Trinity Foundation Inc.

Jeremiah Counsel Corp V. Second Baptist Houston New Trial Date and Mediation—SO FAR APART, TOO FAR APART??

The jury trial in the court case revealed in our April 2025 article, Power, Deceit, and Betrayal at Second Baptist Houston, was recently moved back again from April 29th, 2026, to July 27th, 2026—a second continuance in the case between the Jeremiah Counsel Corporation (JCC) and Second Baptist Houston’s “Young Group”. Judge Grant Dorfman has ordered mediation between the parties with mediator and former judge Harvey Brown.

One side wants Transparency and Accountability, the OTHER side wants to HIDE

After church members voted to approve secretive bylaws which they could not view before the vote, church leadership eliminated church-wide business meetings and stopped sharing annual budgets with donors.

The two sides are so far apart it is hard to imagine any agreement prior to a jury trial. The issues: no transparency for how the church board spends donor funds; no accountability by a non-independent, self-perpetuating, board of directors while over a billion dollars’ worth of assets is at stake; a history of lavish spending by relatives; etc.

Questions: Has Ben Young received a huge salary increase and/or housing allowance in the past two years as the new Senior Pastor? Is the new board considering selling one of its church campuses? How much is the church paying in legal fees to one of its board members who is both a lawyer and an ‘ordained’ minister?

Nationwide Publicity

Documentarist Nathan Appfel, creator of the docuseries The Religion Business has published videos on his website about the issue and discussed it with Tucker Carlson on his YouTube channel. Youtuber Todd Chrisley interviewed Nathan on his Chrisley Confessions channel and they discussed the ongoing Second Baptist case as well.

Recap

In May 2023 a relatively small group of Second Baptist’s 90,000 plus members attended a congregational meeting thinking it was about shielding the church from “woke” ideology. They approved a new set of bylaws without seeing copies of the document.

Unbeknownst to the 2023 meeting attendees, their member voting rights had been permanently stripped away, including the right to select a new pastor, approve a budget, select trustees, etc. The new bylaws changed the church’s governance model, fired the previous Trustees, and placed power and control over a billion dollars’ worth of assets in the hands a small group of mostly Young family members and friends, now called a “Ministry Leadership Team” (the self-appointed board of directors).

After their long-time Pastor, Dr. Homer Edwin Young, appointed his son Ben Young as the new Senior Pastor certain members began to realize the scope of the deception perpetrated on the 94,000-member church.

Legal action was taken, JCC members said, as a last resort to reverse what they considered a hostile church takeover. A complete summary of the reasons for the lawsuit can be found on the JCC website. Defendants are the church’s former senior pastor Homer Edwin Young, new senior pastor Ben Young, Lee Maxcy, Dennis Brewer Jr., and the Second Baptist Church Corporation.

More Trinity Foundation articles here:

Ed Young’s Toxic Church Business Practices and Mergers Infect Second Baptist Houston and Other Churches

Giga-church Second Baptist Houston Court Battle Update: New April 29, 2026 Jury Trial Date Set

About Biblical and Historic Governance—Authority Flows from the Congregation, Source—Protestia

“In its biblical and historic form, plural eldership exists within a framework of meaningful congregational authority. Elders lead; congregations retain the power of recognition, correction, and removal. As has been noted many times recently, elder plurality was never intended to create self-generating spiritual authorities insulated from the people they serve. ”

Source: https://protestia.com/2026/01/07/warlords-of-the-ghetto-why-the-evangelical-influencer-ecosystem-radicalizes-instead-of-reforms/

“The Second London Baptist Confession (1689) grounds authority explicitly in the local gathered congregation, not in networks of cooperating ministries.

Likewise, the Baptist Faith and Message affirms: Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes.

Authority is:

local,
covenantal,
and mutually accountable.

It is not transferable through partnerships, funding relationships, or cooperative agreements. Baptists rejected centralized adjudication precisely to prevent institutions from exercising unreviewable authority over one another.”

Source: https://protestia.com/2026/02/18/the-mcraney-case-is-a-disaster-for-baptists-and-many-still-dont-see-it/

“In historic Baptist polity, authority flows from the congregation. Elders serve the church; they do not constitutionally rule it. A permanent class of “founding elders” exercising enduring authority represents a very different model of church governance.

Under such systems:

elders adjudicate disputes
elders define discipline
elders determine credibility
criticism is expected to be routed through the same authority structure being criticized”

Source: https://protestia.com/2026/03/05/jeff-durbin-and-apologia-are-about-to-get-slapped/

Article Source: https://trinityfi.org/jeremiah-counsel-corp-v-second-baptist-houston-new-trial-date-and-mediation-so-far-apart-too-far-apart/

Follow the Money Friday: Southern Poverty Law Center and Jay Sekulow

This week the Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), claiming the non-profit, famous for fighting racism, was actually giving money to the heads of white supremacy organizations, who served as Field Sources for the SPLC.

How did the SPLC cover up its alleged crimes? We will show you while examining the Form 990s filed with the IRS.

According to the indictment (screenshot below), SPLC created bank accounts using the names of fictitious companies to transfer funds to Field Sources.

To read more ....

Follow the Money Friday: Southern Poverty Law Center and Jay Sekulow – Trinity Foundation Follow the Money Friday: Southern Poverty Law Center and Jay Sekulow April 24, 2026 Barry Bowen This week the Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), claiming the non-profit, famous for fighting racism, was actually giving money to the heads of white supremacy organizatio...