I recently explained the importance of the Supreme Court’s decision affirming a church’s right to control whom it employs as a teacher in its religious school in a post you can read here. Unfortunately, the vital protection this case provides for religious freedom has largely been lost on the mainstream media. Instead, they’ve often focused on how this decision may affect teachers at religious schools. One AP article went so far as to assert that a teacher of Jewish Studies at a Jewish school should be seen as a “teacher whose subject is religion, not a religious teacher.” In the context of a religious school, this is completely at odds with the concept of religious freedom.

The Court of Appeals in the Hosanna-Tabor case made a similar argument (which was thankfully rejected by the Supreme Court). It opined that the teacher who sued the religious school wasn’t a minister because she spent six hours a day teaching secular subjects like math, social studies, and music.  Only an hour or so was spent on exclusively religious instruction. The fact that the teacher also lead weekly chapel services, taught a 30-minute religion class four days per week, lead prayer three times per day, and taught a morning devotional was considered to be largely irrelevant.  So the school was prohibited from firing the teacher, even though she violated church teachings regarding mediation of disputes among believers.

The appeals court (and the Associated Press) failed to recognize something even Christians sometimes forget – our biblical worldview and Christian principles affect all aspects of our lives.  That certainly includes how we teach our children all subjects – even those that don’t appear to be “religious” – such as music and social studies.  It even includes math, as demonstrated by the great mathematicians Sir Isaac Newton and Rene Descartes. And it certainly includes religious classes like Jewish Studies at a religious school that has as its purpose inculcating the religious theology and values of a particular religion.

Saying the Hosanna-Tabor case undermines the rights of teachers is like saying the desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education wrongly ignored the rights of teachers who wanted to only teach certain kids. The larger, more important, principle of elimination of racism – or protection of religious freedom in this case – is being missed. Thankfully, all nine Justices of the Supreme Court aren’t influenced by the misguided opinions of the Associated Press.

The Supreme Court just handed down a fantastic ruling affirming the right of churches to employ only those individuals that share their beliefs and live their lives according to the teaching of the church. As you may have read in previous posts here and here, a church school in Redford, Michigan, was dealt a blow to its independence from government control by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2010.  Hosanna-Tabor is affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and operated a church and school.  All the school teachers lead weekly chapel services, taught a 30-minute religion class four days per week, lead prayer three times per day, and taught a morning devotional.  In fact, many of the teachers were commissioned as ministers.  So when a teacher threatened to sue the church in violation of church doctrine, the church naturally believed that it had the freedom to dismiss her from employment. Lower courts have long recognized the “ministerial exception,” which prohibits government from getting involved in the relationship between a religious organization and its ministers – though the Supreme Court has never officially acknowledged this exception till now.

The Sixth Circuit didn’t apply the exception because it found the teacher in question was not really a minister.  The court said she wasn’t a minister because she spent six hours a day teaching secular subjects like math, social studies, and music.  Only an hour or so was spent on exclusively religious instruction.  So the school was prohibited from firing the teacher, even though she violated church teachings regarding mediation of disputes among believers.

Thankfully the Supreme Court rejected this wrongheaded idea that someone tasked with teaching the religious principles of the church doesn’t really represent the church’s views unless they are specifically teaching a religion class. The Court said that the question of whether a church employee that undertakes both religious and sometimes secular duties is in fact a minister “is not one that can be resolved with a stopwatch.” In other words, courts have no business telling a church who it can employ as a minister by getting into the minutia of that employee’s daily tasks.

The Court held that both the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment “bar the government from interfering with the decision of a religious group to fire one of its ministers.” And “[r]equiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs.”

The Supreme Court was right to conclude that the government cannot contradict a church’s determination of who can act as its ministers.  This clearly reflects the heart of the original intent of the religion clauses of the First Amendment.  ADF has been pleased to represent the church and school in the trial court since the Sixth Circuit handed down its opinion, and we commend The Becket Fund for its excellent work representing them before the Supreme Court.

Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Redmond, Washington, reportedly took a stand against the Washington governor’s recent efforts to legalize same-sex “marriage,” stating:  ”As long as the Bible says it’s wrong, I’m going to fight against it like it’s the last thing I can do. It’s no different than any other sin. If someone walked around and said ‘We want to be a minority because we are divorcees,’ I would fight that just as much.” He believes that if the proponents of the new law succeed, it will profoundly restrict religious freedom, and he’s right.

Proponents of same-sex “marriage” have the ultimate goal of sexual choices being treated the same as race. In other words, they think criticizing someone for engaging in homosexual behavior should be viewed the same as criticizing someone for being Black. The religious freedom implications for this change in the law would be striking. For instance, Title VII protects religious organizations by allowing them to discriminate based on religion when it comes to hiring staff. This exemption makes sense because no one would argue a Catholic school should hire an Atheist to teach religion. But that religious exemption doesn’t apply to discrimination based on race. If the proponents of same-sex marriage are successful in elevating sexual orientation discrimination to the same level as race discrimination, religious organizations that teach biblical truth about sexuality may be forced to hire individuals who engage in homosexual behavior  for some leadership positions like teachers. (You can read more about how the homosexual legal agenda could affect religious freedom here and here.)

Pastor Hutcherson is to be commended for being willing to take a stand that may be politically incorrect, and the foresight to understand the homosexual agenda’s negative implications for religious freedom. We need more religious leaders like him.

The long standing tax provision that permits churches to provide pastors with a non-taxable housing allowance was recently challenged in the case Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Geitner in a California federal court. The radical group that filed the lawsuit voluntarily dismissed it after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in ACSTO v. Winn  – an ADF case that severely restricts the ability of anti-religious organizations to challenge government programs that acknowledge the autonomy of religious organizations and the benefits they provide our communities.

But the atheist organization filed another lawsuit challenging the housing allowance in the federal court in Wisconsin on September 17, 2011. We at the ADF Church Project are monitoring that case closely and will move to intervene if the Department of Justice does not vigorously defend this important acknowledgment of the value of churches and pastors. Critics of the housing allowance ignore the unique benefits that churches provide communities. For instance, a Baylor University study found that kids attending church in low income neighborhoods have a better chance of staying in school and succeeding academically.  Another study concludes that “Churches and religious groups offer a vast array of services to their local communities …that sometimes are not being provided elsewhere, such as [a]fter-school programs, refugee resettlement, homeless shelters, [and] food banks….”

ADF has church clients that spend all their money on programs and do not even pay their pastors a salary. The only way the pastor of these  small congregations can afford to minister at the church is by taking advantage the housing allowance. Striking it down would not only be a blow to these pastors, but to our communities at large because it will reduce the ability of churches to continue to help the poor and disadvantaged in ways no one else is doing.

Churches can continue to provide  pastors with non-taxable housing allowances, but they should watch for updates on this case that attempts to limit the effectiveness of churches in our country.

Please share your comments below. To join the conversation, join our facebook page:Facebook.com/SpeakUpChurch

A recent column in USAToday titled “5 rules for faith and politics 2012” proposes rules the authors say would avoid both theocracy and hostility toward religion. But all they succeed in doing is marginalizing people of faith who have the audacity to think their most cherished beliefs about God and morality should affect all aspects of their lives - including how they vote. A review of their “5 rules” indicates what the authors really want is for people of faith to keep their religious convictions to themselves. Their fear of a theocracy is completely unfounded.  Virtually all of the Founding Fathers had a political philosophy that reflected their Christian beliefs and nobody would argue they set up a government that established a theocracy. I suspect what the authors are really afraid of is people of faith waking up to the fact that we must have moral, God honoring leaders if we expect to have a moral, God honoring country.  Their proposed rules attempt to shame religious voters into closing their eyes to a candidate’s moral convictions (or lack thereof).  Moreover, they ask people of faith and their churches to sacrifice the religious freedom that is the foundation of our country.

Their first rule advocates that the wise constitutional provision prohibiting the government from imposing a religious test for office  should apply to individuals also.  They say, “Voters should evaluate candidates based on their policies, their values and their character but not on whether or how they choose to worship.”  Of course, one’s values and character are heavily influenced by religious beliefs.  Not to consider them would be foolhardy.  And I highly doubt the authors themselves would vote for someone whose religious beliefs include child sacrifice (which recent tragic reports demonstrate is not merely an implausible hypothetical).

The next rule would prohibit the Catholic Church from denying communion to politicians who fail to abide by and uphold the Church’s beliefs.  The authors think churches should not hold their members accountable when members act in a way that is contrary to what they say they believe. This effectively encourages hypocrisy. Under this rule, politicians can say they believe abortion is murder on Sunday but vote to allow it (and force all taxpayers to pay for it) on Monday – and their church is absolutely prohibited from taking any action to correct them.  This asks churches to forfeit a long established right to govern themselves and their members without governmental interference.

“Candidates should refrain from citing religion as the exclusive authority for their position on issues,” is the authors’ next proposal and it also restricts religious freedom.   The rule is really just a restatement of part of the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause Lemon Test which requires all government actions to have a secular purpose.  Putting aside whether Lemon is a good test or not, it only applies to the government, not a candidate.  Obviously, if they are elected to office, candidates will want to be able to articulate reasons for their policies that aren’t necessarily based on religious conviction in order to persuade their colleagues that don’t share those convictions.  But when a candidate is running for office, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with saying something like, “my deeply held religious beliefs prohibit me from voting for laws imposing the death penalty.”  This creates no constitutional crisis and many voters are interested in what’s underlying a candidate’s views on a particular issue.

The fourth proposed rule, as explained by the authors, appears to be relatively benign.  As I understand it, they believe politicians should avoid alienating anyone who does not share their religious beliefs, but they should be free to express their personal religious beliefs.  They use former President George W. Bush’s reference to Christ as being the most influential political philosopher in his life as being acceptable.  To the extent the authors are saying they think it’s smart for politicians to avoid offending people of different faiths, that makes sense.  But the idea that this can be accomplished by not using references to God, and instead saying “the Creator,” “the Almighty,” or “Divine Providence” is naive.  These terms may offend any number of groups, including atheists and polytheists.

The final proposed rule is fraught with danger and inaccuracy. It reflects the current law (the “Johnson Amendment”) which prohibits pastors from preaching to their congregations about how a candidate’s platform lines up with scripture. The authors claim this law is necessary to avoid election fraud.  But pastors who preach sermons and apply Scripture to political candidates are not making an “end-run” around campaign finance laws.  They are exercising their right to freedom of religion.  The tax code restrictions that prevent churches and pastors from specifically discussing how their faith applies to a particular election and the candidates in that election trample the First Amendment.  (Click here for an excellent article by my colleague Erik Stanley summarizing the constitutional problems with the Johnson Amendment).  Other tax-exempt organizations, such as veterans’ groups, are allowed to endorse or oppose candidates and remain tax-exempt while giving their donors a deduction for contributions.  Why single out churches and religious organizations for discriminatory treatment?Further, whether such endorsements or oppositions are “deeply problematic from a religious perspective” is a great question for churches to debate but not for the government to mandate. Those who believe their faith requires that they apply Scripture and its teachings to specific candidates and elections are prohibited from doing so by the Johnson Amendment.  The government, in effect, has mandated a winner in what is a quintessential theological debate:  namely whether churches should apply Scripture in a way that opposes or endorses a candidate.  The Johnson Amendment allows government to act as a type of “orthodoxy police” to enforce its own view of how religion should apply to candidates and elections. That is not only offensive from a religious perspective, it is blatantly unconstitutional.

Professor Carl Esbeck is fond of saying, “The government does not establish religion by leaving it alone.”  But the authors’ “5 rules for faith and politics” have the opposite effect.  For the most part, they meddle in the religious affairs of churches and individuals, requiring them to check those beliefs at the door whenever the realm of politics is entered.  This misguided attempt to “cleanse” politics of religion is a bad idea because it tramples religious freedom, and would make politics a completely secular, amoral undertaking.  God knows it’s bad enough already!

Please share your comments below. To join the conversation, join our facebook page:Facebook.com/SpeakUpChurch