Can a church legally initiate formal discipline against a member who has officially withdrawn/resigned from the church?
<p>Suppose Jane is a member of a fundamentalist Evangelical church. She violates church doctrine and submits her resignation. At this point, church doctrine calls for her to be shunned by the church congregation and this indeed happens, but the worst thing to happen is that the congregation stops interacting with Jane.</p>
<p>Is this sufficient cause for a court to rule against Jane's former church?</p>

<h2>You don't have to interact with people if you don't want to</h2>
<p>If you don't want to talk or otherwise interact with somebody in a personal capacity, you don't have to. Your reasons for doing so are your reasons.</p>
<p>Some of the congregation may have roles that require them to interact with Jane in what I will loosely call an &quot;official&quot; capacity. For example, if one of the congregants is a government employee and government business requires the interaction, they would have to do so.</p>
<p>It gets a little tricky when there is not a clear legal duty to interact. For example, if a congregant is an employee of a company with which Jane has business and who would normally be the person to interact with Jane, they might reasonably claim that they have a religious belief that prevents them from doing so. Anti-discrimination law may require the employer to make reasonable accommodations for that belief, for example, by getting a different employee to interact with Jane.</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/canada" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;canada&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;canada&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-canada-tooltip-container">canada</a></p>
<p>See <em>Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church of Canada St. Mary Cathedral v. Aga</em>, <a href="https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/18895/index.do" rel="noreferrer">2021 SCC 22</a>.</p>
<p>In that case, two members of a religious organization were expelled. The Court held that any remedy would have to be found in legal rights such as &quot;rights in property, contract, tort or unjust enrichment ⸺ and statutory causes of action.&quot;</p>
<p>In many circumstances, &quot;there [is] no legal right attached to the plaintiff’s membership in his religious congregation&quot; and therefore the courts will have &quot;no jurisdiction to determine whether [they were] properly expelled.&quot;</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In sum, courts can only intervene in the affairs of a voluntary association to vindicate a legal right, such as a right in property or contract. Membership in a voluntary association is not automatically contractual. Even a written constitution does not suffice. Membership is contractual only where the conditions for contract formation are met, including an objective intention to create legal relations. Such an intention is more likely to exist where property or employment are at stake. It is less likely to exist in religious contexts, where individuals may intend for their mutual obligations to be spiritually but not legally binding. A voluntary association will be constituted by a web of contracts among the members only where the conditions for contract formation are met.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/usa" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;usa&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;usa&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-usa-tooltip-container">usa</a></p>
<h1>You have a constitutional right to associate with whom you please</h1>
<p>The Supreme court has long held that the 1st amendment right to free speech, assembly, and petition also includes the freedom of association.</p>
<p>This right to association can be on cultural, religious and/or political grounds and the religious grounds are established.</p>
<p>This would ostensibly also include the right to not associate with people who have religious, political or cultural ideals you find abhorrent.</p>
<h2>How Free Speech Rights Protect the Freedom to Associate</h2>
Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation
<blockquote>
<p>It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the
advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the
'liberty' assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. Of course, it is
immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association
pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters, and
state action which may have the effect of curtailing the freedom to
associate is subject to the closest scrutiny. It appears from the
Court's opinions that the right of association is derivative from the
First Amendment guarantees of speech, assembly, and petition, although
it has at times been referred to as an independent freedom protected
by the First Amendment. The doctrine is a fairly recent construction,
the problems associated with it having previously arisen primarily in
the context of loyalty-security investigations of Communist Party
membership, and these cases having been resolved without giving rise
to any separate theory of association.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/377/288.html" rel="noreferrer">source - 1</a> <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/361/516.html" rel="noreferrer">source - 2</a></p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/usa" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;usa&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;usa&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-usa-tooltip-container">usa</a></p>
<p>Any law enabling such a tort would violate at least 3 Constitutionally-protected rights in the U.S.</p>
<p>The government is explicitly forbidden by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution from &quot;prohibiting the free exercise&quot; of religion. The circumstances under which the government can prohibit either an individual person or a religious organization from exercising the tenets of their religion are quite narrow and this does not approach such a circumstance.</p>
<p>Next up is freedom of expression. This emanates from the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Expression also can only be limited by the government under exceptionally narrow circumstances. Even <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie" rel="noreferrer">holding an openly neo-Nazi demonstration through a heavily-Jewish town</a> is considered protected free speech. While there are a few exceptions (for example, slander or incitement,) a church expressing disagreement with a former member's actions by not associating with them doesn't come remotely close to any exception to freedom of expression.</p>
<p>And that 'associating' part brings us to the third reason such a ruling could not be legal: freedom of association. While, unlike freedom of speech and freedom of religious practice, freedom of association isn't explicitly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, courts have ruled that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama" rel="noreferrer">the right to associate</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_v._Dale" rel="noreferrer">to not associate</a> with others is protected by the U.S. Constitution, especially when that association (or non-association) is expressive in nature.</p>
<p>It's also worth noting that Jane herself is exercising exactly these three rights in deciding to cease certain religious practices, no longer associate with her former church, and express her disagreement with their views. She would literally be suing them for doing the same things that she herself is doing.</p>

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