ACNA COLLEGE OF BISHOPS DEPOSES DEREK JONES
FEDERAL COURT THROWS OUT JAFC LAWSUIT AGAINST THE PROVINCE
Two blows in six days end a year-long rebellion, one in the church's court and one in Caesar's
By David W. Virtue, DD
September 30, 2026
In the space of six days, the rebellion of Derek Jones against the Anglican Church in North America has collapsed on two fronts.
On September 23, the ACNA College of Bishops deposed Jones from the Sacred Ministry. Five days later, on September 28, a federal judge in South Carolina threw out the lawsuit his Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy (JAFC) had brought against the province. The church has spoken, and the civil court has declined to overrule it.
Jones is no longer a bishop, and his effort to take the chaplaincy ministry with him has failed in the one venue he hoped might rescue it.
THE DEPOSITION
The deposition follows the August verdict of the ACNA Court for the Trial of a Bishop, which found Jones guilty on four canonical charges: refusal of a Godly Admonition, contravening the canons, conduct giving just cause for scandal or offense, and causing schism.
The College's statement is unusually blunt. It declares that the facts now established show that over many years Jones “offended against God and the Body of Christ through acts of wickedness, cruelty, and abuse of power against chaplains with limited recourse.”
The bishops did not spare themselves. “The pain and destruction to these chaplains and their families is loathsome,” the College wrote, “and we are deeply ashamed and lament that members of this body who knew about this behavior neither urgently nor robustly addressed concerns and complaints regarding Mr. Jones.”
Note the title: Mr. Jones. The College has stripped him of the office, and it has stripped him of the style too.
The bishops said they had read the affidavits and victim statements, committed themselves to prayer for “victims known and unknown,” and announced a process by which wronged chaplains may obtain canonical and pastoral restoration. They also admitted that “the culture of our College must change,” and said they are seeking to understand how the abuse was allowed to happen.
That is the right question. It is also the question this province should have been asking years ago. Military chaplains are among the most vulnerable clergy in any church. They serve far from their bishops and depend on a single endorsing authority for their careers. Their means of redress are few. A bishop over such men holds extraordinary power over their livelihoods, and the College now concedes that some of its members knew that power was being abused and did too little, too late.
The statement closes by reminding readers that the goal of disciplining a bishop is “to protect the sheep and to invite the fallen shepherd to repent.” One hopes for both. So far there is no sign of the second.
THE LAWSUIT
The civil case began in October 2025, a month after JAFC served notice that it was withdrawing from ACNA. JAFC sued the province in federal court. It alleged infringement of its registered “Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy” service mark and “Anglican Chaplains” trademark, false advertising, unfair trade practices, trade-secret violations, conversion, and interference with its relationships with chaplains and government agencies.
The theory was simple. This was not a church quarrel at all but a civil dispute between two independent nonprofit corporations. JAFC argued that its ministry began in 2007, before ACNA existed, and that it merely supplied chaplaincy endorsement services to ACNA and other Anglican bodies. Neither ACNA's canons nor its relationship with Jones, JAFC said, gave the province any claim to JAFC's marks, accounts, or chaplains.
ACNA answered that the Special Jurisdiction for the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy is not a diocese with the power to walk out of the province. It is a canonical ministry established under Title I, Canon 11 of the 2014 canons, operating within ACNA's hierarchical structure and under the Archbishop's ecclesiastical authority. When Jones withdrew, the Special Jurisdiction stayed. Chaplains kept their ACNA orders and endorsements unless they chose otherwise. Archbishop Emeritus Robert Duncan and Bishop Jerome Cayangyang were appointed to interim oversight, and Cayangyang was subsequently elected bishop of the Special Jurisdiction.
JAFC won a limited early skirmish. In November 2025 the court granted interim relief after ACNA's counsel agreed that the province would stop using the JAFC service mark, the “Anglican Chaplains” trademark, and the plaintiff's logo. The court denied emergency relief in every other respect. It left for later the question that would decide the case: whether a civil court could touch this dispute at all.
On September 28, U.S. District Judge Bruce H. Hendricks answered that question. It could not.
“QUINTESSENTIAL ECCLESIASTICAL QUESTIONS”
In Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy v. Anglican Church in North America (Civil Action No. 2:25-cv-12848-BHH), Judge Hendricks granted ACNA's motion to dismiss under the church-autonomy doctrine, also called ecclesiastical abstention. He treated it as a challenge to the court's subject-matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), as courts in the Fourth Circuit generally do.
The judge was careful. The doctrine does not shield religious bodies from every lawsuit. Courts may decide genuinely secular disputes by neutral principles of law. What they may not do is resolve disputes over doctrine, discipline, internal organization, ecclesiastical rules, or church polity.
JAFC had dressed its complaint in the language of trademark, trade secrets, tort, and unfair competition. The court looked beneath the labels. To decide the claims, it would have to rule on who led the chaplaincy ministry, whether that ministry belonged within ACNA's hierarchy, whether Jones remained subject to ACNA discipline, and which church authority controlled the ministry's name, records, and marks.
“These are quintessential ecclesiastical questions,” the court wrote.
That is exactly what they are. You cannot decide who owns the name of a church ministry without first deciding whose ministry it is. And you cannot decide whose ministry it is without deciding whether the bishop who claims it was under the authority of the church that disciplined him. That is not a question for a federal judge in Charleston. It belongs to the church, and the church has now answered it.
WHAT THE RULING DOES NOT DO
The dismissal is without prejudice, and it does not decide on the merits who owns JAFC's assets, marks, or records. It holds only that the federal court lacks authority to decide the claims as pleaded, because resolving them would require the court to enter territory the Constitution reserves to the church's own processes.
That leaves questions unanswered. But the practical reality is plain. Jones went to the civil courts hoping they would treat his departure as a corporate separation. They have declined, and they have handed the matter back to the only body competent to judge it. That body has already judged it.
A CLOSING WORD
There is a lesson here beyond one fallen bishop. Anglicans in North America have spent two decades in courtrooms fighting over property, names, and jurisdiction. Much of that litigation was forced on the orthodox by revisionist dioceses wielding the Dennis Canon. Here the roles were reversed. A bishop disciplined by his own orthodox province ran to Caesar, and Caesar sent him back.
The chaplains are the ones who matter now. They carried the Gospel to men and women in uniform while living under a bishop the College now calls cruel. The College has promised them restoration. It has confessed that its own culture failed them. Those are words. The chaplains, and this province, will be watching for deeds.
VirtueOnline reached out to Derek Jones, his office and his attorney for comment on the court's ruling but received no response.
David W. Virtue, DD, is founder and managing editor of VirtueOnline. His writings can be found at www.virtueonline.org, where you can subscribe to receive his free biweekly VIEWPOINTS. His Substack on the Middle East is at davidvirtue2.substack.com
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