Approximately two weeks after he was installed as the new senior pastor of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, a group of congregants at the more than 200-year-old renowned black Baptist Church have asked a judge to nullify the election of the Rev. Kevin R. Johnson.
Four members of the church, according to NBC New York, asked a Manhattan judge to nullify the vote that led to Johnson’s installation on Sept. 29, claiming it wasn’t conducted in compliance with the church’s bylaws and the process was corrupted with bias.
They’re also asking the court to order the formation of a new pastoral search committee and direct the church to present a different candidate to congregants. The four members opposing Johnson’s election also want the court to void all salary, payments, or compensation the church has already made to the pastor, whom they claim is illegitimate.
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“The process that I witnessed unfold effectively pushed aside other highly qualified candidates,” said the Rev. C. Vernon Mason in the legal claim. Mason is one of the four members who initially served on the pastoral search committee but was later expelled.
Clarence Ball III, another of the four members seeking to nullify Johnson’s election, said the pastoral search process was flawed.
“Abyssinian has been a beacon of intellectual and spiritual light for the broader African American community for 216 years. This flawed pastoral search and election process has not only usurped the pulpit, but also members’ opportunity — and religious right — to have a pastor properly chosen with integrity and truth to lead our people through the modern challenges we are facing as community,” said Ball, who has been a member of the church for 10 years.
LaToya Evans, a spokesperson for the church, defended Johnson’s election, noting that only a minority of congregants opposed his election.
“Abyssinian Baptist Church stands behind the ethical, legal and valid election of its new Senior Pastor, Rev. Dr. Kevin R. Johnson,” Evans told NBC New York. “We will continue to defend our church, legacy and pastoral selection process from baseless attacks by a disgruntled few.”
Jasmine McFarlane-White, who is also seeking to nullify Johnson’s election, argued that the newly-elected pastor didn’t get enough support from rank-and-file church members according to the church’s bylaws.
Abyssinian Baptist Church’s bylaws, he said, require a new pastor to get votes from a majority of all church members who are eligible to vote — not just those who cast ballots.
“You need a super majority, a majority of all the members in good standing versus a majority of people who vote,” McFarlane-White said.
Johnson won his election with 672 yes votes, which amounts to 55.6% of those who voted but only 25.3% of 2,655 eligible voters.
Other church members, like Delsenia Glover, who voted for Johnson, told NBC New York that she didn’t have a problem with how he was elected.
“I never had any qualms about the process at all,” she said.
“He’s doing God’s work and that’s what I really admire about him,” Michael Deas, an Abyssinian deacon who supports Johnson, added.
Johnson’s installation at Abyssinian Baptist Church comes after a contentious dispute for the job left vacant by the death of the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III on Oct. 28, 2022, from pancreatic cancer. Butts led the church for three decades.
The Rev. Eboni Marshall Turman, a Yale Divinity School professor who made history when she became the youngest pastor ordained at Abyssinian in 2007, had hoped to make history again as the church’s first female pastor after Butts’ death.
When she wasn’t named as a finalist for the position by the church’s search committee, Turman filed a federal lawsuit accusing the church and its search committee of gender discrimination.
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