Moody Bible Institute is waging a legal battle to protect its male-only clergy policy and to prevent "government intrusion in religious affairs."

The 137-year-old Chicago Christian college and seminary has filed an appeal in a case stemming from a lawsuit brought by former communications faculty member Janay Garrick in 2018 for not allowing women to join the school's Pastoral Ministry program.

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A ruling against Moody could mean the school would have to alter its religious doctrine, which holds that only men can serve as pastors in the church. The school is challenging the opinion of Illinois federal district Judge John Z. Lee, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who was recently elevated to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals by President Joe Biden.

Moody is being represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, whose vice president and senior counsel Daniel Blomberg said, "If the separation of church and state means anything, it means that the federal government can’t punish a religious college for its beliefs over who should serve as a pastor, priest, imam, or rabbi. Religious groups should be free to make up their own minds on clergy qualifications without judges or juries putting a finger on the scales.” 

At the onset of Garrick's 2014 contract with the school, she was required to sign an affirmation of Moody's doctrines, which include how it believes clergy should be composed — something religious institutions are allowed to do under First Amendment precedent. However, Garrick started advocating for women to be admitted into the Pastoral Ministry program, saying the male-only program amounted to gender discrimination. She helped a female student file a Title IX complaint.

Her disagreements with Moody's religious beliefs resulted in her contract not being renewed, for which she filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint claiming discrimination and retaliation based on her religious beliefs and her sex.

Garrick subsequently filed an initial complaint, which was dismissed by a federal district court that refused to "impermissibly inject the auspices of government into religious doctrine and governance. She filed a second complaint dropping some of the explicitly doctrinal language, choosing to focus on gender discrimination and retaliation. In the second complaint, the court decided the case could move forward because Moody's religious doctrine defense was a "pretext for gender discrimination."

Moody's lawsuit says Garrick's lawsuit is an attempt to use the "federal judiciary as leverage in her doctrinal dispute."

The appeal also states the school is immune from discovery and trial, based on the "church autonomy doctrine," because it would "irreparably injure Moody’s First Amendment right against—and the judiciary’s corresponding structural duty to avoid—government entanglement in internal religious matters."

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The government cannot control a religious institution's personnel decisions that are based in doctrine, the argument continues, because necessarily matters of religious belief would be subjected to the judgment of a "civil factfinder" whose job it would be to determine "how important that belief is to the church’s overall mission.”

“For over 130 years, our school has trained and formed faithful Christian women and men who will commit their lives to spreading the gospel and bringing hope, joy, and love to all those in need," Moody President Dr. Mark Jobe said in a press release. "This mission is rooted in Christ’s command to announce the good news to all people, and it has served as the bedrock of Moody since our founding.”