Providing both a comprehensive legal overview and practical advice, this is an essential reference work for every pastor, church administrator, and parish council member. The US is the most litigious country in the world. The sex abuse scandal has virtually bankrupted the American Roman Catholic Church. The breakup of the American Episcopal Church threatens innumerable lawsuits over ownership of church property. Every religious community in the US has reason to be concerned about its legal liability. Wrongful dismissal, potential liability for the actions of employees or volunteers, a parishioner slipping on icy church steps... these are just some of the other legal issues that should be of concern to every Christian church and parish community in America. Recognizing that most people working in the church need guidance when confronting church-related legal issues, lawyers (and long-term church members) David Blaikie and Diana Ginn have adapted their popular Legal Guide for Canadian Churches for the American religious community. This handy reference book takes readers, step by step, through all the legal implications of the daily operation of a church and parish community. Blaikie and Ginn explain different areas of the law, including administrative law, property law, employment law, and civil liability. This book provides a legal context for understanding and responding to relevant legal issues, while at the same time providing answers and directions on specific legal questions. The Legal Guide for Religious Institutions provides a comprehensive legal overview, coupled with practical advice, that will be required reading for every American pastor, church administrator, and parish council member.

Church Representation Rules is a vital tool for all those involved in parochial, diocesan and national Church governance. This 2022 edition incorporates the contents of the four Amendment Resolutions (2019-2022) passed since the 2020 edition was published. These include rules governing mission initiatives, online voting, term limits and more. The Rules aim to simplify local church governance and enable parishes to adapt the rules to best serve ministry and mission in their contexts. They cover aspects of local church governance including: * the formation and revision of the electoral roll; * the minimum qualifying age for election to the Parochial Church Council or the deanery synod and methods of voting at the Annual Parochial Church Meetings; * chairmanship of the Parochial Church Council and the number and term of office of its lay members; * membership of deanery and diocesan synods and how the number of lay members to be elected to them is calculated; * membership of, and elections to, the House of Laity of the General Synod.

Churchwardens are required to compile and maintain a full terrier and inventory of all land and articles appertaining to their church. The Church Property Register is a clear and accessible pro-forma with sections dealing with all aspects of a church building and its contents to enable churchwardens to comply with the law.

Church and state: a simple phrase that reflects one of the most famous and fraught relationships in the history of the United States. But what exactly is “the church,” and how is it understood in US law today? In Church State Corporation, religion and law scholar Winnifred Fallers Sullivan uncovers the deeply ambiguous and often unacknowledged ways in which Christian theology remains alive and at work in the American legal imagination. Through readings of the opinions of the US Supreme Court and other legal texts, Sullivan shows how “the church” as a religious collective is granted special privilege in US law. In-depth analyses of Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby reveal that the law tends to honor the religious rights of the group—whether in the form of a church, as in Hosanna-Tabor, or in corporate form, as in Hobby Lobby—over the rights of the individual, offering corporate religious entities an autonomy denied to their respective members. In discussing the various communities that construct the “church-shaped space” in American law, Sullivan also delves into disputes over church property, the legal exploitation of the black church in the criminal justice system, and the recent case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Brimming with insight, Church State Corporation provocatively challenges our most basic beliefs about the ties between religion and law in ostensibly secular democracies.

Legal Opinions Concerning the Church of England contains the views of the Legal Advisory Commission of the General Synod, which gives legal advice to the General Synod, the Church Commissioners, diocesan registrars, chancellors, and other clerical and lay officers such as archdeacons and diocesan secretaries. It does not constitute a comprehensive volume on ecclesiastical law but is the jointly expressed views of the Commission on a wide range of legal matters of interest to the Church. This eighth edition contains many previously unpublished Opinions as well as a comprehensive updating and revision of the contents of previous editions. It is an indispensible reference work for all practitioners and students of ecclesiastical law. New or significantly revised Opinions include: The clergy and confidentiality Appointment of non-stipendiary ministers as incumbents Consecration of sites for 'green' burials Ownership of tombstones and monuments in churchyards Disturbances during services in cathedrals The right of a parishioner to be married in the parish church The legal responsibilities of PCC members