Judge's ruling gives pastor temporary control of Detroit church
George Hunter
Detroit — A judge's ruling allows a pastor to continue holding services in a west side church while
a battle over who will control the 55-year-old religious institution gets sorted out.
Wayne Circuit Judge Kathleen McCarthy Thursday granted a temporary restraining order to Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, allowing him to continue holding services at 180 Church in the 13600 block of Stansbury near Grand River. After the locks were changed earlier this month, Sewell held services in various other locations, including a methadone clinic.
McCarthy's ruling comes after her June 12 decision to grant an emergency restraining order to Sewell, who was handcuffed during a June 7 confrontation with police outside the house of worship. Sewell, who called the incident a "church-jacking," said he was illegally banned from his facility after the locks were changed by members of Stand with Evangel who want him out as pastor.
"Oh man, I'm ecstatic," Sewell said Friday. "I got my church jacked, but I got my church back. We're moving forward with our program."
Stand With Evangel member George Bogle, whose father founded Evangel Church in 1968, said in a statement: "The full merits of the case have not been reviewed."
Bogle said the judge improperly overturned a January 2020 vote by church members who ousted Sewell as pastor after the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that church members could decide internal personnel issues.
Sewell filed a complaint against the officers who handcuffed him with the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners' Office of the Chief Investigator. Rev. Jerome Warfield, the OCI chief investigator, said Friday the probe into the incident is ongoing.
Bogle said an appeals court ruling last year gave his Stand With Evangel group control over the church, following a years-long battle over whether the church's decisions can be made by its members or a board.
The Michigan Court of Appeals last year upheld a Wayne County Circuit Court ruling that found the members had control over church matters.
Bogle told The News the members voted out Sewell as pastor but he refuses to leave. In a recent court filing, Sewell's attorney, Todd Perkins, argued the vote was invalid because only certain members were allowed to participate — a claim the judge upheld Friday, although Bogle said it was in error.
When George Bogle Sr. established Evangel Church in 1968, the "constitution stated that governance of the Church would be vested in the Church's members, and that the Church's leadership would be charged with carrying out the will of the members," the May 26, 2022, Michigan Court of Appeals ruling said.
The church's constitution was amended in 2011 to allow a board of elders, not members, to elect the pastor. Sewell was elected by the board in in 2018.
Then in 2019, the church's constitution and bylaws were amended again, this time "explicitly stating that the church's members had no voting power; any vote of the membership would only be advisory," according to the court ruling.
In 2020, Bogle's group sued Sewell in Wayne Circuit Court, alleging that the board of elders had adopted the 2019 amendments without church members' consent. The lawsuit asked the court to rule that the church had been established on a "membership" rather than "directorship" basis as defined by the Michigan Nonprofit Corporation Act. The filing argued that if the church had been established on a membership basis, it would render the 2019 bylaw amendments invalid.
Sewell's group contended that the church had changed into a directorship-based organization under the 2011 and 2019 amendments, and the court should avoid getting involved in the matter because of the "ecclesiastical abstention doctrine." The doctrine was established by a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prevents courts from adjudicating claims that a church didn't follow its own rules and internal policies.
But the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine didn't apply to the question of how Evangel Church had been set up. That question, the court ruled, was a corporate law question.
The ruling added: "Resolving the parties' dispute did not require the trial court to interpret any of the Church's religious doctrine or to pass judgment on what it believed to be the form of corporate governance most in line with the Church's discipline or values. It simply required the trial court to apply Michigan statutory law against the language of the (articles of incorporation)."
Bogle told The News Friday: "The judge did error by not recognizing that the same members who prevailed in both Circuit and Appellate Court were also those members who voted to terminate Mr. Sewell. The judge determined the January 12, 2020 member vote where Mr. Sewell was terminated was not a valid member vote. Interestingly, the member’s vote to terminate Sewell occurred just prior to filing the court case against him.
"The real issue impacting this case is the Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine," Bogle said. "The court distanced itself from weighing in on the merits of the case, stating 'they are the internal matters of the Church,' with the exception of ruling that the January 12, 2020 vote was invalid. The matter should be judged consistently; if the court is precluded from ruling on internal Church matters, than the January 2020’s vote should not have been ruled invalid, nor should Mr. Sewell be granted the injunction. This seems to be in error; a double standard that repeatedly works against the members."
While the matter of permanent control of the church gets worked out, Sewell said Friday he plans to "move forward with my program. I'm giving out six scholarships to Rochester University (Saturday)."
ghunter@detroitnews.com
(313) 222-2134
Twitter: @GeorgeHunter_DN
