this methodology, provided the Georgia courts could demonstrate that Georgia in fact had adopted “a presumptive rule of majority representation, defeasible upon a showing that the identity of the local church is to be determined by some other means.” The Court sent the case back to the Georgia courts for proof that Georgia in fact had adopted such a rule.

The Court’s decision clarified the scope of the compulsory deference rule, and the rule’s relationship to the neutral principles of law approach. The Court ultimately concluded that civil courts are compelled to defer to the rulings of church tribunals only with respect to “issues of religious doctrine or polity.” It observed: “We cannot agree … that the First Amendment requires the States to adopt a rule of compulsory deference to religious authority in resolving church property disputes. …”⁴¹The compulsory deference rule was accordingly limited to matters of religious doctrine and polity.

The four dissenting Justices were distressed by the Court’s limitation of the compulsory deference rule to matters of religious doctrine and polity. The dissenters argued that “in each case involving an intrachurch dispute—including disputes over church property—the civil court must focus directly on ascertaining, and then following the decision made within the structure of church governance.” By doing so, the dissenters concluded,

the court avoids two equally unacceptable departures from the genuine neutrality mandated by the First Amendment. First, it refrains from direct review and revision of decisions of the church on matters of religious doctrine and practice that underlie the church’s determination of intrachurch controversies, including those that relate to control of church property. Equally important, by recognizing the authoritative resolution reached within the religious association, the civil court avoids interfering directly with the religious governance of those who have formed the association and submitted themselves to its authority.⁴²

The Court, while emphasizing that the question before it involved a hierarchical church, also stated that the Georgia “neutral principles” methodology was “flexible enough to accommodate all forms of religious organization and polity.” The Court also noted that church property disputes, even in Georgia, need not necessarily be resolved by the courts, for

the parties can ensure, if they so desire, that the faction loyal to the hierarchical church will retain the church property. They can modify the deeds or the corporate charter to include a right of reversion or trust in favor of the general church. Alternatively, the constitution of the general church can be made to recite and express trust in favor of the denominational church. The burden involved in taking such steps will be minimal. And the civil courts will be bound to give effect to the result indicated by the parties, provided it is embodied in some legally cognizable form. … Through appropriate reversionary clauses and trust provisions, religious societies can specify what is to happen to church property in the event of a particular contingency, or what religious body will determine the ownership in the event of a schism or doctrinal controversy. In this manner, a religious organization can ensure that a dispute over the ownership of church property will be resolved in accord with the desires of the members.⁴³

The Supreme Court in Jones clarified the law of church property disputes. It affirmed that church property disputes not involving questions of religious doctrine or polity can be resolved on the basis of any doctrinally neutral method, including neutral principles of law or a rule of compulsory deference to the determinations of church tribunals. The Court emphatically declared that no one method is constitutionally required, at least where no question of religious doctrine or polity is involved. Where, as in Jones, no question of doctrine is involved and the compulsory deference and neutral principles of law approaches would yield conflicting results, a court or legislature is free to choose either method (or some other doctrinally neutral method). If it chooses the neutral principles of law approach, as did the Georgia courts in the Jones case, it is entitled to reach a decision contrary to the decision of a church tribunal, provided that no question of religious doctrine or polity is involved.

The Supreme Court, in Jones, expressed a clear preference for the neutral principles approach over the compulsory deference rule, even while recognizing that a state could adopt the compulsory deference rule without violating the federal constitution:

The primary advantage of the neutral principles approach is that it is completely secular in operation, and yet flexible enough to accommodate all forms of religious organization and polity. The method relies exclusively on objective, well-established concepts of trust and property law familiar to lawyers and judges. It thereby promises to free civil courts completely from entanglement in questions of religious doctrine, polity, and practice. … Under the neutral principles approach, the outcome of a church property dispute is not foreordained. At any time before the dispute erupts, the parties can ensure, if they so desire, that the faction loyal to the hierarchical church will retain the church property. …The burden involved in taking such steps will be minimal. And the civil courts will be bound to give effect to the result indicated by the parties, provided it is embodied in some legally cognizable form.⁴⁴

Jones did not alter the methodology for resolving church property disputes that had existed previously. It merely clarified the relationship between the available methods of resolution.

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