PORTLAND, Maine — When parents divorce or separate, courts routinely step in to resolve bitter disputes over child support, holiday schedules, and school districts. But what happens when parents clash over God, hellfire, and eternal salvation?
On Tuesday, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Bickford v. Bradeen (Decided 9/1/2026) that family court judges can strip a parent of decision-making authority over a child’s religious upbringing using the broad, ordinary “best interest of the child” standard. In doing so, Maine’s highest court rejected the argument that interfering with a parent’s religious guidance requires clearing the highest legal bar under the U.S. Constitution—a standard known as “strict scrutiny”.
The ruling resolves a years-long custody clash between Emily Bickford and Matthew Bradeen, but it also thrusts Maine directly into the center of a national legal battle that religious liberty advocates argue is ripe for the U.S. Supreme Court.
A Clash of Faith, Fear, and Parenting
Bickford and Bradeen share an 11-year-old daughter under a 2013 court order requiring them to jointly make major life decisions for her welfare. The arrangement unraveled after Bickford began taking their daughter to Calvary Chapel Greater Portland, a Christian congregation.
According to court records, Bickford enrolled the girl in church services, retreats, and a planned baptism without informing or consulting Bradeen. Soon after, the child began experiencing intense anxiety and panic attacks.
The girl’s distress stemmed from the church’s vivid teachings on the apocalypse and eternal damnation. Calvary Chapel’s pastor, Travis Carey, testified that his verse-by-verse sermons included graphic descriptions of hell featuring “burning and torment,” as well as prophecies about a seven-year tribulation under the Antichrist. The young girl began leaving notes around her father’s house, terrified that the “Second Coming” was imminent and that her father and stepsibling would be left behind to burn.
When Bradeen raised concerns, Bickford dismissed them, asserting that she lived under “God’s law, not the state’s law,” and insisted that prayer would resolve any anxiety.
The conflict culminated in August 2024 during a two-day custody hearing. Following the first day in court, Bickford brought the girl to an evening church service where Pastor Carey delivered a six-minute prayer specifically about the custody dispute. Broadcast online, the prayer mentioned the family by name nearly 30 times, labeled Bradeen an unsaved “enemy” working to “strangle the church,” and depicted the custody case as spiritual warfare.
Troubled by the alienation of the father and the child’s distress, a Maine trial judge awarded Bradeen final decision-making power over the girl’s medical care (including routine vaccinations that Bickford opposed) and gave him exclusive control over whether the child could attend Calvary Chapel.
The Legal Crossroads: Best Interest vs. Strict Scrutiny
Bickford appealed, backed by prominent religious-freedom attorneys. She argued that the First Amendment protects a parent’s fundamental right to guide their child’s religious upbringing.
In typical constitutional law, if the government wants to restrict a fundamental liberty, it must pass “strict scrutiny”. This means the state must prove it has a “compelling interest” (such as shielding a child from direct, severe harm) and that its action is the “least restrictive means” possible.
The trial judge believed strict scrutiny applied, finding that the severe psychological harm and parental alienation justified barring the child from the church.
However, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court took a radically different route. While affirming the outcome, Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill wrote that strict scrutiny does not apply at all when two parents are fighting each other in court.
The state high court explained that while a parent has a constitutional right to raise their child, both parents share that right equally. When two fit parents hit an impasse and cannot agree, the court is not acting as an oppressive state intruder; it is simply stepping in as an arbitrator to break the tie. Therefore, the court held, judges can reallocate religious rights based on Maine’s standard “best interest of the child” statute, so long as the judge remains neutral and does not show bias or hostility against a religion.
The Problems With the Court’s Approach
While the Maine ruling aimed to resolve an impasse between two parents, legal scholars warn that the court’s reasoning creates dangerous territory for religious freedom and family privacy:
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Watering Down a Fundamental Right: By discarding strict scrutiny, the court relegated religious liberty to a secondary tier in custody battles. When ordinary “best interest” rules govern, a parent’s First Amendment rights have no more legal shield than a dispute over soccer practice or bedtime routines.
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Putting Traditional Theology on Trial: The court relied heavily on findings that sermons about hell caused the child anxiety. While the court emphasized parental alienation, allowing judges to weigh whether traditional theological concepts (sin, judgment, hellfire) are “harmful” invites secular courts to penalize intense or conservative religious beliefs.
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The Specter of the “Cult” Label: The trial featured testimony from an expert who characterized the church as a “closed social system” or “cult”. State courts wading into sociological evaluations of whether a Christian church crosses the line into a dangerous sect risks excessive entanglement between church and state.
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Judicial Subjectivity: The “best interest” test gives individual judges vast personal discretion. Without the strict requirement to prove concrete harm, a judge harboring subtle skepticism toward fundamentalist religion can easily favor a more secular or moderate parent under the guise of child welfare.
Why the U.S. Supreme Court Needs to Intervene
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court openly acknowledged that its stance deepens a significant split among courts across the United States.
States such as Utah (Kingston v. Kingston) and Colorado (In re Marriage of McSoud) have held that judicial orders restricting a parent’s right to expose their child to their faith must satisfy strict scrutiny and prove substantial emotional or physical harm. Conversely, states like Maine, New Hampshire, and Nevada apply the looser best-interest standard.
The nation’s highest court has repeatedly protected parental religious guidance when the state passes overreaching laws (such as compulsory schooling statutes), but it has never squarely decided the rules when two separated parents disagree. Until the U.S. Supreme Court resolves this nationwide divide, parents across the country will face vastly different constitutional protections depending solely on the state line they live within.
We will continue to follow this case as it develops.
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(This does not constitute legal advice.)