MARTINSBURG – A Berkeley County church wants a federal judge to force West Virginia’s Secretary of State to allow it to incorporate.
Hope Community Church in Hedgesville filed its complaint in federal court against Mac Warner in his official capacity as Secretary of State.
According to the complaint, the church was founded in 1937 and has continuously served as an Assemblies of God church since then.
Charles Trump
| File photo
The state Constitution provides that no charter of incorporation shall be granted to any church or religious denomination. But, following the 2002 Falwell v. Miller federal court decision in Virginia, the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office began issuing incorporation certificates to churches that applied for them.
The Falwell ruling held that Virginia’s constitutional prohibition against church incorporation violated the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.
The practice of the WVSOS office issuing incorporation certificates to churches continued until sometime at least in 2020, possibly longer, according to the complaint.
There are many reasons why churches and other ministries decide to incorporate. The most common reasons are to protect individual members from personal liability associated with the negligent actions of fellow members and to allow the church to operate as its own entity. Incorporation allows churches to manage assets like other nonprofit organizations and businesses.
West Virginia is the last state that prohibits religious incorporation. But it almost joined the rest of the nation a few years ago.
In 2021, the state Legislature adopted Senate Joint Resolution 4, proposing an amendment to the state Constitution to remove the prohibition on incorporation of churches and replace it with language expressly permitting churches to be incorporated.
Hope Community Church voted to incorporate and submitted articles of incorporation online to the WVSOS office on September 29, 2022.
But on November 8, 2022, voters rejected the amendment.
After that vote, Warner’s office refused to incorporate Hope Community Church. It received a letter from the office December 5, 2022.
“The church remains unincorporated and is prohibited from enjoying the benefits of incorporation provided to churches in the other 49 states and to other non-church entities in the State of West Virginia,” the complaint states.
The church accuses the WVSOS office of violating its right to free exercise of religion, right to equal protection and the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
It seeks a declaratory judgment saying the state Constitution violates its rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and an injunction requiring the WVSOS office to issue it a certificate of incorporation. It also seeks any damages and attorney fees as well as any other relief.
The church is being represented by Charles S. Trump of Trump & Trump in Berkeley Springs and by Glenn S. Reynolds of Reynolds Law Group in Chesapeake, Va. Trump is a Republican state Senator who introduced SJR 4. He is running for a seat on the state Supreme Court in the 2024 election.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia case number 3:23-cv-231
