SBC Leaders Are Fighting for the “Religious Freedom” to Defame Pastors & Church Members

The First Amendment does not protect defamation. But if SBC leaders win at the Supreme Court, not only will that change, but centuries of Baptist belief on church polity will be overturned as well.

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NOTE: This essay may seem a bit inside baseball, but it isn’t. It pertains to a possible perversion of the First Amendment, now before the Supreme Court at the behest of Baptist leaders who’ve blatantly lied under oath. The effect? To give them — and religious leaders of countless other denominations — a legal exemption from defamation law.

And the inside baseball part? It would also turn the nation’s largest Protestant denomination into a top-down, quasi-Catholic structure, instead of the bottom-up delegated ministry of local churches that Baptist belief requires and that the law has long recognized. This would upend Baptist doctrine, which is exactly what the First Amendment must protect. It would also make your church legally and financially liable for a slip-and-fall at a church you’ve never heard of.

Along with more than 50 other SBC leaders, I have signed an amicus brief opposing this gross perversion of the First Amendment and attempted coup in our denomination. But the effects of this ruling would endanger every American, regardless of religious affiliation. And it’s all based on a lie. — RDM

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by Jon Whitehead
February 22, 2026

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) currently faces two lawsuits that could reshape how the Convention and local churches relate under the law. Paradoxically, the best outcome for Southern Baptist churches is for their leaders to lose.

Why? Because if our entities get what they’re asking for, SBC leaders will win the legal protection to say false things about local church ministers with impunity.

The press releases may tout this as a “religious liberty” victory. But it will turn SBC pastors into unwilling contestants in a Baptist Legal Thunderdome, where the only rule is that there are no rules. And that legal strategy and outcome should give Baptists major pause.

The Two Cases at Hand: McRaney vs. NAMB and Garner vs. SBC

Two high courts are considering major cases of significant concern to Southern Baptists: the U.S. Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Tennessee.

The first case involves pastor Will McRaney, former executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland–Delaware. McRaney says the North American Mission Board (NAMB) — an SBC entity located in Alpharetta, Georgia — threatened to cut off funding to the state convention unless it replaced him with a NAMB man. McRaney was ultimately fired in 2015.

He says NAMB then blackballed him, telling Baptist groups far and wide he had broken agreements — that he failed to give the required notice of certain decisions. McRaney insists the claim was false and that he has emails to prove it.

In the second case, Preston Garner was a Tennessee worship pastor. In 2022, he had just resigned from one church to accept a pastorate in another.

But then, the SBC Credentials Committee sent letters to multiple Baptist bodies asking why Garner’s church employed him, as “an individual with an alleged history of sexual abuse.” The SBC said the accusations were credible.

The letter reached Garner’s new church, which withdrew its offer. A Baptist-affiliated Christian school where Garner served as music director terminated him and barred him from campus. Garner says he can no longer attend his grandchildren’s sporting events at the school.

Garner denies sexually abusing anyone. He says the SBC relied on an anonymous, unsubstantiated report, and its letters omitted facts showing he was not “credibly accused.”

Different men. Different facts. But both say SBC leaders destroyed their ministries using false statements.

The SBC contests both claims but argues that truthfulness is beside the point. The First Amendment, it argues, should close the courthouse doors even if McRaney and Garner can prove the SBC (or NAMB) lied.

Let that sink in.

Lies About Pastors Are Not Always Doctrinal Disputes

Baptists have long understood that the First Amendment bars courts from theology. No judge should be asked to determine who is a better Baptist.

But there’s a difference between “religious questions” and “religiously motivated speech.”

Matters of doctrine are religious questions. You can argue that “Pastor Jones” administers communion incorrectly, and no court will hear his complaint. Even if every SBC messenger sides with him and not you, the courts won’t lift a finger.

But if you falsely tell people he bought a Mercedes with stolen church funds, that is not a “religious question.” With that kind of lie, sincere Baptist motives are no defense. (See LeGrande v. Emmanuel, 889 So. 2d 991 (Fla. App. 2004) for a case on similar facts.) A jury can decide whether funds were stolen, no matter whether the accused is a pastor or a surgeon.

McRaney and Garner concede the obvious: courts can’t decide doctrine. But the alleged, career-destroying falsehoods go beyond doctrine.

McRaney says NAMB lied to others, tying his termination to his failure to give the required notice under the contract between NAMB and the Maryland–Delaware Convention. He claims he has emails proving he gave proper notice. Juries handle notice questions every day. No “biblical interpretation” required.

Garner says the Convention published false accusations of criminal sexual abuse that reached his former church, his state convention, and two current employers. Once again, a jury doesn’t use “biblical interpretation” to decide if there has been sex abuse.

Defamation liability would not strip the SBC of the power to police doctrine. If a Convention wants to say a minister teaches error, it may say so freely. But if it wants to say a minister is a thief or an abuser, it must be careful to tell the truth or answer for the lie, just like anyone else.

Generations of courts have honored that line. Now, SBC entities are asking courts to erase it.

“Internal Governance” of What?

The “religious question” rule won’t save the SBC, because McRaney and Garner allege provably false secular statements.

The Supreme Court has also held that judges cannot adjudicate internal church governance disputes. SBC leaders now urge those judges to stretch that idea to cover intra-Baptist disputes.

Most Baptists would immediately tell you that local churches are autonomous, not “internal” to their Conventions. Churches call their own pastors. They discipline their own members. They own their own property. Joining First Baptist Church creates no relationship to Nashville or Alpharetta. When a pastor fills a Baptist pulpit, he is no more “internal” to the SBC than the Methodist pastor down the street.

This is not an incidental feature of Baptist life. It is a core belief.

If SBC leaders asked SBC messengers to declare local churches are within the “internal governance” of the SBC, the messengers would reject it indignantly. That’s why over fifty Baptist leaders have signed an amicus brief that asks the Supreme Court to hear McRaney’s case.

The Catholic Envy Problem

If Baptist leaders agree that the SBC and NAMB are “outside” local churches, why would courts treat these as “internal governance” disputes?

Much of the emotional appeal comes from SBC leaders’ claim that Baptists should win whenever Catholics win.

A hierarchical church has a structural advantage early in a defamation suit. If a Catholic bishop misrepresents a priest to other priests, courts treat all of that as communication “inside” the Catholic Church. In defamation law, a plaintiff must prove false statements were “published” to others. Internal communications alone won’t sustain the claim. So Catholics can sometimes escape the suit early if all the communication was internal.

But when Baptists talk to other Baptists, that counts as two groups, not one. Baptists might make winning arguments about their First Amendment “privilege” to talk to cooperating churches, but courts would hear those arguments at a later procedural stage.

SBC leaders argue that this difference amounts to “religious discrimination” between denominations. It is not fair, they say, that the Catholic version of “internal governance” extends to all Catholic parishes, while the SBC’s version ends at the entity’s front door.

Their proposed fix: a one-size-fits-all “internal governance” rule. Under it, national religious leaders could say whatever they want about ministers to any local congregation, regardless of religious or corporate structure.

This subliminal envy of Catholicism is so strong that the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) all but told judges that Baptists are just Catholics with different Popes. The ERLC filed an amicus brief in the McRaney case describing the SBC as a hierarchical denomination, just like the Catholic Church. It’s Baptist 101 that the SBC rejects such hierarchy.

The ERLC admitted these statements were false months later, in a short letter that blamed the Commission’s volunteer (Catholic) lawyers for misunderstanding Baptist polity. They did not, however, revise their sworn filing.

But even SBC leaders who aren’t making gonzo claims are asking courts to treat Baptist autonomy like the Catholic hierarchy. Once this error enters the First Amendment case law, it will take more than two annual meetings to fix.

Buying Only One Side of the Coin

I am sympathetic to the conservative judges facing these arguments. They want to protect religious freedom, and they have thought deeply about the First Amendment.

Indeed, as I read Judge James Ho’s Fifth Circuit opinion deciding against McRaney, I agree with almost all of the legal history and doctrine. But when the opinion turns to applying that doctrine to Baptists, he adopts the “non-discrimination” framing from the beginning. The errors compound from there.

The fault lies with SBC leaders for making these dangerous and shortsighted arguments.

If Baptists want to win as Catholics win, they had better be ready to lose as Catholics lose. It is difficult to buy only one side of this coin, and these arguments pose a significant risk that churches will share unexpected liabilities with other Baptist groups.

The Missing Principle: Consent of the Governed

The SBC’s arguments, and the judicial opinions to this point, overlook the foundational principle of true “church autonomy.”

In the first church autonomy case, Watson v. Jones (1871), the Supreme Court grounded the entire doctrine on a simple premise: the Constitution respects ‘autonomous church’ decisions because individuals have the right to consent to church government.

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 … if any one aggrieved by one of their decisions could appeal to the secular courts and have them reversed.

Courts close their doors only when necessary to protect an individual’s right to make religious agreements with others. The different outcomes for Catholics and Baptists reflect different ideas about what it means to join a church.

The simple rule of Watson is that it’s both moral and legal to respect a person’s voluntary agreement to submit themselves to a church’s governance.

But, just as simply, it is immoral and unlawful to force church government on people who did not — and cannot — choose to submit.

There is no First Amendment reason to make Baptist entity heads have equal power with Catholic bishops. The First Amendment protects the power of members to decide for themselves what it means to join a church.

If a Catholic is baptized into fellowship with Rome, the First Amendment is not violated by allowing Rome to judge them.

But a Baptist is not baptized into a union with Nashville, and it offends the First Amendment to impose submission without their consent. State Convention leaders do not entrust their spiritual care to the heads of SBC entities.

Baptist theology provides no mechanism for that decision to ever happen. Members and pastors submit to one another as a local congregation. And only to one another. Baptists have intentionally made it impossible — both practically and theologically — for individuals and pastors to “join” the Southern Baptist Convention.

If SBC leaders don’t have the power of bishops, it’s not because of government favoritism. Baptist believers did not agree to give their leaders such powers, while Catholic adherents did.

In these cases, Baptist leaders are the ones infringing on religious liberty. They are asking judges to impose their “governance” on millions of Baptists who did not — and cannot — consent to it.

A Hollow Victory

Early colonial Baptist Roger Williams famously wrote of the church as God’s garden, set off from the wilderness outside. Faithful pastors have led their churches to join the SBC in building this garden. But they did not intend for the courts of justice to be locked out of the garden. They did not sign up for a Hobbesian cage match against SBC leaders, with endless offering-plate money funding their own leaders in this quest to secure a novel freedom to defame the everyday Billy Baptist in our Convention.

Judges cannot make Baptist leaders make Baptist legal arguments. But judges can force future Baptists to live with the fruits of today’s un-Baptist arguments by our leaders.

It is no overstatement to warn that any change “won” in these lawsuits will profoundly reshape the SBC and its churches. If the SBC wins these cases on these terms, it will have secured a right that Baptists never intended them to claim: the right to make false claims about ministers and members without legal accountability.

That victory would be hollow.

Even the pillars of the Annie Armstrong Easter and Lottie Moon Christmas Offerings may shift if every dollar a church gives authorizes the limitless blackballing of their pastor on false charges of sex abuse. Few will take that deal voluntarily.

Baptists don’t believe their bigwigs have any power over their souls. If the cost of fellowship with Nashville grows too high, breaking “communion” with the SBC is easy.

Make no mistake: if our SBC entities secure the “right” to defame faithful pastors like McRaney and Garner, you and your church could be next. So, please join me in praying that the courts can see the difference between religious liberty and justice for people who are defamed.

Pray for Will McRaney and Preston Garner. And pray for Baptist leaders who live by Baptist beliefs, whether or not the courts require it.

— Jon Whitehead is a lifelong Southern Baptist and the founding attorney of the Law Offices of Jonathan R. Whitehead in Missouri. He is a former trustee at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC and serves on the Advisory Board for the Center of Baptist Leadership, where this article first appeared.

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