NEW YORK (RNS) — More than two dozen members of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, dressed as if for a Sunday service, filled a lower Manhattan courtroom Thursday morning (July 17)  to attend the first hearing in a lawsuit seeking to remove the Rev. Kevin Johnson as the historically Black church’s senior pastor, alleging irregularities in how Johnson’s election was conducted and a lack of transparency.

The suit, filed in October by four current and former church members — C. Vernon Mason Sr., Kevin McGruder, Jasmine McFarlane-White and Clarence Ball III — claims Johnson’s election didn’t comply with the church’s bylaws. The plaintiffs also question whether the pastoral search committee, which presented Johnson as the sole candidate to the congregation, was biased.

In their suit, filed in the Civil Branch of the New York Supreme Court, the group demands that the court nullify the election and render Johnson ineligible in future rounds of church elections. 

The church sought to dismiss the lawsuit in December, claiming it was “nothing more than a scheme developed by Petitioners to remove the duly-elected pastor of a historic Baptist Church in Harlem, simply so they can propose a candidate whom they believe is more spiritually qualified for the position,” according to the motion.

According to the church, the plaintiffs’ request to have the court nullify the election and order a new vote without Johnson would force the court to become intertwined in ecclesiastical matters.

The congregation, where Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was pastor for three decades and current Senator Raphael Warnock was once an assistant pastor, has been enmeshed in a bitter succession war following the death of longtime leader the Rev. Calvin O. Butts in 2022. The current suit is the second attempt to dislodge Johnson through the courts in a dispute that has prompted some to leave the church.

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Johnson, a graduate of Morehouse College and Union Theological Seminary, first came to Abyssinian in the 1990s, serving as an assistant pastor to Butts. In 2014, he resigned from his position as senior pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia after the congregation disapproved of his handling of the church’s financial affairs and his plan to run for mayor of Philadelphia, which he eventually abandoned.

In 2015, he founded Dare to Imagine Church in Philadelphia, an interdenominational church.

Johnson’s election has prompted another lawsuit from the Rev. Eboni Marshall Turman, a candidate for senior pastor who did not get the job. In December 2023, Turman filed a gender discrimination lawsuit in a district court, claiming she had been excluded for sexist reasons. Her suit was dismissed in March.

A longtime Abyssinian member and a former assistant to Butts, Turman appeared in court on Thursday, saying she had come to show support to the dissenting group. “I came today because I love my church. I came today because I love the good news of Christ, which is about justice, which is about love, and which is about righteousness, and something terribly wrong happened in this process. I came as a witness to that, and I came to be in place to help right the wrong,” she said.

Abyssinian’s bylaws state that a senior pastor needs to be elected by “the majority vote of the members in good standing who are eligible to vote.” Those contesting Johnson’s election believe that means that the majority vote of all registered members is needed to win the election, not only that of those present for the vote.

On Thursday, Abyssinian’s attorney, Brian Pete, argued that the petitioners’ dispute constitutes a “narrow reading” of the bylaws. “Elections are decided by those who choose to vote. … Petitioners don’t like that, so here we are,” said Pete.

Pete said the plaintiffs had engaged in a “monthlong campaign to convince the congregation to vote ‘no'” before the election and called their complaint motivated by a simple desire to overthrow Johnson after a valid election. 

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“Why should four people be able to tell 3,000 people who they elected?” asked Pete. “If there was in fact all of these no votes, how is he still the pastor a year later?”

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Jonathan Robert Nelson, of Madden Black LLP, a law firm specializing in religion law, noted that of the 2,738 registered church members at the time of the election, a total of 1208 cast a ballot in the election. Due to the low turnout, the election failed to “elect a successor in spirit of the rules set by Reverend Butts,” said Nelson.

The plaintiffs are also demanding Johnson’s yearly compensation be made public.

LaToya Evans, a spokesperson for the church, said the congregation will await the judge’s decision and remain “hopeful and prayerful that he makes the right call.”

“Abyssinian was able to have its day in court and defend its fair pastoral search, vetting process and election,” wrote Evans in a statement emailed to Religion News Service. Johnson didn’t attend Thursday’s hearing, as he was traveling abroad, according to Evans.

Though church representatives say the congregation has continued to grow under Johnson’s leadership, the dispute over his election has fragmented the group and prompted some longtime members to leave. 

Mason, 78, who is one of the plaintiffs, left the church after he was removed from his position as a deacon because of his role in the dispute. A member of the pastoral search committee, he claims Johnson didn’t meet the criteria set by the church for a candidate “who had successfully pastored a black Baptist Church for 12 to 15 years.”

Mason said leaving was “deeply painful for me and my wife and my children, who grew up in that church.

“I pray for the future of Abyssinian … A whole lot of members did not appreciate what happened,” he said. 

RELATED: Abyssinian Baptist Church welcomes dismissal of pastor candidate’s discrimination suit

Jasmine McFarlane-White, one of the plaintiffs, worried that the dispute may harm some of its community programs, which she said have had fewer donors in the wake of the controversy, mentioning especially the church’s food pantry. (A church spokesperson said the food pantry is still open and “100% funded by Abyssinian.”)

But McFarlane-White, who grew up in the church, said she wouldn’t consider leaving despite the dispute.

“It is a stain, but I think that that’s why we’re doing this, because this is a first step of washing away that stain and to rebuild the church,” she said. “I am hoping that this case will help to put us back on the right track, so that we can be a community leader like we once were in the past.”