Justices Won’t Consider Whether Courts Can Define ‘Minister’

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to add another religion case to its docket, this one asking who gets to decide who is a minister for tax purposes.

A Virginia Presbyterian church, New Life in Christ Church, says only it can decide. It argues that the City of Fredericksburg violated its First Amendment rights when interpreting the term on its own to deny a tax exemption.

“First Amendment values are plainly jeopardized when church [civil] litigation is made to turn on the resolution by civil courts of controversies over religious doctrine and practice,” the church told the justices in ...