the defendant Boston church as well as the plaintiff Massachusetts Association of . the New Jerusalem. 4 As the Appeals Court concluded, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution does not prohibit a civil court from exercising jurisdiction over property disputes involving a church so long as the court does not intrude upon issues of church doctrine, polity, discipline, and internal operation. See General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the U.S.A., Inc. v. MacKenzie, 66 Mass. App. Ct. 836, 839-840 (2006), citing Callahan v. First Congregational Church, 441 Mass. 699, 708 (2004), and Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 602 (1979). 5 General Laws c. 180, § 11 A, provides as follows: 6 See, e.g., Central Coast Baptist Ass’n v. First Baptist Church, 154 Cal. App. 4th 586, 592 (2007) (<HOLDING>); Wisconsin Conference Bd. of Trustees of the
holding that a church was entitled to employ only members of its faith holding the federal unemployment tax act section exempting service performed in employ of church after which florida molded its unemployment law was meant to apply to schools that have no separate legal existence from the church and therefore employees working within such schools are in employ of the church holding that first amendment barred child victim of sexual abuse by priest from bringing breach of fiduciary duty claim against priest church official and church holding that members of a church congregation lacked sufficient interest to support intervention in an action by the church itself challenging the designation of the church as a landmark holding that disaffiliated church had de facto dissolved when last vote of its full membership was to dissolve and to transfer assets to mother church